10 Questions with Maya Engen

Maya Engen: This song is definitely my most vulnerable on the EP, by miles. It's my personal favorite. Between this and “Spend My Love”, they're my top two [on the project]. I think it's my best songwriting, and it ventures into a place emotionally that my other songs haven't. It's really honest in a way I haven't dared to go before.

It's a very intimate song about very intimate things. I do like to write in concepts and leave some ambiguity, because I like when people create their own interpretations. The song captures love in its most pure and intimate form. Super raw and unfiltered. It captures that specific moment where you take a chance on love and reclaim the vulnerability that people are so afraid of when they fall in love. I wanted to channel that and make it my own. It's my most special song on the project.

ME: I think the way the song opens is probably my favorite part. "Where do you end and I begin" was the first line I wrote. It was the very first thing I put down in my notebook. I started getting really emotional while making it, and thought about how special intimacy can be with the right person. It turned into a love song about the most heightened version of that feeling.

So "Where do you end and I begin" and "I know when we're skin to skin, you're red velvet to the touch" are probably my favorites. I also love "You're painting sunsets for me, letting you wash over me."

ME: It's definitely sincere, but you could also argue it lands somewhere in between. The reason I love the phrase is that "just my luck" can go one of two ways. On one hand, it's like, "Just my luck this happened to me. How great is that?" But it's also famously used to mean, "Oh great, just my luck. Now I'm having the worst day of my life."

ME: Exactly. The songs are about taking chances and putting yourself out there, whether that's taking a chance on yourself, on love, or whatever it may be. Take “Fool”, for example. I'm angry and angsty, someone screwed me over, and just my luck! I'm in the middle of this situation. But also, just my luck that it happened, because now I'm reclaiming my self-confidence and my boundaries, learning a lesson and taking the first step of walking away. Both meanings apply.

The same goes for “Mercury”. It's a more vulnerable version of “Fool”. I'm less angry and more accepting of a situation that didn't work out. It's just my luck that we can't make it work, but now I know it's for the better and it doesn't serve me anymore. Both of those situations helped me get into the loving relationship that “Jade”, “Midnight Blue”, and “Spend My Love” tell the story of.

ME: I started noticing this recurring theme in my lyrics. Showing my cards, playing a game and holding my hand close to my chest. It kept coming up naturally, and the title just clicked into place around it.

Visually, since I have synesthesia (which “Midnight Blue” is actually also about), the playing card concept gave me such a fun thing to build an entire visual narrative around. Every time you put a card down, you're putting yourself out there and testing your luck. Each of these songs is a moment where I showed my hand.

Spend My Love is really the thesis track of the project. It's about how love is a currency, and after everything I've been through, I'm taking a chance and spending my love on you once more - because I think you're worth it. I'll test my luck. That encapsulates all of these stories, and the way I just tend to wear my heart on my sleeve.

ME: I worked with Sofia Ziman. She's so talented! I was genuinely in a pinch for time - I had about a week to get the cover shot before I flew to LA to finish recording. Luckily, I'm someone who makes Pinterest boards for literally everything. The second I leave a session, I'm building mood boards for the music video, the cover art, and how I'd perform the song.

For the cover art, I was really inspired by vintage 1950s and 1960s album art. This is my debut, so I wanted it to be very simple. Just my face, clean colors, something that feels authentically me, but that also incorporates the playing card aesthetic without going casino-like. When I brought the idea [to Sofia], she was great at coming up with unconventional ways to actually use the cards. We threw the shoot together in two days and just did it. Everything came out so well. There are about 150 photos from that shoot and they're all good, so you'll be seeing more of them as I continue to tease the project.

ME: I feel the most inspired in New York. If I had it my way, I'd stay here all the time. Every day is different here, and the people are so interesting. You have the most spontaneous, random interactions. The other day I was on the subway coming home and some guy spilled beer all over the floor, running right past my feet. A seat opened up and I sat down, and the guy next to me said something. I took my headphones out and we just ended up talking. He had just moved from Paris. I told him I was an artist, put him onto my music, and he DMed me the next day saying he loved it. Little interactions like that really remind me that I am one tiny person in this huge pond.

In LA, I feel more inspired by my collaborators. I'm very close to the people I work with there. As much as I love it and as convenient as it is for the industry, I'm not as humbled. I don't feel as much like Maya the person as opposed to Maya Engen the artist. And there is nothing more important as an artist than to remind yourself that you're a person first. No matter what, I will always have loyalty to New York. I consider myself a New York-based artist and want to stay that way for as long as I possibly can.

ME: It really depends on the track. “Fool” and “Vinyl” exist in the same world. They're very sassy, very angsty. Vinyl is actually about a friend of mine. It ties into the 'Just My Luck' concept because she's the kind of person who holds her cards close to her chest. You never really know what hand she's holding. I would love for people to listen to those two when they're getting ready to go out, or in the Uber on the way home. I have personally done that, and it is so fun.

I have this playlist on Spotify called “Stepping Out”. It's everything I listen to as I'm literally walking out of my apartment in stiletto heels on the way to a function, just wanting to feel like the most badass version of myself. That is exactly how I'd love for people to hear those songs.

“Jade” I imagine listening to while driving with the windows down, or biking. Actually, the session after I wrote “Jade”, I biked home listening to the first demo, and that was the moment I knew it was a fire song. I was biking through Central Park and it felt absolutely euphoric.

“Midnight Blue” and “Spend My Love” are very cinematic, very orchestral, and very big. Lots of strings. I personally tear up every time I listen to “Midnight Blue”, especially by the end. We originally wrote it as a piano ballad - it went through so many versions. I think the best setting for those songs is walking alone late at night. They're euphoric, but they can also make you want to cry in the best way. Whatever the listener is going through, I want them to hear it in a setting where they can feel whatever feeling they're searching for in the fullest capacity.

ME: I love Zinadelphia. I have been a fan of hers for three or four years, and it has been so cool to finally watch her get her flowers with this tour she's on right now. She has a one-in-a-million kind of voice and stays so authentic to herself. She's someone I'm really trying to emulate in terms of that authenticity.

Another artist I have been absolutely loving is Luvcat. My co-writer Tor [Miller] played keys for her on her last tour and also opened for her, so I went to one of those shows. At first, I didn’t know who she was, but by the time she played "Blushing" and "Love and Money," I was looking up the lyrics in real time. She's kind of like a darker and moodier Chappell Roan. She's making music [that is] completely her own. Her visuals are absolutely insane, and her voice is out of this world.

ME: I think it's going to be crazy. I haven't played a show since January, which might sound normal for some artists, but I was performing about three times a month last year. It's really unlike me to take this long of a break. Plus, so much has changed since then. The last time I performed, I didn't have any music out. Now I have people reaching out that I don't even know saying they want to come to the show. That is still so surreal to me.

ME: I'm going in with zero expectations, but I think I'll just be able to sing everything so much more confidently knowing that people can actually study the songs beforehand. I like to think of myself as an artist you need to see live to really understand. The ethos of who I am, the full picture... it lives on a stage.

I'm doing headline shows at these really big venues you mentioned, and honestly... I have no idea how I got here. Ultimately, I'm doing all of this for myself. I'm doing it for the version of me two years ago who was so disappointed that she didn't even have two original songs to perform at a small dive bar in the East Village. I’m doing it for the version of me a year ago who performed for the first time with eight covers and two original songs she kind of hated. Now, I'm getting on stage to perform a full body of work that I've immortalized.

The fact that I'm getting on that stage is already a huge milestone, regardless of how it goes. I know it's going to feel really awesome.

ME: Thank you!