Maya Lane’s brand new EP ‘Childish Games’ sees the singer-songwriter’s first-ever collection of songs released to the world. The folk-influenced Londoner discusses the prolonged excitement around the release. “I feel like I’ve been waiting a long time to release it. I’ve had this collection of songs that are coming out kind of ready since the end of 2020. So there’s been a bit of a wait. But I’m so excited to have it out and just see how people receive it.” Writing with the likes of Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Hayley Gene Penner, Jonny Latimer, Katie Rae and Wayne Hector empowered Maya to channel her message into an EP which is personal with a coming-of-age influence, lyrically engaging and musically timeless. Her expansive range of co-writers have brought success to the likes of Ellie Goulding (Jonny), The Shires (Katie), Birdy (Wayne) and Holly Humberstone (Ben) to name a few.
It was Maya’s flourishing talent for songwriting and the in-depth collaboration with her co-writers that helped bring to life the storytelling core of ‘Childish Games’, something that changed her outlook on collaboration. “At the start I was slightly anti-co-writing,” she explains. “I was like, ‘I want to write my own songs – this is my thing.’ It’s such a personal, emotional experience, for me, writing songs and I was scared to let anyone into that – and I didn’t know how it was going to work. But now
it’s actually one of my all-time favourite things. I’ve learnt so much from each of the [writers] and they’ve helped me grow so much as a musician and a songwriter.” In the years leading up to her debut EP, Maya had been seen performing on stages since the age of 12, to landing a management team at 14 years old. “Once I found music, [I] realised this was something that I could be good at, and love and excel at. I kind of really latched onto it and it helped and became my outlet. With different struggles with growing up and finding school hard, and things like that.” Maya also noted, “I’m quite dyslexic so I always struggled academically.” She continues, “when I was about 12 I started thinking right, ‘this is what I want to do, how am I going to do it?’ So I’d send out emails to hundreds and hundreds of festivals and random promoters that I found online saying, ‘hi, I know I’m only 12 but my name’s Maya, please can I play at any time on any stage – I just want to play.’ I’d hear back from about 10 and end up playing 3 or 4, but for me as long as I was out there playing I was very happy. So that’s how I started performing and playing live – then I was writing songs alongside that. I met my management at 14, so I’ve been working with them ever since.”
Now at 19 years old, Maya saw the release of her single ‘Childish Games’ hit streaming platforms in February of this year. “‘Childish Games’ was a mixture of feeling the things I was feeling and what I was going through. I wrote it from a personal experience of drifting apart from a friend, but there were no hard feelings: no-one’s in the wrong, no-one’s doing anything wrong – you’re the same age and in the same stage of life. [At] that point I was just leaving school and everyone’s going their own way. Everyone’s taking different paths and it’s that feeling of growing apart and maybe not being in the same headspace and mindset.”
The broken friendship story within the near-3-minute track sees Maya sing, ‘I’m so tired of all your drinking’ – a line which sits within the bridge and shows the disputed aspect within the lyrics. “I wanted to pull into that juxtaposition of feeling so young but people doing what appears to be adult things, like drinking, and all this stuff. But it was more just that I’m not cut out for this life that you’re living. I don’t drink or anything – I’m not really a partier, I’m a bit of a granny. Not very exciting of me, but I like to take things a bit slower and I like my early nights and everything. But a lot of 19-year-olds don’t like to do that which is totally cool and fine, but yeah it’s just taking different paths and liking different things. I think that from the perspective the song is written from, it’s just feeling over that and done, and accepting that it’s OK if I don’t want to be involved in that, and it’s OK if you do and we can just go our own ways.”
The idea of social expectations or the “social norm” became a sticking point for Maya when writing the track. “I’ve always been very headstrong and I know what I like to do. I feel like there’s that expectation of what people do at 18, what people do at 19, and what people do at 25, and blah, blah, blah. But I’ve always felt in some ways a bit older than my age in terms of working – I’ve been in the studio from quite a young age, so I feel like I’ve been put into an adult’s world from quite early on. On the other side of things, people might say that the fact that I don’t like to drink and don’t like to party makes me appear younger. I always get told that people either think I’m 14 or 24, there’s no in-between. [Laughs] I’ve always been a bit of an old soul.” The theme of expectations is carried into a further track on the EP called ‘When You Need Me’ and delves into her experience of sisterhood. “I wrote that song about my sister initially and I didn’t think that I’d
be someone to write a song about their sister, I was worried that it was going to be cheesy. My sister doesn’t like that much attention [and] didn’t really want to be involved. When I first played it to her she was a bit like, ‘ah, I don’t think I want there to be a song about me,’ but now I think it’s one of her favourites and she likes it – which is good. But it was coming from that desire of wanting to protect her and all the struggles that come with growing up. She’s quite a lot younger than me so just seeing everything she’s going through having been through it all, you just want to shield someone from the outside world, wrap them up in bubble wrap [and] keep them safe. Not being able to do that is sometimes really hard but just letting them know that you’re going to be there for them, and that you’ll always be around if they need someone to call or talk to.”
Maya’s notes that this message of supporting people “is really important. “[I] think letting people know that you’re going to be there for them, that you’re a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand, whatever. I think where that song came from. As I’ve gone on to play it live and played it to other people, first of [all] I love hearing how everyone else interprets the song. Some people interpret it in a relationship way and friendships, and I think also just, in general, the sisterhood of people always being there for each other. Being kind – the world can be so vicious sometimes and so cruel. [I] co-wrote it with Katie Rae who’s an incredible writer and we did it on Zoom actually, during the lockdown. I think we spent a couple of hours on this Zoom writing the song and the song really flowed. I think because we weren’t putting that weight onto it coming into it – saying we have to write this song about this, this and this. Kind of writing from how I felt at that moment – the feelings just poured out and the lyrics just poured out. By the end of it when
you listen through it and you’re like, ‘oh, somehow we’ve managed to capture everything we wanted to say,’ but I think not putting pressure on ourselves really helped in that situation. Having no expectations of what this song could be and just writing something. Yeah, so I feel very grateful and lucky that, that song came in the way it did.”
Produced by Grammy, BRIT Award and Mercury Prize winner Jonathan Quarmby, ‘Childish Games’ is a set of songs that have seen Maya discover her sound and expand her songwriting talents. “After the first session with Jonathan, I remember stepping out of the studio and the first song we ever wrote together was ‘Childish Games’. [He] sent me the demo through and it was obviously only the session bounce. [It was] very, very simple and I remember listening to it over and over again on the tube. I went home and I was playing it to my parents and I was like, ‘this is it, this is what I’ve been trying to achieve – this is my sound, this is where i want my sound to go.’ I think just having someone who understood that and could hear where I wanted to go but helped how to translate that and get that across in a recording was really amazing. I’m really grateful.” The EP opens with the ballad-laden track ‘Still the Same’ – a piece that drives Maya’s approach to storytelling and the notion of stepping out of your life and viewing life from a new, or different perspective. “I think often you kind of get haunted by the memories or a place where you’ve been with someone, and the things you’ve done with someone.”
“‘Still the Same’ was one of the songs where I wanted to step into a different point of view, out of my own life and just write from someone else’s perspective. And we wanted to portray this feeling
of everything changing, but also nothing changing at the same time – which I think a lot of people feel. Sometimes you feel like someone around you has changed, or you’ve changed – but you’re still in the same situation or whatever. And we used the idea of a relationship to portray that.” But approaching her first collection of songs, Maya explained that the work needed to feel timeless. “I played a lot of different music when I was growing up, neither of my parents have anything to do with music but they love listening and always played loads of different genres and artists, so when I was younger I was listening to lots of different stuff. But the thing that I really latched onto was the 70’s folk scene, you know, the Joni Mitchell, the Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan – all of that. And then country music as well, I think the things that they write about is what really drew me in, and the melodies and everything. I was just always obsessed, so one thing that I love is how timeless they are and how people listen to their songs in the 70;s and also now and probably for the next a hundred years going forward. I think that’s something that I really want to try and achieve with music; having timeless music that people can listen to and connect with now, but also in 50 to 100 years. Still, be listening and relating to it.”
‘Closing Down’ – the final track on ‘Childish Games’ showcases a full band sound compared to other ballad-esque tracks on the EP. The intention, Maya notes, was to pay homage to Fleetwood Mac. “[It is] my little tribute to Fleetwood Mac, that sort of sound – the full band. I really wanted to write a song and create a song that people could sing along and dance to at festivals, and kind of lose themselves in. I think the lyrics in ‘Closing Down’ [are a] little bit heavier about personal struggles and growing up and everything; processing some experiences. While it’s got that depth to it, it kind
of brings it up a bit and allows people to dance to it and have that sense of being deep and meaningful, but also the dance element to it – that freeing aspect of it. We chose to have ‘Closing Down’ as the final track on the EP as well to lead into what could come next and where the sound could go to.” With a debut set of songs out, Maya looks to what the future could hold. “I have so much music to come. Everyone’s been asking, ‘when’s the next stuff coming out?’ I’m like, ‘just wait, I promise you – it’s coming out, it’ll come out – there’s lots more to come.’ I’m constantly coming up with more ideas in the studio almost every day of the week so lots more to come. But I really am excited to have this EP out in the world and just have it floating around. People being able to listen to something that I’ve worked really hard on and poured my heart out into. I’m very excited to see how people respond and see how they connect with it.”
Maya Lane’s debut EP ‘Childish Games’ is out now.
