Maddy Davis Explores Bittersweet Endings to Adulthood in Debut EP, MUD
As kids, we dreamt of what our adulthood would be like, everything from what we would wear to who we would fall in love with. Before the breakthroughs comes the healing, growing pains and looking yourself in the mirror and questioning our purposes. Rising indie-rock artist Maddy Davis has never shied away from accepting growth – emotionally or artistically – and examining who she is outside of adolescence. On Davis’ debut EP MUD, the songstress expresses an ode that’s uniquely bittersweet and acts as the final manifestation of stepping into her own sound. As she navigates herself and her relationships, Davis invites listeners to a world where they can see themselves finding closure and coming to terms with heartbreaks.
From powerful, electrifying guitars to heartfelt piano ballads, Davis’ music is nostalgic while fully embracing an adolescent. Taking inspiration from her most iconic childhood artists such as The Killers and Bruce Springsteen, Davis focuses on emotional storytelling aspects and the ability to empathize with listeners going through growing pains and heartbreaks.
As America’s unforgettable middle kid, Davis’ coming of age project channels raw and empathetic indie-rock through a pop lens. She brings a nostalgic feeling to the forefront of her storytelling, which is heard through the EP’s focus track “Kinda Thought.” The twinkling sounds of piano express a soft, heartfelt ballad where Davis finds closure in the lines “Kinda thought you’d get over your past / Kinda thought that you’d love me for me.” This intimate moment between Maddy and the piano was one of the first songs she wrote entirely on her own during the heaviest point of the pandemic. With pieces of the original demo laid into the final production of the song, you time travel into Maddy’s childhood home with her as she experiences confusion, heartache and frustration at the world.
Through compelling juxtapositions of somber melodies and grittier tones, MUD umbrella’s a rainbow of emotions from infatuation, insecurity, anger, desperation and more. Her gifted, authentic songwriting brings the rising artist back to her roots, while acknowledging how many she still has to plant. Named after her own childhood nickname, MUD chronicles different stages of Davis’ coming of age and serves as the perfect introduction to who she is as both an individual and an artist.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for talking to Unpublished Magazine. For any readers that aren't familiar with your music and would love to get to know you and your music more, can you tell us about the type of music you make and how you broke into the industry?
[MADDY]: So I am an alternative pop artist. I make a combination between rock and pop. I've been making music pretty much my entire life. I've been producing and writing in high school, and I got started at a very young age. My family is in music, my sister's a musician, my mom always pushed her to be creative. I was always really interested in music growing up, and then it became kind of my life and a lot more serious for me in high school, and then I've been pursuing it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You're a self taught songwriter and producer. Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?
[MADDY]: I definitely do remember the first song I wrote. I started taking piano lessons when I was really young. My mom was a teacher, so I started taking lessons from a different teacher when I was probably four or five, and since my sister is a little bit older than me she decided to sing. One year she just wanted to sing and play but then being the younger sister, I just wanted to do whatever she did. So I also started to sing and then she'd started to write music and I just really wanted to do exactly whatever she was doing. So I probably started writing music with my sister when we were really young, like I've grown to remember writing songs with her when we were six and seven. The first song I ever finished was probably in 2012 when I was like 12.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What artists inspire you either lyrically or instrumentally, whether that's just music you listen to or music you pull inspiration from into yours.
[MADDY]: The Killers – specifically Brandon Flowers – I love them and have always been a huge fan of them. They were my first concert too when I was in third grade. Bruce Springsteen has always just influenced my lyricism. I just love the way both of them can tell us stories and I want to mimic that in any way that I can. I think that is a really beautiful way of expressing yourself and telling your stories, so I would say that is the biggest thing I get from the two of them. Right now, I just get super inspired by my friends around me that make music.
[UNPUBLISHED]: When you're not making music and in the studio, what do you do to help inspire your creativity?
[MADDY]: I feel like I'm always sort of doing different random things like picking up a random hobby. I dropped my first merch line in March, and I didn't design any of it or anything, but it was all handmade. So I was there, but I didn't know what I was doing in terms of fashion and making clothes, but I learned how to embroider over the pandemic. For me, music takes so many forms. When I'm not in the mood to write a song I'll practice the guitar or I'll cover a song, edit videos and work on my social media. There's so many things that I can be doing for my career. I'll go to concerts or I like to embroider shirts and do fun things like that. I always love learning new hobbies and different ways of expressing myself.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your newest EP MUD released a few days ago, huge congratulations. It's definitely a coming of age story that pulls from personal experiences, and I feel like it just has a lot of universal feelings that every 20 year old can relate to. Can you talk to me about the inspiration for the creative process of MUD?
[MADDY]: I'm very excited that it's finally out. It's been in the making for a very, very long time, so it feels good to actually have it out and have people be able to experience it. But I started writing it in the first month of the pandemic, and I was home in Jersey. I went home for spring break and then was in quarantine there for six months, so going back there and being in my mom's house and just kind of like being in the quiet suburbs alone, gave me a lot of time to reflect and just kind of look back at the last couple of years and and in terms of music, like really question who I am and why I make music. I really think that I needed that time to reflect and actually figure out and redefine who I am. Between March of 2020 and now, I am such a different person in so many ways and I think I've evolved and this project, I was writing it from March of 2020 to around May of 2021, so it was like a little bit over a year of the writing process and then it was finished by August of 2021. It finished over a year ago, mixed and mastered over a year ago. So I was sitting on the project for a really really long time, and just over that time I got to really see those songs develop as I did as a person which is really cool because they kind of serve as time capsules for me I can like go back and listen to each song and be like ‘wow, this really reminds me of this time of my life.’ It's a great introduction to who I am as a person and who I want people to listen to and say ‘wow, I understand who this girl is and what she writes about.’
[UNPUBLISHED]: Does every song have its own energy to it or do they all kind of flow together and share one big storytelling aspect?
[MADDY]: I think in a way, they are very cohesive, in terms of storytelling, and they overall just kind of represent the concept and the theme of coming of age. But in terms of sound and genre I do think all of them are pretty different, they were written in the span of a year. I had very different moods when I was writing each of them and I think each of them expressed a different mood. Each song represents a different feeling for me and a different experience, whether it's about one boy that broke my heart and then the next one is about my feelings about myself and the other one is about growing up and getting older. I like the way that it's kind of telling not only just one story about one situation or scenario, but it's actually kind of telling a bigger story about who I am and what my life is.
[UNPUBLISHED]: MUD covers every emotion in the book, ranging from heartbreak, doubt to healing. What was the hardest song for you to write, either lyrically or emotionally?
[MADDY]: A lot of them came to me really fast. A lot of them were written in one session, “Middle Kid” was written really fast and so was “Don’t Be A Stranger.” A lot of them were like one or two sessions, but the hardest one to finish and actually be happy with the way it turned out was “You Still Send Me Beats Tho.” I wrote that one in June of 2020, and I didn't finish it for months, it took so many different forms. The original demo sounds pretty much nothing like the final version. It just took me so long to actually figure out how I wanted it to sound and it was a big learning opportunity for me because I produced most of that song. It was kind of like a pivotal moment for me where I doubted myself, and then towards the end, I really loved the way that it turned out and I had to really go back and start from scratch a couple of times. I'm really proud of myself for keeping with that and persevering.
[UNPUBLISHED]: If you had to pick your favorite song off MUD, what do you love most about this song and is there a specific lyric or message that stands out to you the most?
[MADDY]: I would say it definitely does change and especially over the course of writing it, I had a different favorite like every month but I feel like now that the project is out, my favorite is probably the final track, “Kinda Thought,” which I produced completely on my own. It was my first time that I ever did that and had the song actually come to fruition, it’s a really, really exciting feeling for me. I have so much impostor syndrome, especially being a female producer, and this song really kind of gave me that belief in myself that I can do it, I can finish a song and I think that this one really does mean a lot to me. I listened to the original voice memo and I wrote it in my mom's house in Jersey, just sitting on the piano that I grew up learning on. In the background of the voice memo, you can hear my mom cooking dinner in the background and the clinking of things like pots and pans, and I just kind of improved the whole song. That's kind of how I like to start writing, I'll just like to think of a chord progression and concept or theme and I'll just kind of run with it. I recently went back and listened to that original version and I was pretty emotional about it. I was like, ‘oh my god, this song has really not even changed that much since that original feeling that I captured in that first ever voice memo for the song.’ I just feel like it really embodies me and my inner thoughts and just how I want to be perceived.
[UNPUBLISHED]: “Kinda Thought” is an extremely vulnerable and intimate song. Why do you think it's important to have these really raw and vulnerable storytelling aspects heard through music?
[MADDY]: I honestly think as songwriters, that is our job, I think we are sort of put on this earth to to be the voice and communicate things that everybody feels at some point in their lives and a lot of people have a hard time expressing themselves and actually explaining how they feel. When I do that and I hear a song that the writer felt the exact same way as me, it really validates me and helps me sort of understand my own emotions better, so I would love to do that for somebody else. I think writing a song from a very vulnerable place and letting your walls down and having absolutely no barriers up for anybody in the public is a very, very scary feeling. But at the same time, it's extremely freeing and there is no better feeling than when someone says that your music really spoke to them, and helps them deal with a hard time in their life because that's what music does to me. So when my music can do that for somebody else, I think it's the most magical thing ever.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Alongside the EP, you released a docu-style video that gives listeners more insight throughout the MUD’s creation process. Can you talk us through like that experience directing that?
[MADDY]: I did that documentary with one of my roommates, Beau Hogan, who is incredible and works in the music industry. He was just the perfect person to partner up with about this, so it was very, very DIY and we decided that week that we're gonna do a little interview thing, and I just got one of my really close friends to come over and ask me questions that I gave to her to ask me and we just all sat in my room and there was like a bunch of people sitting on my bed and around me. I was just able to get my personality on camera and I'm still working on it and it can be kind of scary being in front of a camera, so it was cool to practice that out and actually get my words out and then be able to just map out what I want people to get out of hearing my my EP. I just get to know myself a bit more, this is my debut project, so I think the biggest part was to introduce myself to the world. That documentary does such a great job at the end. There's so many helping hands that went into that documentary – whether that was like a film that we got from performance, videos or graphics and mastering involved in the final audio – there were just so many hands involved. I feel so lucky that I have such a great network of people that always want to help out.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Throughout the EP, there's that question of ‘who am I going to be in this world?’ Just navigating young adulthood in general. What was like the biggest lesson or breakthrough you've had while creating MUD?
[MADDY]: I think that in terms of breakthroughs, it's just like being really patient with myself. I don't know if that sounds cliche, but I think in the past, I've been so hard on myself to make sure that my music resonates with people. This project was the first time that I really let go of that stress and that expectation for myself and actually make stuff for me, which in the end really relates to a broader group of people. I think that just being patient and really listening to myself and not putting so much pressure on myself to accomplish a certain thing with a project and really just approaching it as if I'm making art. I'm doing this to express myself and to allow others to express themselves when they listen to it, and I think that was a huge lesson that I learned in making that project. I didn't know why it took so long for me to write. I feel like where I was when I started is very, very different from where I am now, and I think I owe a lot of that to the writing process.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is a message you hope your listeners can take away from this project?
[MADDY]: I would say just embrace all the emotions that you feel. I think it's so easy to be so hard on yourself and judge yourself for the emotions that you feel, whether you feel bad about something or frustrated or guilty or just proud of yourself. I feel like everyone is so quick to judge themselves, so I hope that this project allows people to go a bit easier on themselves and realize that everybody growing up experiences such an array of emotions, and we're all figuring out who the hell we are and where we belong in this world. My biggest advice to people would just be to be patient with themselves and allow yourself room to grow at your own pace.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How are you feeling in this current era of your career? What does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Unpublished Magazine?
[MADDY]: It feels obviously so good to have that project out for a few reasons, but one being because it was finished so long ago. I have so much music that's done that I'm so excited to get out and help people. I feel like with the release of MUD, it was the start of a really exciting snowball of fun projects and fun, exciting music that I'm pumped to get out there and then just just a ton of shows. I did my first show. The EP came out on Friday in LA and I have a couple other shows before the year ends, which is also really exciting and I just want to give anybody the experience to come to my live set. Being live is where I shine the brightest.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your wildest dream as an artist? If you can have one thing happen to you, like a milestone or dream collaboration you hope to achieve in your career, what would that look like for you?
[MADDY]: Obviously I would love to do a world tour and play Coachella and some major festivals, but I think the moment that I’ll have ‘I made it’ feeling is when I get to play the venue that I went to my first concert at which is like when I saw The Killers and it's in Jersey and I grew up going to shows there. It's called PNC Bank Arts Center. I always pictured the day that I'll get to play there and it's gonna be such an amazing feeling, so I would say that is gonna be my biggest goal and exciting moment.
