HEAVY: You are coming to Australia for three shows in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney this May. Even though it’s got to be exciting for you, it must be a little bit scary as well going to the other side of the world for the first time. Have you done your research and asked people what to expect?
M.L: I haven’t done research, but I’ve always wanted to come to Australia, so I’m really excited. I feel like Australia’s been on my bucket list forever. I’m not excited for the flight, but I’m just excited to be there, I’ve heard great things about Australia!
On the flip side, we don’t really know what to expect from you either…run us through a typical Maggie Lindemann live show.
My live shows are just fun! And good music, my band’s amazing. Just expect to have a good time, hopefully meet friends in the crowd, have fun and don’t take it too seriously. I’m just onstage having fun, and I hope that everyone in the crowd is just having fun too!
Your music has been described as pop meets glam meets alternative rock. Is that a good description?
That’s pretty, cool, I like that! I like the glam, yeah.
Your story as a performer is beautiful and powerful so do you mind if we run through it a bit? You moved to Hollywood by yourself when you were just 16, which is a good place to start. Tell us about that period of your life and what drove you back then.
Moving out of the house at 16 to L.A., first of all, that was the most fun thing ever. I always say that that that was probably the best and worst time of my life because I was living alone in California at 16, which is terrible – but so fun. Literally, I was so young that I felt like I had no responsibility. In the day I would have vocal lessons, and then I would be doing this, media stuff and media training, all this stuff. It just felt like I was going to class, and then I got to go home and be a crazy 16-year-old who was living alone. I think what just drove me back then was just: I had moved to L.A. and I saw the way everyone else was already living – and I wanted that life!
I wanted to not have to worry about, you know, how I was gonna make my rent that month, or be able to go out and pay for an Uber to go somewhere and be able to go get lunch with my friends. And it was just small stuff back then. I just wanted to feel like I had a comfortable life. And then also just singing, I had some friends that were singers already, and we would go out in public and someone would come up to them and say they love their music – I wanted that, and I wanted people to love me for my music and feel like they related to me. So that drove me a lot.
Within two years you had released your breakthrough single Pretty Girl which exploded. Did you have any idea back then what you were creating for yourself musically?
Oh my god, no, not at all! I mean, even when we made ‘Pretty Girl’, I had no idea that that was gonna happen. I remember I would be out at a party or somewhere and someone would come up to me and be like: ‘oh my god, your song is at this!’. And I’d be like: ‘oh my god, I didn’t check it today!’. And I would look, and it would be up like 2 million – and I was like: ‘what’s going on?!’. I remember I’d be watching the Spotify Artists, which is something where you could see more in real time than you could see on just Spotify. And I would be looking at that, and I was like: ‘oh my god, this shit is crazy!’. Like – what’s going on?!. I had no idea that that was gonna happen at all. I don’t think anyone really did.
But it was a super surreal experience. I don’t think even now like I’ve been able to comprehend it at all. I’ll see stuff like on TikTok and it’s songs that you remember, it’ll be songs from summer of this year – and there’s ‘Pretty Girl’. That’s crazy. Because, for me, you remember those songs in summer of like 2015, and it brings this nostalgia back to you, and you’re like: ‘oh my god, I remember that song!’. And people have that for ‘Pretty Girl’, and that’s a really weird thing for me to process. I just had no idea that that was ever gonna be a thing at all.
You were only 18 then. Looking back how did you handle the sudden popularity?
So, the thing with Pretty Girl popping off was: the song was really popular, but it didn’t feel like I was really popular. I could still go places very easily, I could go somewhere, and I wouldn’t get swarmed with people being like: ‘oh my god, ‘Pretty Girl!!’ (laughs). There felt like still a little bit of a disconnect, it felt like the song was way bigger than me, like I wasn’t on the level that the song was on. So I don’t think it felt like there was a big switch. But when I did go to Norway, and I would go places in the UK or Europe – it did feel a little bit bigger over there. I remember I got paparazzi for the first time when I was in London, and that had never happened to me before. And I remember, I think in that moment I was like: ‘holy shit! Did someone call them?!’ (laughs) ‘Who called them? Like – what?!’. That was a really big thing because I was just like, wait, was that a real paparazzi? And people would come up to me, and I remember I was in the Uber in London and Pretty Girl came on the radio. Things like that, I was like: holy shit!
In a sense, you would have still very much been finding your musical personality. Was that harder to do being in the public spotlight?
I think the only reason it’s hard to do it in the public is because when you do things publicly – people don’t allow you to change as much. I think people see, even now, right? Like, someone that knew me from ‘Pretty Girl’, maybe they heard that song, and they haven’t seen me since then. They go to my Instagram now, they’re gonna be like: ‘what the hell happened? Oh, you changed so much, what happened to this girl?’. But people don’t realize the amount of time that’s passed in between, it’s literally been almost 10 years since ‘Pretty Girl’ was first made. So, I think doing stuff in the public eye, people don’t allow you to change and grow and do all these things, which makes things harder because people always are gonna compare you to your old self and your old music and older stuff. So, in that sense – yes, but I also think it’s cool because you are able to see your growth. Like, I watch the ‘Pretty Girl’ music video, and I’m like: ‘what is this?? That’s crazy!’ (laughs). I just see my growth and my creative journey and who I am now, and I’m proud. And I wouldn’t have been able to see that if it wasn’t out there.
You released your debut EP Paranoia in 2021. How much of that EP was what you wanted musically, and how much was what people expected of you?
That was 100% what I wanted musically. That was definitely the first time that I ever put something out, and I felt really, really proud of myself, and really happy with something fully altogether. I remember when I first put out ‘Would I’, I was really happy and proud of myself, but it wasn’t until Paranoia that I was like; ‘oh my god, the whole thing is perfect!’. Like the songs, the music, the music videos, the photo shoots – everything. At the time like I was like: this is perfect. It’s an exact representation of who I wanna be. I was really, really proud of Paranoia. And it felt like people were really shocked, but in a really good way. It got such a positive reaction that I was so nervous about. So, it was awesome, it was cool.
One thing that has been constant with your music is your rebellious spirit and carefree attitude. Do you feel in a way those things have kept you grounded so far in your career?
I think so. I feel like in the beginning of my career I was scared to do stuff because I just felt like, oh, I should just listen to the professionals, I don’t know what I’m talking about. But then when I realized: oh, maybe I do know what I’m talking about, maybe I do know what I’m doing – just because I haven’t been doing it forever doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t listen to myself. So, once I started listening to myself and being like: ‘I don’t need to listen to these people’ – I think everything changed for sure in a positive way, and I’ve been able to just trust myself.
Last year’s album Suckerpunch was a massive success. How would you say your musical style and personality changed from ‘Pretty Girl’ to the songs on Suckerpunch?
Oh god – a lot! I’m like a completely different person, I mean, I was like 17 when we wrote ‘Pretty Girl’. I’m about to be 25 this year, I’m just a completely different person than I was. I would never have been able to make Suckerpunch as me then, I was just not as confident, and I would never be able to sing those songs and confidently release something like that.
Are you the sort of person who maps out the next few steps in your music or do you more live in the moment and let creative expression dictate your path?
Definitely, I try to do the whole thing where I’m like: ‘oh, I’m gonna do this and this’, and then once I start get to get going – everything kind of changes. I like to just let my creative expression just kind of go, and whatever happens, happens.
So, what’s next for Maggie Lindemann?
The tour, which I’m really excited about, my first headlining tour! And then hopefully a project by the end of this year. Not an album probably, but something awesome. I really wanna see what I can think of!
