Mae Krell on 'impostor syndrome' B-Sides, Songwriting and Redefining Success for Musicians
By Dani Pippin
Photo by Alex Lyon / Courtesy of the artist
Last December, New York City singer-songwriter Mae Krell released two songs — “tooth fairy” and “(like) spring” — to serve as B-sides for her recent four-track EP, imposter syndrome. The latter is a delicate, jazzy track that revolves around a relationship, one the narrator has “only had in dreams.” The imagery its verses evoke range from intimate to communal, as the singer reflects on (sometimes) contradictory emotions that the relationship brings. “Now I feel a way I never thought I would / This isn’t what I was looking for,” the chorus repeats. This contrasts the verses, which simultaneously explore the narrator’s sense of isolation:
The sun comes up earlier here
And the people don't say hello on the streets
I walk alone at night
And hear no parliament greet
The instrumentals are soft and ambient, with gentle percussion bringing structure to a wandering synth melody and Krell’s expressive vocals. The production is fairly understated compared to some of her other songs, but it works well for the track, letting the lyrics shine.
“(like) spring” is a window into a very specific feeling and time in the artist’s life, but still manages to be relatable in balancing love and loneliness. Even before getting to talk to Krell, I was able to connect with the song’s story on an emotional level, but the insights from our conversation added even more depth to the listening experience that I’m excited to share.
Over Zoom, Mae Krell spoke to Sunstroke about transitioning into new musical styles, along with the influences and experiences behind imposter syndrome (b sides).
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dani Pippin: You have said that every song you write is kind of built around one lyric or an idea. So for “(like) spring,” what was that lyric?
Mae Krell: That’s a great question. I think this is the only song that I can't immediately pinpoint which [lyric] it was. I'm running through them in my head. I think it was, "My phone keeps ringing, it must be fate / But my friends all live in a different state."
That's the first line that stood out to me too, when I was listening. I'm assuming that you're writing from personal experience, so how do you stay connected to those friends who are far away from you?
At the time I was living a couple of hours away from New York, which is where I'm from. And I think I just made an effort to come back as much as I could, and also just spend time on the phone and on Facetime with friends. I just got back to New York after being away for three months. I drove cross-country with my dog, so I think [the lyric] applied again in a weird way. And just trying to keep people updated on life.
I think when you're in the same place, there is this kind of built in awareness that you're just going to see the person. It's kind of comparable to when you're in school and you just know that you'll see your friends every day, so you don't make an effort to see them outside of school. So, I think it changes from people just being there, to having to make a conscious effort to keep up with them, which is a weird feeling. But I think that the biggest thing is to just be aware. Like, I'm the one who moved, I'm the one who's away, so my friends might not even notice that there needs to be a different dynamic. But I'm the one who changed it, so it's kind of my thing to figure out, or at least that's the way it's felt for a while.
Yeah, for sure. Can you tell me a little bit about the background of the song? You're talking about keeping up with these important platonic relationships, but the song has some romantic undertones. How do those two different kinds of relationships fit together in the song?
Whenever I play or mention “(like) spring” I'm like, “I guess it's my love song.” That's kind of the way that I introduce it. I wrote it back before I wrote any of the imposter syndrome EP, so it was the first one, order-wise, out of all six songs total — which is kind of funny to think about. I had moved out-of-state with a girl that I was dating at the time; she had a job there and she needed to move. It was one of those things where neither of us were super good at what long distance would have required, and the relationship was still pretty early when she needed to move. So, it was like, okay, well this either ends or I pack up with her and give it a chance to work. And I decided that it was worth it.
[...] I've pretty much lived in New York my whole life, and I found that there was a weird conjunction of feeling really lonely a lot of the time because I was away from the city that I've known my whole life and my friends and my family, but also a feeling of belonging because I was with a person I really loved. It was the first time that I was really in love with someone. So, I think that conjunction is what brought this song, I started writing it because I was confused on why I was lonely, and then it ended up as a love song to places and people that I didn't ever think I would be able to love. I started to really like where we were at, location-wise, and also realizing that you miss certain things.
Like in the second verse the line, "I walk alone at night and hear no parliament greet." [It is] a nod to the neighborhood I lived in, in Harlem, where everybody would hang out on the street outside. My dad would jokingly call the people in my building the parliament, because they would always have folding chairs out on the street, and would be discussing stuff that would always look really serious, really late at night. I'd walk my dog and feel safe because I knew that all my neighbors were just outside hanging out, you know? So, there was the loneliness, but also the comfort of home, and I think that's the combination. I guess it's a love song, but it's also a "figuring out everything else" song, at the same time.
Photo by Alex Lyon / Courtesy of the artist
Definitely. I love lyrics with very specific details where, at first you don't know what it means, but when you get the context the lyric has a very clear meaning. Is that something you do a lot when writing?
100% — I always think it's funny. Ava, my publicist, we talk about this because once in a while somebody will write a review and it's always really nice. But they're like, "Yeah, it would be cool if she leaned into more details. It feels so general." And I'm like, “It's so not general.”
Nothing that I write is general, it's just written to sound that way almost on purpose, if that makes sense. I do that very consciously. There's always little hyper specific details and things, and I think it's like a fun little game. For a long time, I was like, "Well, maybe I should try to make it more detailed for people.” But then the details didn't feel as genuine, so I just went back to the way that I like writing.
You've been writing songs for a long time now. What do you think is the biggest thing that's changed about your writing from when you started to now?
I think it's just kind of grown up with me in a way. I started writing songs specifically when I was like, 17, 18. So the EP that came out in 2018 was the first songs I'd ever written, like “Monsters,” “Scars,” and “Skin” — those ones. [...] At this point it's been like five years, which is kind of crazy, but I definitely wasn't a songwriting-out-of-the-womb type of person. So, I think just as I grow up and figure out more of what I want my music to sound like and the type of music that I like to listen to, and how to fit in that intersection, I think that [my writing] changes — but I've always been super lyrically focused.
I think that the biggest difference is I've found the confidence to have an opinion on the production of my music. When I was making the first songs, I felt really lucky to just be in a room with someone who would record them for me because that wasn't ever something I'd be able to do. So, I didn't really feel like I could be like, "Oh, I don't really like this," or "I want to change this thing," or "I wish this sounded different." And now as time has gone on, I feel like I can do that.
I was away from the city for three months and away from the producer that I work with. I got back here and met up with him the day after I got back and it was like, "Hey, I want to scrap everything that we've been doing while I was gone, and I want to completely start over." I would have never had the confidence to do that a couple of years ago, so I think the biggest change has been feeling like I can have more of a say in every part of it. Not necessarily just the songwriting.
Are there any specific experiences or thoughts that you had on that trip that led to that feeling of wanting to start over? Is there anything specific that you want to change?
Yeah, so “(like) spring” is the last piece of the imposter syndrome project. What I'm working on now is where the pivot is going to happen. [...] I think being away from the New York mindset of what success means — and this is applicable everywhere, but I think it's really strong in New York specifically — and taking a decent amount of time away from that gave me space to reconnect to why I make music in the first place. I do this because I love it, and because I like connecting with people. And because I feel like there's not enough people talking about certain subjects in music, and I wish that there were more people talking about that stuff when I was younger and I needed that.
That doesn't necessarily align directly with quick success; it's not going to be the type of song that might do well on radio. And that's okay. I think that's the biggest thing that I've come into [is] I want to make stuff that's authentic. If it isn't authentic to me, then what's the point of doing it? [...] That kind of also pivots towards making more proper folk music [...] And I think that “tooth fairy” and “(like) spring” lean a little bit more towards that than the other releases that I've done, but they still are more elaborate in a jazz-influenced way. I connect most with people when I'm playing live and I tend to play just acoustic, so I want something that feels like more of a direct connection to that. But we haven't gone too far into it yet, so maybe that'll change.
You're also involved with a lot of other stuff in the music industry, like founding Tongue Tied Magazine and working with Bitch Management. What's it like juggling that?
I started Tongue Tied when I was like 16 because I'd gotten into music through photography. I had gone to my first concert as a teenager and had this like, really groundbreaking, emotional moment where I was like, "Well, I want to do that. I want to be on stage. I want to make people feel the way that I feel right now." And then immediately shut that down because I was like, "Well, I could never do that. I don't play instruments. I don't write songs and that's scary." So what's the closest person to onstage? The person who is in the photo pit. And I was like, "Well, I could do that. That doesn't seem too scary."
I had gotten into all of these side ventures because I was too scared to make music. Music was always [my] first priority and the thing that I wanted to do the most, I just didn't think I could do it, so I found alternatives. All this other stuff was just a distraction when I was too scared to try, so I'm not going to let it be that anymore. I just make it work for me.
What are your hobbies and interests outside of music, and do they influence your music in any way?
I love hiking and camping and being outside. That was the biggest thing that I did over the past three months — just camp and hike with my dog. [...] I feel like my general life consists of work that makes money, making music and then occasionally having time to read or go on a hike or something. I feel like between my day job and making music, I'm not left with a lot of time at all. I do think that when I really take the time to be outside, it influences my music in the way that it helps my mindset be more grounded to where I want it to be.
I saw this poem or quote, or something, it was all over my social [media] at the time. It was just about how nature needs rest, like animals hibernate, trees lose their leaves, all of these things that we think are really beautiful that we see all the time and don’t think twice about. [They] need to take time to recharge or else they wouldn’t be able to do what they do, that we enjoy. So I [take] that same mindset into life like, I'm not like a self-care machine. I can’t pop in a coin and then get out like, “We feel good now!” That's just not how being a person works, and I think a lot of times it's treated that way. So, I think the biggest influence I get from being outside is just reminding myself that I'm not a machine, and not supposed to be. And if I was, I probably wouldn't be making any art that I liked anyway.
When artists are being treated more and more like commodities, I think that's especially important to keep in mind. It seems like you're intentionally moving away from that — is that something that you were more vulnerable to in the past?
Yeah, for sure. I think [part of that is] not growing up around the arts. Like, none of my friends that I've known for a long time are musicians or artists. When you come into stuff later, you tend to be treated very differently than people who've been doing it forever.
There's a lot of the kids whose parents are like, “Oh, you're not going to go to college? You can have one year to make this work, and if it doesn't work, then you have to do this.” And that's such a norm that you put your success on a timeline, and I think that nothing good ever comes quickly and nothing that comes quick ever has any longevity. But when you're so surrounded by that [as] a constant mindset, being able to be a full time musician means that you've reached success, that’s what success is like. Having that be everywhere, it’s really hard to separate yourself.
I don't feel like that. The artists that I feel are making their best work are in their thirties right now, and they've been making music for like ten years and they're only making their really, really best stuff now. Like, why am I rushing myself to try to make something great? I probably can't make something so great even if I wanted to — and that's not in a self-deprecating way — but you haven't had enough time to incubate when you're 23 or 19 or whatever. That's not to say that there's artists that I don't love who are really young right now, but I bet in like, ten years, they'll make something that's insane.
You can listen to imposter syndrome EP and imposter syndrome (b sides) on Spotify, and purchase them digitally via Bandcamp now. Keep up with Mae Krell via Instagram and keep an eye out for tour dates via her website.