Mae Krell exudes a special kind of artistry: her music displays a fragile beauty, but with definite depth. There's seriousness, but a certain lightness, too. As she skirts the boundaries of alternative and folk music, you sense instantly that there's a lot more to her than first meets the ear.
I spoke to Mae via Zoom recently, catching up with her at home in New York as she generously spared a few minutes from her "horribly busy" schedule. Like many independent musicians, Mae does other work to help pay the bills, meaning music often has to fit around other commitments.
"If making music didn't cost money, I could probably swing it, between random gigs and whatever, but because you need to have money to make records, that's where there's the real necessity for a decent paying job. Otherwise you can't fund making the projects as often as you want to, or at least at the quality you want to," she explained.
Mae was relaxed, friendly, and instantly warm, just like her song-writing. I knew immediately that I was speaking with the real Mae – honest and true to herself. Her beloved dog Apollo was in the room too, of course. Apollo was the theme for the song she released in September 2023 (one of the first of Mae's I heard). And, as she explained during our conversation, that song was also the catalyst for her upcoming album '(i think) i might be grown' (released on 19th April). I asked Mae to tell me more about the record, and what led to it.
What was your approach to recording the album?
Previously I was more nervous to put in the imperfections of the vocals in a live recording that give character to a song - because people act like it's an imperfection so much ... But then I felt like a lot of the power was lost when the vocals felt really clean. So we specifically didn't put any backing vocals, we didn't double any vocals - it's just like a clean, straight vocal, and there's very little comping throughout the album's vocals. A lot of them were sung through a couple of times until we got a take we wanted. I wanted them to feel like a more produced live room performance, almost, especially because of the lyrical focus of the album. This one has more of a distinct, pull-through narrative that I wanted to feel real. So we tried a lot of different mics and a lot of different distances and parts of the room.
We spent a couple of weeks in the studio, every day, with all the instruments ... I feel like it was really a classic, almost old school, record-making experience.
So you recorded it all in one solid block?
Yes, it was all written and the track list decided, in order, and finalised, before we went and started recording. Before we started recording we sat for a couple of days and decided: Which guitar sounds right on this? Which other instruments do we want? So we could put them through different songs and have that consistency. The two kind of love songs on the album are the only ones that have strings. We were like, "These are the ones that should have strings and they should also sit together and kind of separately from the rest of the project." All that was kind of planned before we started recording it.
Same with the songs that have flugelhorn on them - which is such an odd instrument!
It's an amazing instrument! How did that come about?We were talking about trumpets and I said I kind of hate the trumpet, and Jake [Jakob Leventhal] said "Well, flugelhorn is like a really muted trumpet, so maybe that would work?" I think it worked out well!
Tell me a bit more about the recording process?
We did a clean, one-take scratch vocal for every single song, as well as a run through with two different acoustics, the main ones that we used: my rubber bridge from 1920 and another vintage guitar from the 60s that Jake had. Then we did the build up of all the other instruments, and then came back and re-did the acoustic guitars and added in mandolins and stuff, and then did the final vocals after everything was recorded through so we could kind of level that with things as well. And then it went to mixing and mastering.
The whole album's been done since October when the singles started coming out. 'apollo's song' came out, and then the album got back to me shortly after that. So everything was done and the timeline was planned. That's made it easier to take the approach of releasing a song every month or month-and-a-half.
So now you can spend the time focusing on the releasing and the promotion and all the other stuff ...
And having to have a job - that takes up a lot of time!
Stepping back a bit, tell me about the writing process. How did the album come about? Was it a conscious decision to make an album, or more of an organic process where things kind of began to build?
I feel like it was a mix of both. From August to November/December of 2022, I had a crisis ... "I hate New York, I don't really want to be here" ... so I bought one of those tents that go on the roof of your car from some guy on Facebook, and moved into it for three months. I drove from here to California.
I did some freelance remote work to pay for gas and food, but just lived in my tent on public land and hiked and camped, and had the best time ever. I just felt like I needed some sort of emotional reset. I was getting so in my head about everything; I feel like being in a city with such a culture of hustle all the time, and the way that people kind of act here and how individualised it is, can be really draining because you don't really feel like you have community. At least in the arts, it's really difficult to find community that feels really genuine, and I very much want that and look for it.
I was kind of feeling depressed, and was like, "I'm going to f- off for a couple of months!" So I was travelling, and I wasn't writing a ton because my guitar was in my car and I was sleeping in my tent. When I was in LA for a couple of days towards the end, I thought I was doing good but I had an evening to sit at home where I was staying, and play my guitar, and I just kind of spit out 'apollo's song' in 20 minutes. So I realised, "Maybe I have something going on! Maybe I don't feel as good as I thought."
After I wrote it, I remember thinking that this felt really separate from the music I'd put out before, and more like the music I wanted to be putting out - both stylistically, melodically, guitar-wise. It felt like a separate section of me as a musician. I sent it to a couple of friends, and they said, "You have to put this out." And then when I played it at shows, that was always the stand out song which people would say something to me about. So I thought, "OK maybe this is something I should revisit and think about."
And that led to the album..?
Around that time, I was also conceptualising the next project. While living in my car I got an email - I'd applied for this grant from Citibank and Music Forward Foundation that they do for LGBTQ artists. So I'd applied in June, forgotten about it, and then got an email saying, "Congrats, we're giving you money!" Now I had more money than I would ever have to put towards something, and so I thought maybe I can afford to make an album. I really wanted to make a full length project, but it felt like such a far off barrier for so many different reasons.
I went to my producer and said, "I can fund a record ... I need to write one. I have this song which feels like a blueprint for a project." With having 'apollo's song', the rest of the album was written between December and April.
That's pretty quick ...
Not a super long period of time! In the end of January into early February, I went upstate and locked myself in a tiny cabin with my dog ... and wrote songs. Nobody wants to go to upstate New York in the winter, so it was cheaper than my rent!
The tracklist got moulded and moved around, and it felt like more of a complete story by the time I went on tour in March/April 2023. I wrote 'grown' while on tour, and was like, "That's the eleventh track – the album's done, this is the tracklist." So it kind of finalised itself in the end.
Did you ever feel like giving it up?
I don't think I ever verge on giving it up, seriously, but I know I feel like emotionally giving up a lot – I don't really know what else I'd do so there's not really another option. But a lot of the time I'm so exhausted and tired and burnt out from everything that comes with it, outside of the actual music-making, that I'm just like, "I can't do this anymore." But then something special happens, whether it's a fan DMing that they got something tattooed that I drew for them or something else ... it always comes exactly as I'm having one of those moments. That's what happened with 'apollo's song'.
It must take a lot of discipline to be able to go to a cabin and sit there and actually produce those songs that you've set out to write.
I think it was needing the time to just sit with feelings I already have – to actually dig in to how I'm feeling rather than having just a surface-level understanding of what's going on. So separating myself like that ... for me, it immediately leads to writing something. Usually the first couple of things are not great, so I kind of get that out of my system. And I have to remind myself that I'm not lacking creativity, I'm lacking time.
Your first single came out in 2020. Had you been writing before that?
Not much. I started writing when I was 17 or 18 - in 2018/19. Someone was always singing in my house – my sister's a great singer and she helped me finalise the chorus in 'too hard'; my little brother sings sometimes; my other little sister does art; and my mum likes to sing ... But nobody in my family does music [professionally]. I also didn't conceptualise that I could play music until I went and saw live music and was like, "I want to do that! I want to make someone feel the way I do right now." I was 15 and had way too much anxiety to think about playing music, so I went and did something else for a while and then ended up coming back into writing when I was 17.
What does the album mean to you now?
To me, the most real life manifestation of what 'apollo's song' is all about has been making this album. It feels so connected. Being capable of making a full-length project, recording something and being proud of something I've made, and being able to go out and play it for people is very much living the future I thought I'd never have. I didn't think I'd do any of that. It feels like a very interconnected thing that I hope people catch on to and understand.
You mentioned all those other parts of being a musician - touring, promoting, doing interviews like this one ... How do you feel about all that? Are there any things you find more challenging?
I love touring; I love playing live. It's so physically and mentally exhausting, especially when you make music that requires to put yourself in a specific emotional space to present it correctly, but it's also my favourite thing in the world, and I'm always excited to play any time I can. It does give me a lot of anxiety but I very much enjoy it.
I'm not the best about social media. That's something that's like a constant goal for me to be better at and be more consistent with. I think more than anything for me that one boils down to time: to be able to sit down and feel good about how you look that day ... and be constantly making things and be putting them up and scheduling them at the right times. I was really solid compared to what I am now at socials when I wasn't working full time hours outside music. I don't know if I necessarily dislike it as much as I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do. I wish I could buy the time somehow!
When do you think you're most creative?
I feel like I'm most productive as a musician when I'm actively in it. I write the most when I'm on tour, which sounds a little backwards because you have so little free time but ... I think it's because I'm constantly in a "music brain". The fact that I'm playing all the time and talking to fans and getting all these stories from people - I'm very inspired and it pushes me forward more. I don't really write as much when I'm home and working. To be able to sit down and play and write I have to feel like I'm in a space to do that, both physically and mentally.
Finally - what are you listening to at the moment?
I go through hyper-listening phases where I'm only listening to a very small amount of music. I love
Gregory Alan Isakov: I've had his album ('
Appaloosa Bones') on repeat since it came out in August – it's a great record. The
Zack Bryan self-titled album that also came out in August: one of the songs on that album was my number two song of the year. And I love
Slaughter Beach, Dog, that's one of my favourite bands ever ...
I feel like I'm very conscious about my listening when I'm trying to write, because when I wasn't I found that I would hear influences in my music that I didn't want. There's not anything wrong with that, it's just that I'm going for a specific genre and sound very consciously and I'd write songs that are just not that at all ... So when I'm in writing mode I find that I'm listening to just very lyric-forward folk.
I watch Tik Tok videos without sound (unless its someone talking), because there's so much music playing in the background all the time, and then I'd find random stuff being stuck in my head and I didn't even know when I'd listened to it. I'd be trying to write and then I'm just humming that melody. You almost don't consent to hearing music any more.
Thank you so much for giving up some of your very precious time for me!
(i think) i might be grown Track List:
garden ii (intro)
to begin
who we said we’d be
too hard
body bag
like poetry
for now
feeling too much
this place
apollo’s song
grown
self-titled album
