Finding the right moment to move forward hasn’t been simple for MAY-A. Songs have sat on hard drives, her anger has simmered as politics have spiralled, and her confidence has cracked, been rebuilt, and cracked again.
Yet somewhere between doom-scrolling and emotional burnout, the Sydney-born artist found herself with a record that defines her on her own terms. As we sit down at her label’s office, there’s a clear confidence about her that feels hard-won, rather than assumed.
Her long-awaited debut, Goodbye (If You Call That Gone), doesn’t arrive with a neat bow. Instead, it shape shifts. Pop dissolves into rock, rage softens into sweetness, and sadness claws its way out from under anger. It’s messy, cathartic, and thrillingly alive. Which is, unsurprisingly, exactly how she wants it.
“It was active processing,” MAY-A, aka Maya Cumming, tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ of the album’s creation. “It was just different stages, getting to different emotions. You think you’re through something, you’re feeling better, feeling worse, feeling better, feeling worse. Then it comes back in a different way – and that can make you so much stronger.”
The emotional rise and fall of the album manifested itself in its rollout, starting with “[REDACTED]” – a snarling, sarcastic track written before Donald Trump’s re-election and later released amid a period of rapidly escalating global unrest.
“I was making fun of complacency while also engaging in it – that was the joke,” MAY-A explains. “Then Trump was re-elected and everything kind of went to hell online, I mean things just kept getting progressively worse. The longer I sat on it, the more wrong it felt. To release a song that’s making fun of this, felt a bit tone deaf. I was like, ‘this can’t live on my hard drive anymore’.”
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“[REDACTED]” wasn’t intended to kick off a traditional album campaign. Rather, it was something she needed to say, then and there, before the tone curdled into something misunderstood. In hindsight, it became the perfect opening for a new era.
Bright, playful, and unapologetically sexy, “(I’m Here for the) GIRLS” arrived next, as a deliberate palate cleanser – both for listeners and for MAY-A herself.
“I was getting pretty hectic into politics,” she laughs. “I was fully in that Bo Burnham Inside headspace – lying on the floor like, ‘the world is screwed up and I can’t do this anymore’. I couldn’t think of anything good.”
“GIRLS” became a reminder of screaming and dancing and feeling something – anything – again. But beneath the glossy hook and flirtatious swagger sat something sturdier: a sense of joy rooted in female solidarity, community, and showing up for one another.
“I’m so here for the girls,” MAY-A says simply when I ask of the track’s meaning. “Anything I can do for the girls, I’ll do for the girls. Even though the song is jokey and sexy, which is what I think it needed to be to get out of such a negative headspace, I really think there are those undertones of feminism.”
That ethos runs quietly but firmly through the album. It holds space for women – particularly those whose anger and hurt are too often dismissed.
It comes through most viscerally on “Claws”, a fan-favourite track that leans into heavier sound and harder truths. Written from a place of anger, mistreatment, and betrayal, the song marked a shift for MAY-A, musically and emotionally.
“It was definitely me processing a lot of anger,” she says. “I wrote it when I was so mad at things that had happened to me. But when I took myself out of the equation and listened back, I realised it wasn’t just mine. It felt like a song for so many people – women especially – who typically are not heard to the levels that they should be and are undermined and undervalued.”
Sonically, “Claws” also signposts one of the album’s defining traits: its refusal to sit still. Pop tracks rub shoulders with full-band rock anthems. Production lives comfortably alongside raw recordings. There are moments that nod to Imogen Heap and Clams Casino, others that wouldn’t feel out of place on an Evanescence record.
Her final single, “Catching Up 2 U”, released last month, again proves that capturing the right feeling matters more to MAY-A than fitting neatly into one lane.
“That’s my shit,” MAY-A grins when I ask about the blending of genres. I joke that one day she could start her own sub-genre, and she laughs: “That’s the goal. That would be pretty cool.”
Not locking the album into a single sound was evidently a deliberate decision; by extension, she hopes she doesn’t lock herself into a single future, admitting she’s unsure of where she’ll go next.
“I didn’t want to box myself into emo, or rock, or pop. I wanted an open slate for whatever I do next. I got to process each feeling with the genre that came with it. I don’t know if I’ll ever really nail down an exact genre,” she says.
Allowing her to process emotions through whatever sound best suited them, Goodbye (If You Call That Gone)‘s rage found an escape in distortion. Sadness softened into melody. And strength emerged not just from fury, but from vulnerability.
“Anger makes you feel strong,” she reflects. “Sadness makes you feel weak. But there’s so much strength in sadness once you can understand it and move on.”
But that understanding didn’t come easily. In many ways, the album is about rebuilding – not just emotionally, but artistically. Since her breakout EP and high-profile collaborations (including the 2022 triple j Hottest 100 winning “Say Nothing” with Flume), MAY-A has wrestled with imposter syndrome and the fear that she hadn’t established her place in music.
“I’d wanted to earn the artistry, I’d wanted to earn the response from the Flume track, I wanted to earn my performances and where I was built on lineups and anything that was coming my way. I felt like I didn’t deserve it,” she says.
When I ask about her previous EPs – 2021’s Don’t Kiss Ur Friends and 2023’s Analysis Paralysis – she answers candidly: “I felt like the EPs weren’t as good as they could have been, and I know you’re always going to be your toughest critic, but I really felt that way.”
So she studied. She immersed herself in music history. She became intentional about collaborators and creative control. And the result? An album that feels self-assured.
“I think that’s the biggest difference between me in 2023 and me now,” she reflects, again pointing back to her previous releases, “is that I know everything that I’m doing. I do think I’ve earned this space, and it’s been interesting rebuilding as an artist.”
That confidence was bolstered by a formidable creative team. The album was largely written with her girlfriend and guitarist, Chloe Dadd, before being shaped alongside producer Carlos de la Garza, who has worked with the likes of Paramore. Former Nine Inch Nails and current Foo Fighters drummer Ilan Rubin also appears on select tracks.
MAY-A is taking the album on tour, as announced last month. Defined by a potent mix of liberating vulnerability and unapologetic rage, the tour will showcase brand-new songs alongside fan favourites and hits that have defined her career so far.
The stage remains MAY-A’s natural habitat. Joking that she was born for it – given it is the place she feels most comfortable – she admits that being away from headlining her own shows these past few years felt like “missing a large piece” of herself, one she’s now eager to reclaim.
But she hadn’t been totally M.I.A. in recent years, having supported global heavyweights including 5 Seconds of Summer, Wallows, and Nessa Barrett in tour. She learned the mechanics of massive productions while with Flume, absorbed the professionalism of artists like Tove Lo, and shared a once-in-a-lifetime moment with Cyndi Lauper, when she invited her onstage in Sydney to sing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”.
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“She’s 70 and still rocking out like it’s nobody’s business,” MAY-A says in awe. “She’s across everything.”
That lineage – of women lifting women, of icons pulling the next generation into the spotlight – is something MAY-A hopes to continue. It’s a conversation she and I have returned to more than once over several meetings, and one she hopes her album will help spark.
When I ask how, her answer is simple but solid: “I just hope it does well enough that I can pull more women up with me. That’s the goal.”
MAY-A’s Goodbye (If You Call That Gone) is out now.
