THE CAPTIVATING NEW MAGGIE ANDREWS EP ‘HOW TO SING FOR MONEY’ + EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
With a love for Hannah Montana and 80s synths, Maggie Andrew has been writing music since she can remember. The singer-songwriter from Nova Scotia released her debut single “Sleep 4Ever” in 2018, which popular artist blackbear later featured on in 2021. After writing and releasing more of her own music over the years, Andrew is back stronger than ever with her sophomore EP HOW TO SING FOR MONEY. The brilliant EP showcases themes of life struggles, vulnerability and growing up, all while having emotion-filled synths dancing between the harmonies and drums. While taking inspiration from personal experiences, Andrew also takes pride in collaborating with others — leading to magic in the studio.
Track one on the EP, a previously released single called “Emotional Touchdown,” has dreamy synths with clever word play, describing a restless life with the need to escape. Following, “Unfinished Business” hits listeners with a sadder tone, tackling the moment you realize you need to let someone go, with upbeat drums and guitar in the background.
For the title track, “How to Sing for Money,” Andrew explains it’s a twist on the title of a book found by her boyfriend on a trip. Once Andrew heard the book’s name, ideas instantly sparked and she knew the title was too good not to use. They dabbled with melodies and decided to completely flip what it means to “sing for money,” adding sarcasm (that feels like the truth within the industry) that floats on an upbeat track bound to get listeners up and dancing.
Andrew slows it down with a soulful track, “Father Figure,” that paints a picture of learning and growing from your childhood, the good and the bad. The fifth track, “If God was Real,” hits with a fun synth pattern while talking about a generational belief in God that Andrew is not sure she believes in.
Graphic by Paige Firsten
Image via Maggie Andrew / Tallulah PR
“If God was real / Why’d he do that shit to me?” Andrews sings softly.
The final two tracks end the EP perfectly, combining magical sounds and striking lyrics to sit with the listener. “Did You Cry” is a production powerhouse, asking all of the questions that build up in one’s mind during and after a breakup. “Fall Like a Feather” is an anthemic song about coming back stronger than ever after dealing with the daily struggles as a woman as well as the struggles within the music industry. Andrew first wrote this song at a writing camp years ago, being inspired by Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles. Over time, working with many different women on this project, she shaped it into the powerful track it is today.
This upbeat alt-pop creation touches on themes of growing up and finding yourself while going through life struggles. From being incredibly vulnerable, to being the coolest badass you’ve ever seen — Maggie Andrew truly does it all with this EP. If you like crying, dancing, feeling inspired, and seen, then HOW TO SING FOR MONEY is surely to elevate your playlist.
INTERVIEW
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INTERVIEW ☆
Crave Music Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with Maggie Andrew ahead of the release to talk about her new EP HOW TO SING FOR MONEY, songwriting and Hannah Montana.
CRAVE: Starting off, I was curious about what got you into music?
MAGGIE: Growing up I came from the Hannah Montana era, so definitely when I was 5 or 6 when that came out, and it kinda just blew my mind how it was formatted. She goes to school, has friends, and then at night she dresses up and goes on stage and I was kinda obsessed with that, and so it changed something in my brain. My older brother is also a musician and I met him for the first time at five too, so it was pretty cool to see my brother touring. And, you know as a 5-year-old, you see your older brother doing something insane and not something you see a lot of people do, so I was like: I really want to do something like that, and having someone so close to me that achieved that made it feel really obtainable for me so I think, as far as I can remember I’ve always been into music and being creative.
CRAVE: What drew you to your use of synths within your music?
MAGGIE: I just really love a lot of 70s and 80s music, so I definitely just love how the synths feel like an emotion sometimes and you can really use them to get your point across without using words. So yeah, just really love the atmosphere that they make. I love them.
CRAVE: Jumping into the title track of the EP, HOW TO SING FOR MONEY — the lyrics allude to the toxicity or maybe the expectations we see in the music industry. Is there an experience or a conversation you’ve had that inspired the song?
MAGGIE: Actually no. The way that song came about was I was with by boyfriend and we were in Toronto during the trip we were writing this whole project on, and he said he saw this really old book cover of this old book from the 1930s called “How to Sing for Money” and immediately when he said that I was like, that’s a song title. So, we just kinda sat down and started mumbling melodies and then the next day we had showed our other collaborator. All three of us are artists and songwriters, so we all come from artist backgrounds and life so we just kinda got in there and we were like, “Okay, how do we just completely flip the meaning of ‘How to Sing for Money’,” cause that’s not actually what the song talks about. It wasn’t really much of an “experience” but more of just the generalized being an artist and looking at some of the biggest songs in the world are made — like Adele, her heartbreak is just so out there and she was so vulnerable and raw and people really connect with things like that. Kinda anything bad that has ever happened to you, if you can write a song about that, that’s usually what takes off and people relate to because it’s real.
CRAVE: Within your music you have this incredible way of telling a story/painting a picture. What does your writing process typically look like?
MAGGIE: It kinda varies depending who I’m writing with. Mostly with any song I write that belongs to me and my own artist project I always write what I know. I try to draw from my own experiences and things that I’ve felt, things that I've gone through, or just draw inspiration from things I actually know about in life so definitely personal situations, and getting into a room with co-writer, getting to be like, “I have this idea,” or these few lines and then you talk about it, you know, it’s like a therapy session every time we write a song. We really just kinda dive in and whoever I’m writing with, in this case would’ve been Carleton Stone and Kyle Mischeik for the majority of the project and they both know me very well in life as my friends and also my partner and my ex-partner, so there was some kind of energy there that makes it really interesting and really exciting to write a song because we’ve all seen the good, the bad and the ugly of each other and that makes it a lot more easy to be so vulnerable and raw and creative in the room. Just very exciting and fun, but you never know what you’re gonna write when you get into the studio.
CRAVE: Kind of going off my last question, you write on relatable themes surrounding growing up and finding yourself. Do you have any advice for people in their early 20s trying to find their way?
MAGGIE: I feel like I’m still trying to find my way if I’m being honest, but I definitely think how I am where I am today is just be yourself. There’s no proper way to live your life — everyone just needs to be themselves and stay true to what you believe about yourself — and obviously there are so many outside worldly pressures. Especially in your early 20s, you’re coming from being a teenager into becoming an adult, which is really crazy and I just feel like when I was 19, someone told me your 20s are for finding yourself, and then your 30s are stepping into what you learned in your 20s, so I feel like I’ve kinda always kept that with me. There are a lot of set backs, there are a lot of bad things that can happen but you just learn from them and as someone who’s been through a lot of trauma and terrible things in life, I tend to look at those things like some of the worst things that happen to you can also turn into some of the best things that shape you as a human being. So I try to have a little bit of a positive spin on those things because if you let it be positive or turn it into something beautiful there is just so much out there for you in the world. Don’t let anyone tell you no, don’t let anyone get ya down.
CRAVE: What is your personal favorite track off of the EP, and why?
MAGGIE: That’s a hard one. I have two. I would say “Emotional Touch Down” is probably one of my favorites just because I think it’s the one that has the most collaborators in it on the project. I got to write it with Ralph, who is like my big sister, and started it with her and Goldchain, and then we came up with this idea and then I finished it with Corey and Kyle and Carleton and we all put our own magic on the song. So that one I really love just because it feels so fun — and all the synths on it. I really love the 80s kinda magical feeling and I really love that one. And of course, “How to Sing for Money” quickly became one of my favorites, like it stood out to all of us and it was so good we had to name the project after it so those two would definitely be my two favorite songs I think. It will probably change as people get to listen to it more and they find their own favorites, but those would be my two favorites at the moment.
CRAVE: Do you have a dream artist you’d want to collaborate with?
MAGGIE: I mean, I’d obviously say Miley Cyrus just because I love her and think that she’s absolutely incredible, but I kinda already got to collab with my dream artist which was blackbear and that was a really really cool experience so I’ve kinda just been trying to be open to whatever might come my way collaboration wise — like literally anyone. I just love getting into the room and seeing other people’s creative processes and how they work. You can always learn a lot from other people so I’m always just excited to create with whoever, but yeah definitely Miley Cyrus. Maybe Post Malone. Let’s get him in there ‘cause he’s got a cool genre diverse artistry which I admire a lot.
CRAVE: With “Fall Like a Feather,” you balance vulnerability and being a badass. What were you feeling when you wrote this one? Did it help you process anything?
MAGGIE: That was actually the first song I wrote, and at the time I actually didn’t know it was going to be a song for me. I had written it at a song camp in LA that was for TV and movies and stuff. It was actually inspired by Simone Biles, and then I was in this room with all of these amazing women and we were all sitting there talking about our struggles as women in the music industry and in life in general, so I felt like together it wasn’t necessarily like a personal thing we were working through, but it was more of like a universal feeling. From the day that we wrote that, I just remember being so proud that there’s a female producer and all-female writers. Of course Toolman was there, but he was kinda just like, “I’m just gonna sit back and let you ladies drive this thing.” It was so magical being in that room that day, and yeah I just remember listening back and being like, “Alright if no one wants this song, I’m gonna have it” because I feel like it really resonated with my own message or my own things in my own life. I also love singing the song because it sounds very powerful and from all the other music that I’ve made it felt like I needed something that kind of felt like a weight off your chest from all of the dark themes and such that I had talked about previously in my other songs. Definitely just sort of wanted an anthem, something that felt triumphant, like you overcame something, and to have written it with so many amazing women was just like the cherry on top.
Stream HOW TO SING FOR MONEY and keep up with Maggie Andrew:
Website / Spotify / Apple Music / Instagram / YouTube / X
