Not many twenty-one-year-olds know where theyâre going in life, never mind straight to the top of Australiaâs biggest music countdown. Not many twenty-one-year-olds are MAY-A, though.
The Sydney star had been on the rise since 2019 when she topped triple jâs Hottest 100 in January this year, with her feature on Flumeâs âSay Nothingâ â but she still wasnât prepared for the moment.
âEveryone kept saying, âYou knew you were going to winâ, and I said, âIf I knew that, I would have started gambling for the first time in my lifeâ,â MAY-A says humbly. âI would have put some solid money on it to fund my next project!â
It didnât help that there was no guarantee âSay Nothingâ would even be released. âWhen we tracked the vocals, Flumeâs team were very much like, âWeâre just testing, weâre just figuring it outâ.â
Itâs lucky they did. On its way to the top, the initial success of âSay Nothingâ catapulted MAY-A to a new level, and saw her perform at Coachella 2022 alongside Flume.Â
Nine months later, she was in a German hotel surrounded by her friends and bandmates when the news broke live on-air in Australia â but the triumph didnât sink in at first.Â
âI was a bit like, âI donât want to take credit for this because itâs just my voiceâ.â
When the significance of the moment set in, her outlook changed. âThereâs only been four women winners, which is crazy. I then thought, âWho else is openly gay?â When I won, I was tagged in heaps of videos by people insisting it was a âwin for the gaysâ. Why was everyone making it about my sexuality? I looked back and was like, âOh, wait⌠maybe it is a win for the gays.â Thatâs the thing that made me the most excited.âÂ
While MAY-Aâs first EP â 2021âs Donât Kiss Ur Friends â was about figuring out her sexuality and growing into adulthood, her upcoming sophomore project is about solidifying her sense of self: âWhat artist do I want to be? What do I want to experiment with sound-wise?â
Itâs an endlessly curious approach that has filtered into everything MAY-A does. She describes loving classical music, reggae, even intricate math rock; Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Polyphony, and Post Malone are influences.Â
Itâs why sheâs chosen collaborators as varied as DMAâS (âIâve been a diehard fan since I was in high schoolâ), Budjerah (âI love him so dearlyâ), and cites electronic trio RĂFĂS DU SOL as next on her list. âI would never make that type of music, but I would love to be a part of it.â
More than anyone though, she wants to work with Albert Hammond Jr. âWe went to see The Strokes, I tagged him in a picture and he liked it!â MAY-A gushes. âI have never in my life actually lost oxygen.â
Following her Hottest 100 win, MAY-A felt extra pressure to follow it up. âThe longer you wait, the more important it feels,â she concedes. ââThe songs you release after this have to be really impactfulâ, people kept saying.âÂ
Her first two singles of 2023 feel like a riposte to those unduly pressuring her. First there was âSweat You Out My Systemâ, an alt-rock cut full of emotion, followed by the playful pop of âYour Funeralâ, her conjuring of what it might sound like if âPhoebe Bridgers covered a Bo Burnham comedy song.â
âI was trying to be all sentimental and real, but I wasnât really going through anything too much at that point in time,â MAY-A recalls. âI wasnât debilitatingly sad or anything, so we thought, âLetâs write something stupid and goofyâ.â
Side stepping between EDM anthem, âweird rockâ, and pure pop â thatâs the work of an artist perennially trying to push themselves. MAY-A says sheâs constantly learning, including on her recent tours in the US, UK, and Europe. âWe learned a lot about crowd control and how to really get them to be part of the experience.â
It wasnât so long ago that she was in the crowd herself, (revelling in the Hammond Jr. and co. experience), so she knows what it means to make that connection. âSomeone once told me that all live music is an exchange of energy,â she says. âI try to think about that every single time.âÂ
After a year of firsts, and with her second EP on the way, MAY-A firmly knows what she wants. âI want this year to be about fully forming the vision of exactly where I want to be,â she declares. âThis is the closest Iâve ever felt to having faith in myself and being proud of what Iâm creating.âÂ