In response to the acclaimed creator Jeffrey Eugenides, “heartbreak is humorous to everybody however the heartbroken” and Maisie Peters couldn’t agree extra. “All of us get so fucking bizarre and evil,” she laughs. “What’s unsuitable with us?”
The English singer-songwriter’s newest album The Good Witch is Peters’ “twisted” tackle a breakup album — providing sass, snarling venom and serene empowerment throughout its glitzy 12 tracks. “I don’t know if it’s a optimistic album, but it surely’s undoubtedly truthful,” she tells Different Press earlier than the primary of a sequence of intimate gigs throughout the UK. “There are moments of actual gentle to the album and it doesn’t take itself too critically,” she continues, promising that the document isn’t truly that miserable contemplating the heartbreak that impressed it. ”This is likely to be me being evil however there’s such enjoyable and intrigue in being so harm as a result of it means you cared a lot.”
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In actual fact, there’s a depraved humorousness to all the things Peters does. Taking to Glastonbury’s iconic Pyramid stage over the weekend, Peters wore a “ladies’s hearts are deadly weapons” slogan T-shirt whereas her loyal coven of followers held up banners that proudly learn “our durations are syncing” and “we’re the granddaughters of the witches you would not burn.”
[Photo courtesy of Gingerbread Man Records/Elektra]
After a string of singles and EPs, Peters’ debut album You Signed Up For This was launched in 2021 by way of Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Information and pulled affect from Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, The Killers, and Carly Rae Jepsen with its intricate storytelling. Sonically, The Good Witch continues to construct on these bombastic, emotional pop-rock foundations. The dreamy “Wendy” was impressed by Lana Del Rey’s 2017 shimmering observe “Love,” whereas the confident “You’re Simply A Boy (And I’m Kinda The Man)” takes heavy affect from the Shania Twain traditional “Man, I Really feel Like A Lady.” Peters and her band sometimes play that upbeat, empowering anthem each night time earlier than going onstage and wished to seize that power.
“All my songs are, is a mix of all the things I like,” explains Peters, who spent the journey to tonight’s venue listening to her personal unreleased music alongside her band. And sure, she liked each minute of it.
The Good Witch additionally attracts inspiration from Lorde’s coming-of-age breakup album Melodrama. “It was vital to me as a 17-year-old woman and it nonetheless feels culturally vital immediately,” Peters explains, desirous to create one thing equally as grand however relatable. “I need The Good Witch to be as cohesive and particular as Melodrama, however greater than something, I hope it may be vital to someone.”
[Photo courtesy of Gingerbread Man Records/Elektra]
Regardless of proudly carrying her many influences on her sleeve, The Good Witch seems like nothing besides a Maisie Peters album. It’s frank, it’s humorous and it’s reassuring whereas nonetheless embracing what her followers have come to name an actual “feral” power. On social media, she treats those self same followers extra like mates, whereas additionally encouraging deep dives into the broader world of The Good Witch and she or he’s usually fan solid as the proper help for Taylor Swift’s lately introduced European Eras tour. An ideal match in our opinion.
Written following a mammoth tour supporting Ed Sheeran in stadiums the world over, there’s a giddy grandness to Maisie Peters’ sophomore album that’ll come to life at her “enjoyable, explosive, huge, and thrilling” headline reveals later this yr. “Enjoying these huge reveals with Ed, it provides you a brand new context for what music can do and be,” she says. Her personal gig at London’s Wembley Area is already penciled in for November after a prolonged US run.
There are many softer moments on the album as properly although, from the self-deprecating lyrics of “Physique Higher” that finds Peters evaluating herself to an ex’s new associate to the folksy “The Band And I.” “That’s the kind of music I used to be raised on and I by no means wish to go away that behind,” Peters explains, having began her profession as a busker earlier than happening to launch her debut single in 2017.
[Photo courtesy of Gingerbread Man Records/Elektra]
From cafes to stadiums, Maisie Peters has at all times used her songwriting to bounce between fantasy and actuality. Regardless of the fairytale title, The Good Witch is the primary physique of labor wholly impressed by her personal life. “I went by way of rather a lot and the previous yr has been actually intense so I wrote about that, virtually for my very own sanity,” she explains. “There’s not a single track on the album that’s not true.” Much more surreal tracks just like the dreamy “The Historical past Of Man” or the luxurious “Wendy” are based mostly on what Peters was experiencing.
“I’m not somebody who sometimes writes for catharsis, however it’s cathartic to look again on the way you felt. It’s virtually the alternative of gaslighting your self,” says Peters, whose songs by no means play down the emotional extremes of affection and heartbreak. Nonetheless, for a breakup album The Good Witch just isn’t pushed by anger or bitterness. “I feel we have been all shocked by that,” Peters laughs, earlier than calling the document a testomony to like when it’s good.
“Even when the heartbreak hurts, it’s exhausting to write down something too imply if the individuals have been good and the love was actual,” she explains. Peters went on a journey making The Good Witch, and whereas the album is characterised by “quite a lot of disappointment,” she’s presently getting into a extra peaceable period she’s calling “warfare is over.”
[Photo courtesy of Gingerbread Man Records/Elektra]
There’s additionally energy in The Good Witch’s journey although, with the album bearing on themes of destruction, energy, femininity, magic, and destiny alongside gender, even when that specific matter wasn’t intentional.
“Listening again to the document, tracks like ‘Historical past Of Man,’ ‘Wendy,’ and ‘You’re Simply A Boy (And I’m Kinda The Man)’ all play with the thought of what it’s to be a younger girl,” says Peters, who lately turned 23. “Lots of my first album was written after I was 16 and is about girlhood and experiencing that coming to an finish, whereas The Good Witch explores the thought of masculinity and femininity and the connection between women and men. It is one thing I’ve undoubtedly skilled and had to consider due to it, so I’m not shocked it made an look on the album.”
“I simply put quite a lot of stress on myself to make an album that I liked as a lot as I nonetheless love my first album,” continues Peters, who is aware of how vital that document was for the neighborhood of those that heard themselves in her songs. “I didn’t really feel the necessity to show myself to anyone although,” she provides.
Maisie Peters believes her music resonates with so many as a result of “all human beings are actually boringly related,” she says, earlier than laughing. “All of us simply really feel the identical issues and all of us assume we’re particular, and we’re not,” she continues with a shrug. “I simply attempt to make music which means one thing to me.” That’s the place the magic occurs.
