In Conversation with Ava Maybee: Process, Personal Style & Public Perception

PHOTOS BY TALLULAH TOTTEN

Ava Maybee is a 23 year-old singer from Los Angeles, CA. You may recognize her from American Idol or from opening for lovelytheband and Beauty School Dropout. Her music is ever-evolving and has spanned all the way from R&B to indie pop. Her new single “Call It What You Want” was just released and Pleaser was lucky enough to sit down with her and discuss everything from new music to her deep love for jorts.

Pleaser: Your new single, “Call It What You Want”, just came out! Can you tell us about it and what the process from beginning to end was like?

Ava Maybee: I wrote it about this really gnarly friendship breakup I went through three years ago and just now could start writing about it. I wish I was the type of person to be able to be like, “I can't believe this just happened to me – let's write about it.” I'm like, “no, no, let's ruminate for years.” 

Let’s process.

AM: Let's process for years. And then I'll put it in a fun little pop song. I wrote it with my friend Alex Agresti and Devon Corey. I met Devin — loved him — we made that song that day. It was the first song we ever made together. We pretty much made it in a day, and we finished it in three sessions, and then I'm immediately putting it out. It was like, a full one month and then putting it out, which I've never done. I usually sit on music for a whole year, and I really wanted to push myself to be like, if you love something, just go with that and put it out. I mean, it's so important to me, but also I feel like it's just not that deep, and I want to feed people who like my music and put it out, and so I'm excited! This is the most amount of music I've put out in a year and it's three songs.

It’s also that inner struggle as an artist of “Okay, but when is it actually done?” You just want to keep tweaking it and eventually you just have to give it up to god.

AM: A hundred percent. That’s the biggest thing, right? I’m a total control freak. I don't think that anything will ever really be done for me, but sometimes you just have to put it into other people’s hands and you’ve got to be okay with it and just let it be. Also, what I get from the song is going to be different from what other people get from the song. And however people react is none of my business, you got to just let it go. Yeah, I’m very excited! I think it's good, it’s alright.

It’s amazing! On the same thread, what’s your favorite part of the song writing process?

AM: The way that I work in the studio is like, we'll get a vibe going, so that's like four chords, put a drum beat, maybe some bass, and then I write a top liner. So I'll do melody first, lyrics last. And my favorite is when I get a really catchy melody, and then I'm like, “okay, cool, now we're cooking.” It’s the greatest high you can ever have. Everyone is jamming and then you put a top line over it and people are like, yeah, that's it, and that's the vibe. That's my favorite part for sure.

As you’ve continued to release music and build the foundation of your discography, how has the experience of building a visual world/aesthetic around “Ava Maybee” been? I know you’ve made a lot of stuff with your friends which is so sick. 

AM: I put out my first music video with my first single, and that was very of the time. I put it out in the pandemic, and I wrote a song called “Lay Low” which is hilarious. And then I made that music video literally hanging out with my friends, being in the car with my friends, and like, no boys allowed.

As you should!

AM: Which is exactly the vibe. Then I put out “Puke” a couple singles later, and did a music video for that, which was heavily inspired by the Blink-182 album cover. We were all in nurse outfits, in a moving ambulance in Palm Springs. “Puke” was my anxiety anthem, and the thing that makes me most nervous in the world is needles and hospitals. So I was like, that's what the music video should be about, and it was great.

The visual world changes I think per song of what I feel like most compliments the song. What makes the most sense. It’s a big thing to put a visual to a song because when you listen to a song you’re having your own visual world you make up. And then to be like “no, this is it” is a risk, because it could not line up with how people would perceive that song. So I’m always very careful with the visuals I put with everything. 

I think it’s good to be intentional. 

AM: Always. It’s my songs, so my visuals!

[Laughs] Exactly yes! What are some of the artists, albums, movies and books that are quintessential to you as an artist? Art that made you want to be an artist?

AM: Well, my favorite movie of all time is Almost Famous, so that's very important to me. I feel like I carry that along with how I romanticize my life, how I dress and that I feel like is always in the visuals. And then I think for this specific song, it was very inspired by the visuals of Remi Wolf's new project, which was amazing. I wrote it about a time when I was living in New York, so there's a lot of New York inspired things in there. Also, I love movies and I love books so that always seeps in. I read an Eve Babitz book that's like a love letter to LA and plucked some lyrics out of there as well. 

You performed at Lollapalooza back in August! How was the experience of performing to that audience? 

AM: That was a very insane experience. That was my first festival ever. I love Chicago, I love Lollapalooza. I was at Lollapalooza the year before because my dad was headlining Lolla so I was there for him. And then to be able to do it the next year, but for me, was incredible. My friends in Beauty School Dropout played the same BMI stage — I did every same show they did. So I felt a lot of deja vu. I was like, okay, but now it's for me! Thursday I did a show. Friday, I played BMI Toyota Den and then an after party show, and then I played another show the day after. So I did five shows in three days. It was incredible, and the last two years I’ve been on tour opening for other people. So I was like, “Are people gonna come, just for me, just for my music?” But people showed up! It was rad. 

I think that your style is so sick and helps cement you as an artist in my mind. Who are some of your style icons?

AM: I have a lot of vintage magazines, so I usually pull from [the] ‘60s, ‘70s. I also love Alexa Chung in her rock star girlfriend phase, as she likes to call it — incredible. I love Remi Wolf’s style. Anything that you would not normally put together, I will just put them together. I want to clash all the time. I'm a maximalist girl always. Could be cool to be a clean girl, but that's just not in the cards for me ever, and I think the more the merrier. 

When you perform, you're putting on a show, it's the elevated version of yourself. But why does it have to be the [only] elevated version of yourself? I want to look like that all the time. That's what I would say in terms of my inspiration…taking from the ‘60s and ‘70s, and then also, vintage shopping is everything I do. I would say 90% of my closet is all vintage. Stuff was just better back then. It was made way better. 

It's not fast fashion. 

AM: It’s not fast fashion, and more interesting choices were made. 

Pleaser: That leads perfectly into my next question! How do you like to dress onstage in comparison to off stage? Do you feel like what you wear helps differentiate personas or who you are onstage versus who you are off stage?

AM: I prefer to let the clothes speak for themselves and be more covered up. I wear, looser clothing, baggier clothing. And I think on stage I'll wear things that are more revealing, because I'm like, “okay, put the Ava Maybee persona on and I'm a confident b*tch.” But I think that's the only difference. I care about being more comfortable in real life versus on stage. [On stage] you can put me in a full blown corset, and I don't mind. There's this band called Amyl and the Sniffers. Do you love Amy and the Sniffers? 

I’ve photographed them — such a good show! I almost wore that t-shirt today. 

AM: They're incredible. Amy Taylor was doing an interview [where] she calls herself a scantily clad lady. She was like, “it's not that deep, I'm just trying to spice up the world.” She has a song called “Tiny Bikini,” the song is talking about how she's like, I know this is technically my space, but I'm still the only one in a tiny bikini. And she makes references in her lyrics about, “you love my outfits, but you hate my success.” And I just think it's very interesting about the way that she dresses and how she's automatically not taken seriously. So I'm more inspired now to dress in that way for performances because I think that that's so dope. I mean, you're playing dress up, you're just Fancy Nancy-ing everything. 

I'm dressing for me, I'm not dressing for you. You're perceiving me but it's not for you. 

AM: Yeah, your opinion of me has nothing to do with me. That's a whole reflection of you. So she's inspired me! My performance outfits I think are going to be less and less and less clothing, which is like ‘whoo! Fantastic,” it will be great!

When you put together an outfit, what's the first article of clothing you pick and base your outfit around? Are there any colors you gravitate towards?

AM: All of them? My answer is yes. The answer is yes. I have more accessories than anyone I've ever met. I love a hat, love a hat, love a necklace, my rings. So most of the time, I'll base it around the accessory. I usually just pick two things that I would never put together, and then I'll wear that.

A fashion trend you despise? Or maybe have a love/hate relationship with?

AM: Literally no, because I would wear anything…that's the real answer. Sometimes I'll go full glam. Sometimes I'll go full Adam Sandler core — I love a good jort. You will always catch me in some sort of basketball short, but with a very skimpy top. I think the dichotomy between small top big bottom is everything. Fast fashion is just a big no for me ever. 

Shein…

AM: No. Can’t get behind it.

She-out! 

AM: Yeah, she’s majorly, majorly out.

What’s one piece you think that everyone should have in their wardrobe?

AM: I would say a jort. I’m so serious. Jorts are incredible, I wear them pretty much everyday. Or I would say an oversized rock tee. A vintage rock tee oversized goes with anything. You can put it with a dress, you can put it with a pant, you can put it with a jort, you can wear it as a dress. It’s comfy and it can be elevated. I would also say a really good oversized suit jacket or blazer I love, and then I put a shit ton of pins on them. And then you can go to a work meeting, go to dinner, walk your dog….whatever you want to do. That’s what I would say everyone should have in their wardrobe. 

I love that. Okay, we’ll go back to the music now! The past couple of years you’ve performed on American Idol, opened up for a handful of other artists, and played Lolla. How do you feel those experiences changed you as an artist? Are there any tips or rituals other artists suggested that you’ve since carried with you?

AM: Growing up, I had tons of performance anxiety. I would get really, really nervous before shows. I would throw up before shows. I think what squashed that very quickly was doing American Idol, because I was so nervous to the point where I just had to let it go, because it was debilitating. When you're on Idol like you have eight to 10 million eyes on you a night, eight to 10 million opinions of you a night, you have no choice but to just put your blinders on and do the work. There's so much pressure. 

My shows directly after I got eliminated from Idol were my favorite shows I've ever done, because I felt so free to be able to perform. And perform more than one song, and [know] if I mess up a note that the world's not going to end and that I’m not going to be eliminated by all of America. It was awesome to be able to play a show for people that genuinely wanted to be there and were stoked to support. I was just like, “well, it's never going to be any worse than this.” That changed everything for me to where I started to really, really enjoy performing. 

You didn’t have to worry about being voted off the island…

AM: A hundred percent. With the pressure off it was like…you could not pull me off of that stage. It was very, very freeing. And then the lovelytheband tour was the first tour I ever did. I graduated from college and then a couple days later immediately went on tour. So that was wild. And just sort of learning the ropes of a well organized tour was amazing. And then I did the Beauty School Dropout tour after, and that was very grassroots, haul your shit, you're doing a two hundred cap room every night, and we were in a van. I feel like I’ve gotten different sides of the spectrum in terms of touring and stuff. You take every experience with you. 

And then I think the biggest thing that I learned was vocal health. I love to yap. I'm a yapper through and through, and I can't do that and also perform a show. And also to sing smartly. And just because you're not belting 24/7, doesn't mean you're not in it and locked in and mean it when you're singing. For me, I felt like, if I'm not belting, then people are gonna think I don't care enough, and that's just not the case. You've got to preserve your voice and put on a good show. 

So [I also learned about] finding other ways to express myself to get my message across that was not involving screaming, because something that I also love to do with my fans is scream. We scream at each other, and I can't really be doing [that if I want to do] better shows anymore. My vocal coach would be like, “Ava, Ava, no. You can’t do that.” So I think vocal health as the biggest priority, and not feeling like a diva when I'm like, “no, no, I have to preserve my voice.” Because still we do meet and greets before the show, meet and greets after the show, still getting to the hotel, on and on and on again. Just taking care of yourself and knowing that it's okay and you're not being difficult. You're just doing your job. That was an important lesson to learn throughout tour, for sure.

What can we expect to see from you in the coming year?

AM: “Call It What You Want” comes out [November] 22, and then I have an EP coming out in the next year and I’m very excited. It’s my first time ever putting out a body of work. I’ve put out I think eight singles? Something like that. It’ll be a six song EP. I don’t have a date but it is coming out next year I promise. 

You’ve been cooking.

AM: I’ve been cooking for sure. 

You can listen to Ava’s new single here and keep up with her here!