BMA Music with Allan Sko
Maya Cummings, aka MAY-A, makes her Canberra performance debut this October as one of Stonefest’s headliners. She’s come a long way in a short time with plenty of mountain still to climb, and BMA is here to celebrate her journey both current and future.
Precocious is but one happy descriptor you could use MAY-A. Born and raised in Byron Bay, Maya Cummings had a mind for expression when only in her single-digits. By age 13, she moved to Sydney with family and soon became a handy YouTuber, eventually landing the same social media manager as Troy Sivane, an artist she greatly admired on the platform.
“I became obsessed with people making random videos about their life,” she says. “Back then, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to make stuff.”
At 18, she neatly sidestepped the addictive stats-chasing and insecurity-summoning life of a YouTube to release her first single, Fool’s Paradise, which was swiftly followed by Apricots and Time I Love to Waste.
But it was in 2019 that MAY-A hit an early (very early) career milestone when she topped triple j’s Hottest 100 with her feature on Flume’s anthemic Say Nothing.
“Everything for me has been super lucky,” she told Harper’s Bazaar Australia’s Dani Maher, gesturing to where the word is tattooed over her throat. “Everything has fallen completely into place for me, which I do feel guilty about sometimes.
“Everyone just kept being like, ‘I believe in you.’ And I just kept being like, ‘Why?’”
This monumental achievement, especially for one so young, attracted the expected rush in interest. It also came with something MAY-A was not expecting.
Suddenly, media and fans alike were afire with the notion that MAY-A had potentially become the first openly queer artist to win the Hottest 100, not to mention only the seventh woman. The realisation was a mixed blessing.
“It felt good and really bad,” MAY-A admits, “because you’re like, ‘Why is this still like this?’
“But I hope this is just the beginning of opening up more for the queer community and for people to expand their mindset of what they listen to.”
She soon recognised the impact she could have on future generations, and she hopes it can be positive.
“I have all these grand ideas about what I want to be and where I want to be and who I want to be, but I feel like I just keep surprising myself and going in different directions. So I really, really have no idea. I just know that I want to be authentic.”
After MAY-A’s first EP — 2021’s Don’t Kiss Ur Friends — which focused on a figuring out of sexuality and maturity, her follow up fittingly channelled these self-imposed questions, emboldening her sense of self.
“What artist do I want to be?” MAY-A mused of the project. “What do I want to experiment with sound-wise?”
Her first two singles of 2023 feel like a stern middle finger to expectation. The fiery alt rock of Sweat You Out My System and the wry pop of Your Funeral made her mindset clear.
![MAY-A - Sweat You Out My System [Official Video]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/A7SDKHV1bO0/hqdefault.jpg?w=845&ssl=1)
“It’s as if Phoebe Bridgers covered a Bo Burnham comedy song,” MAY-A says knowingly.
“I was trying to be all sentimental and real,” she hastens to add, “but I wasn’t really going through anything too much at that point in time. “I wasn’t debilitatingly sad or feeling anything in the extreme, it was, ‘Let’s write something stupid and goofy’.”
Side stepping between EDM anthem, “weird rock”, and pure pop — that’s the work of an artist perennially trying to push themselves. MAY-A says she’s constantly learning, including on her recent tours in the US, UK, and Europe.
“We learned a lot about crowd control and how to really get them to be part of the experience,” she recalls. “Someone once told me that all live music is an exchange of energy. I try to think about that every single time.”
As far connecting with an audience goes, MAY-A would love to give greater awareness to what female and queer artists can achieve. She cites artists such as Phoebe Bridgers, Bikini Kill and 070 Shake for eventually expanding her perspective of the limitless bounds of female artistry beyond that of Swifty-itis.
“I spent so long thinking I can’t make certain music as it’s not my place,” she says. “It’s only recently that I realised, “Oh! I can do that!’
“Because you can do anything in music and there’s no rules.”
To this point, with Analysis Paralysis, MAY-A pushes the limits of guitar-pop. “You have to learn time and again there’s no rules in music – you can do whatever the fuck you want,” she says.
“I really wanted to experiment with my vocal tone and try different ways to sing,” she continues. “When I started, I was just writing for the words, rather than using my voice as an instrument or experimenting with different sounds.
“I was inspired by a lot more electronic influence, and a lot more band influence, than just a singer/songwriter kind of project.”
As a result, we get MAY-A in rapping mode on the aforementioned Sweat You Out My System, while the twisted LOLA and Stint-co-produced Guilty Conscience (he of Gallant, Jessie Ware and MØ past work) both nod to 070 Shake.
MAY-A’s favourite is the brooding Superior Liar, a coming-full-circle track, of sorts, inspired by the early Radiohead she would listen to at an early age.
“I wanted to go a bit darker with this EP. It’s kinda where the world is right now – not necessarily in a bad way, but we’re a bit more angry than we were four years ago, which I’ve noticed reflected in the music.
“A lot of the songs are posed as “relationship songs” but they’re more about the emotion.”
Ultimately, MAY-A is bolstered by a number of drives; that of self-examination, experimentation of her musical communication, and of embraced representation. All of which will be proudly on display in October when she takes to the Stonefest stage.
On the 5 Seconds of Summer tour, she and her all-woman band were approached by numerous young female fans (some with their mothers) all of whom were in awe of their stage presence.
“These young girls are watching a group of women open up before a group of men and being like, ‘Holy shit… I can do that as well!” MAY-A says, somewhat in awe herself.
“If I can do anything to inspire young women to get into the music industry, to get into lighting, sound, anything — that’s the most important thing I think that I’m focused on right now.
“We need more of it, and I think the time is now.”
Keep up with all things MAY-A via her linktr.ee
MAY-A performs at Stonefest on the University of Canberra Lawns on Saturday, 19 October, along with Teenage Dads, Mansionair, Great Gable, The Buoys, Lucy Sugerman, Sonic Reducer, Wallabindi and more. Tix are $99 + bf via Moshtix.
