'on the phone with my mom' - Interview with Maddie Regent
Through thick and thin, especially growing up, there is a constant for most of us and that constant is your family. For Maddie Regent her phone self dialled to her mother it was that often so when coming up with the name of her new album it seemed perfect to use that as a yardstick of her life up to this point. The anxiety we all know of school, gossip and relationships weighed heavy on Regent, music was a release and relief away from the pressures of early life. Not just listening to pop and rock at the time but composing songs from the age of 12. A theatrical bent also inspired her as an escape to help her get over introversion and gave her a meaning to push herself towards music and drama. To accomplish this, she felt a move away from her Toronto home would be the catalyst for this.
Photo by: Anna Koblish
We started by talking of New York, a city I hadn’t yet visited, I asked where in the city Maddie was living now, while I was perusing a map of greater New York on my computer screen.
Maddie Regent “Brooklyn now. It’s the best. Well, before that I lived in the East Village, like downtown”.
Poseur Magazine “Oh yeah, I’m just looking at the map now. Manhattan. East Village is right in the heart, isn’t it?”
MR “ Yeah, I’m originally from Canada, so I moved to New York to go to school and then I lived in East Village for six years and then I just moved across the river to Williamsburg, so really close to Manhattan, but far enough that it’s a little less busy. I was needing a little bit more, quiet, so I like it, it’s really fun”.
PM“Let’s begin in the now, you’ve had a new song out, Sleep Talking, that’s a taster of what you’re doing next, the new album, which I presume you’re still working on? Have you finished all the songs?”
MR “So we’ve finished all the songs right now, we’re just in that, finalizing, mixing, and mastering everything stage, and hoping to get everything out in the spring. We have five singles that are ready to go. It’s my first full-length project, so we’ve kind of been, just me and my boyfriend, but now it’s just the more technical sound stuffto finish”
PM “ Are you planning releasing the singles before the album proper?”
MR “The album probably has about 13 songs on it, so we’re right now thinking of doing a lot of singles, so probably five or six, nowadays, because things have changed, it’s become more an emphasis on pushing a single until you can get traction, and then releasing the album. This is a project for me I’m really proud of, I had a vision from the beginning, whereas with my, past EPs, I’ve been proud of them as well, but they happened with less of a clear direction in comparison to this, like, from the start, I wanted this to be all in the same world, making everything being part of a full project, so we’re gonna release five or six singles, and then put the album out, and then just push…. take it as far as we can.”
PM “Do you think you’re going to go with a physical product with the album?”
MR “I would love to get some physical stuff, we’re vinyl collectors, so we love that kind of stuff that would be really cool, so we’ll see if that makes sense, but streaming, obviously, is the main thing nowadays. I would love to mix some CDs.”
PM “ Just to have the CD or Vinyl in your hand, it feels real, doesn’t it?”
MR “Yeah, and one day they’ll be worth a lot (laughs).”
PM “Heading backwards, just for anyone who’s going to read this interview, you were born in Canada, is that correct?”
MR “Yeah, Toronto.”
PM “What age, did you start school in New York?”
MR “So I moved to New York when I was, like, 18 for college, I originally went to school for musical theatre, that’s kind of my background, and then though I love musical theatre, it just wasn’t for me, so I did one year, then I transferred to the film school at NYU. I’d always wanted to do music, for me, it was a lot about storytelling as well, so being in film kind of gave me that outlet, while I was working on music on the side. Also, I worked on some music videos for some, local artists, and just started writing with people, and I finally got that confidence to be the one in front of the camera. New York was always as a kid, just where I wanted to be, so I pursued, like, a lot of different things, but I think all kind of in the same world. I’ve been able to work with a lot of my friends on videos and projects, and it’s been really helpful to have a network here (New York).”
PM “If you had stayed in Toronto, do you think it would have been a lot harder, to get where you want to be, or to project yourself, or find the right people?”
MR “Toronto is very interesting, because there are a lot of Toronto artists that are very successful, and they have a very strong community. I still feel connected to that. Art. I think, when it comes to the broad entertainment worlds, is where to be. I’m an independent artist, but in terms of labels, the U.S. was what everyone was saying. When I was younger, I just wanted to get away from home for a bit, and fortunately Toronto and New York, they’re quite close, but it’s another country. Now, New York is just a hard place to leave, you fall in love with that part of it, but I also have a lot of love for Toronto, and the artist community there, they really support Canadian artists. Now that I’ve lived here for a long time, it’s my home now, nowadays, it doesn’t really matter as much where you are, because of social media, it’s more just about the community that you create, and what you do with that.”
PM “Your latest song, is “Sleep Talking”, have you released anything since then?”
MR “I have a song coming out, October 11th, so next week, actually, called “You Could Break My Heart”, and it’s a little bit more upbeat, a little bit more bridging what I had previously done to what I’m doing with this new project. Much more organic instruments. We made my last EP in a studio apartment with just a synth, a computer, and a dream. Since I moved to Brooklyn, we have more space, and my boyfriend and I have a little home studio here. We have an upright piano, we have a sax, we’re learning violin, we’re really trying to stretch ourselves. That’s pretty much what this album is centered on. The song that I’m releasing is definitely more,we have a lot of strings in there, it’s actually the song that made my boyfriend want to learn violin. Technology is very great, while he probably couldn’t perform it perfectly, with production and editing we make it sound really cool, so we’ve been just experimenting with how far we can take it.”
PM “Sometimes playing everything perfect, doesn’t work as well as dare I say, amateurish efforts, that is was what punk was all about, the feel of what you’re producing can work just as well if not better often by accident?”
MR “Yeah, exactly, because it’s not orchestral necessarily, but it has a lot of character, which is what startedthe inspiration for this song.(“You could break my heart”)”
PM “Has the album got a title yet?”
MR “I’m proud of it, it’s actually a line in the song that’s coming out (“You could break my heart”) that says,
PM “Your songwriting process? do you work together; your partner is Cade Hoppe?”
MR “Yeah, Cade Hoppe, he is from California, so, we’ve been together for a while, and he’s also an artist, a producer, and a writer, and it took, like, almost two years before we actually tried to work together, because we never wanted to force anything, so it kind of happened naturally with some of my past songs. With my last EP, that was kind of more fun, whereas this, we were, like, okay, we’re gonna actually make something together, and dig deep. I’ve written on and off with different artists, and co-writers for other projects. My first releases were with some co-writers in LA but writing about vulnerable parts of your life, your past relationships, ormental health struggles, with someone that knows you very well, I feel very lucky to be able to. He’s such a strong lyricist, I love lyrics, his are more poetic I’m a little bit more…. conversational, so by mixing together, we’ve kind of created a mix of, how to say things. I guess normally, with this project, he would normally come up with a piano line, or, a guitar part, something to direct us. Some songs would be me just saying I want to write a song about this…. and free writing on my notes app everything about this topic, how it makes me feel, everything, and then he would look at it, coming up with lines, and I’d be, no, I don’t think I would say that, I think I would say this, maybe this, and then going through, coming up with something together, so it actually is very collaborative. It’s different to any other person I’ve worked with, because he does know me so well, and I do feel comfortable talking about certain things, and he does push me to be more vulnerable. I feel very lucky to work with him, he’s able to help me frame stuff, especially when it’s, a vulnerable topic. I find those sometimes the hardest to write about, because I get in my head that I need to say this perfectly, because it means so much to me, or it’s so emotional, so there are a lot of moments where I don’t even think I would have been able to come up with certain things had he not been the one, pushing me”
Photo by: Anna Koblish
PM “You’ve got to be open as well, and if you’re working with your partner, your direct partner, some of it might actually be close to obviously, the truth, I’m guessing some of the songs may be about him?”
MR “He’s an artist too, and he’s written songs about me, and I always say, you know, no matter what happens in our life, the moment where something’s wrong is when he won’t share a song with me, or if I don’t want to share a song, so no matter what it’s about, as long as you’re sharing it with me, I’m all good.”
PM “Who were you listening to back growing up that got you interested firstly in music and, gave you the bug that obviously you’ve got, that’s the song, or that’s the artist, that’s the album, I want to replicate that?”
MR “Yeah, there are so many artists that I have looked up to, and growing up, the first time I wanted to sing was when I saw The Little Mermaid, I remember those moments, but in terms of, wanting to pursue it, and write my own stuff, I think I would look at, artists like Lana Del Rey, of course, just that whole way that she just shaped that first album. I can’t remember how old I was, I think I was 10th grade, listening to it in the library, like, what! this is great, this is not Hannah Montana, whom I loved, I loved Hannah Montana, I lovedMiley Cyrus, I loved Taylor Swift, but I think this was, like, wow, this is cool storytelling.
Also, in the UK, I love Marina from Marina and the Diamonds. Her album Family Jewels, then she released one called Electra Heart, which I was obsessed with, because I have this theatrical background, I loved how she used her voice in the storytelling. In my head, it just felt very dramatic, and I just loved that from pop music, that style. So that, for me was something I felt like I could do, I love telling stories, I love things that are campy but I like things that are real, too. I don’t know if I could be, this cool girl singing these songs, but, I think Lana Del Rey is one of the coolest people there is, I still feel like her, her music is just real, and I can relate to it, so, even now, I think with this project, Norman fucking Rockwell was, like, a very strong influence insome of the production, and the way that she writes her lyrics I love, so, yeah, I would say just probably Lana.
I love Lorde, as well. Melodrama is one of my favorite pop albums of all time, and I think sometimes I am going back to get some inspiration from that too”.
PM “What about Taylor Swift?”
MR “Taylor Swift, of course, I do love Taylor Swift, I think everybody will say that, I mean, I love her for a lot of reasons, just, as a female artist, I think she just is a businesswoman, and she is so smart, and I think she’s really been able to create just a long-standing brand for her, and I do think that she’s a great songwriter, there’s obviously so much inspiration there, with how she has had such a successful career.”
PM “New York now, there must be so many places to see music and artists, is there anyone currently that you’d actually bust a gut to go out and see live?”
MR “I mean, there’s Griff, she opened, for Taylor Swift, one of her Wembley Stadium performances, she is from, I think, London. I saw her live once, at The Bowery Ballroom, which is, like, a thousand capacity room, and I think she’s really cool, she produces a lot of her own stuff, too, she makes her own costumes, she has her whole, visuals she does all herself and her music’s really cool it’s just….. it’s cool”
PM “So you do get out a bit in New York and have a look around and see a lot of shows?”
MR “I mean everybody comes here so we just we just saw War on drugs and The National and The Killers were here too, we just saw them then we’re seeing Bleachers tonight which is Jack Antonov’s band. They’re doing an MSG show so it’s like his hometown show so we’re gonna go.”
On October 11th Maddie Regent unveils her new single, “You could break my heart.” Following her recent glistening synth-pop track, “Sleeptalking,” “You could break my heart” sees Maddie continue to uncover new layers of her artistry.
Follow Maddie Regent:
Maddie Regent
Written by: Dan Reddick
Photographed by: Anna Koblish