Name: Mae Stephens
Nationality: British
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Mae Stephens's new single “Delusional” is out via AMK Funk.

If you enjoyed this Mae Stephens interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok.



When did you first consciously start getting interested in singing?

My Nan was a classical singer for many years which is where I first took influence and an interest in singing.

I found myself filling silence with song and later near on every moment of the day. It comforts me.

What was your first performance as a singer on stage or in the studio and what was the experience like?

I first stepped into a studio when I was 16 on an artist development course in Sheffield. Going from singing demos in my bedroom to building them in a room was a drastic change and quite intimidating for me as a kid/young teenager.

As far as performances go I remember doing ‘teenstar uk’ and shaking with anxiety to go on stage. The second I started playing and relaxed a bit I realised just how comfortable and natural it felt to perform.

I truly look back on that moment so fondly because I remember the look on my parents faces after the competition. We didn’t care if I won or lost, we were all just so happy I’d faced the stage and found so much comfort and confidence in performing

If you're also playing other instruments, how does the expressive potential of these compare to your own voice?

When playing piano and singing I find the potential is very similar. Almost as if the piano is an extension of my voice and one that I can use to tone down and add to the melody I'm singing.

Overall I don’t see much of a difference because they have overlapped so often in my performances.

Singing is an integral part of all cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from – and why?

I was raised around classical singing and would not be surprised if I used techniques from there when I sing now but unfortunately I couldn’t name them specifically.  

Although pop culture has always played a part in how I adapt my music and writing.

What were some of the main challenges in your development as a singer/vocalist? Which practices, exercises, or teachers were most helpful in reaching your goals – were there also “harmful” ones?

Finding confidence is a struggle nearly all those have sung have gone through.

Thanks to my first vocal coach Sylvia (who was a dear friend of my nan and an incredible singer) I was able to pick up the skills that have carried me through to where I am now.

One of my favourite skills is visualisation where I use my hands to imagine the shape of the sound as I create it. It may look crazy but it sure does help.

What are the things you hear in a voice when listening to a vocalist? What moves you in the voices of other singers?

Technicality. I may not be the most technically advanced singer but I can tell when someone is well trained.

I’d listen to classical music around my grandparents a lot and they would point out the techniques being used , changes in control or how to improve breath control and that’s stuck with me forever.
 
How would you describe the physical sensation of singing? [Where do you feel the voice, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or tension etc …]

Oh that’s a great question!  

I find I imagine my voice as a line. Best way to describe it would be like a heart monitor. I can picture this like rise and fall with my pitch or thicken when a. Crescendo occurs.

I do not know when it started but it helps me stay consistent as if I push too hard or lose my note I can visualise the line wavering or fauktering.

We have a speaking voice and a singing voice. Do these feel like they are natural extensions of each other, ends on a spectrum or different in kind?
 
My personal analogy would be your speaking voice is like electricity. We all have it and it works pretty similar across the board.

However give someone a hoover (or teach them to sing with vibrato) and now you have a unique effect that not everyone has as a a standard.

How do you see the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? Do you feel that honing your sense of rhythm and groove has an effect on your singing skills?  

I see them as the three base pillars of songwriting. Harmony without melody would clash. Melody without rhythm would sound out of sync and rhythm without harmony can sound flat or basic.

They feed into each other and each session I attend makes me understand that relationship even more.

What are the potentials and limits of your voice? How much of your vocal performance can and do you want to control?

I try to have as much control over vocals as I feasibly can because I sing with a high level of emotion and when I slip that emotion can easily overpower my control.

So it’s important that I’ve done the prep beforehand to limit the effect it has.

As a singer, it is possible to whisper at the audience, scream at the audience, reveal deep secrets or confront them with uncomfortable truths. Tell me about the sense of freedom that singing allows you to express yourself and how you perceive and build the relation with the audience.

Being a singer / artist is amazing thanks to that fact. Having the ability to tell a story through music and either watch or hear an audiences real time reaction can be so powerful.

Having those changes in emotion creates intimacy and makes it raw and real. Which is what I think music should be. Raw, real emotion.
 
I'd love to know more about the vocal performances for your latest release, please, and the qualities of your voice that you wanted to bring to the fore.

I have a raspiness to my voice that I wanted to bring to the forefront in my recent single ‘Blue’.



I wanted it to show the emotional depth of the song which was my main reason for showing it off.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

I do. When writing for yourself you subconsciously know your boundaries and you tailor what you produce to meet those limits and so it normally ends up feeling ‘good’ or safe in a sense.

When someone else has written it they do the same thing - but those ‘quirks’ mean it can feel perhaps slightly out of place when you approach certain words or phrases.
 
Strain is a particularly serious issue for many vocalists. How do you take care of your voice? Are the recipes or techniques to get a damaged voice back in shape?

I use steam whenever I can. As someone who had vaped and realised the damage it would and did do, I am always up for trying something new to help my voice.

Honey, lozenges tea, and mint tea help for a clearer voice though the effectiveness will vary person to person. Rest is universal. Without rest you only leave room for strain and that includes staying away from loud noises even if you don’t make them yourself. Stay rested stay vocal.

How has technology, such as autotune or effect processing, impacted singing? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?

I had never used auto tune until I started working with American producers.

It’s a drastic change the first time you encounter it and I was against it until I had experience and got used to it. In the early days it did create a toxic relationship between me and my natural voice as I found I was critical of my voice without it.

I haven’t heard much talk about the divide that can occur between how you sound and how you think you sound. It can be double edged sword.

For recording engineers, the human voice remains a tricky element to capture. What are some of the favourite recordings of your own voice so far and what makes voices sound great on record and in a live setting?

Agreed. When I heard my vocals on ‘stranger’ I found they sounded raw and powerful words I hadn’t used to describe myself by that point.

To sound good in any setting you need emotion. It tells a story and helps audience navigate the tone and message of the song.

Motherese may have been the origin of music, and singing is possibly the earliest form of musical expression, and culture in general. How connected is the human voice to your own sense of wellbeing, your creativity, and society as a whole?
 
That’s such a cool theory and one I subscribe to. As someone who has grown around musically gifted family members it’s always been deeply entwined into my wellbeing.

I regulate through music and find it the easiest method of offloading my emotions or telling my story. To be creative is to sing in my world.

Art comes in may forms but I feel as a society the strongest form is music. It’s one of the art forms that is universal and regardless of your location, age or gender you can find a place to belong or a people to share with.