Building Musical Palaces and Chasing Dreams: A Conversation with Mae Krell

Hi Mae!! Thank you so much for joining Pop Palace, we are so happy to have you. What has been keeping you busy lately?

Hi!! Thank you so much for having me! So stoked to have the opportunity to chat. I recently quit my bartending job and transitioned into freelance work so I could focus more on music which has been a big change but also very exciting! Mainly spending my time conceptualizing a new record and trying to teach myself how to play the banjo and the mandolin!

Your debut album (i think) i might be grown is out now, and I’m sooo in love with it! How did this record come together? Could you take us on a little journey through your process of creating the album?

Thank you so much, it really means the world to hear that!! This album really started to exist as a possibility in my mind in late 2022- I was living in a rooftop tent with my dog, apollo, traveling around the US + Canada for a couple months. Toward the end of that trip, more specifically while staying with family friends in LA I sat down to play some guitar and ended up writing “apollo’s song”.

 When I got back home to New York I caught up with my producer and friend Jakob (Leventhal) and played him “apollo’s song”. We talked about life, and travel, and how I was feeling like I didn’t know where I fit- both as a musician and as a person. He encouraged me to try to focus on writing an album with “apollo’s song” at the forefront, and that’s how everything started to come together.

The other 10 songs on the record were written between January and May of 2023. I spent a week in a secluded upstate New York cabin during a snowstorm, went on tour with Ethan Jewell and spent a lot of time in my bedroom. Once the track list felt finalized, Jake and I started conceptualizing and building the sonic world of the record- deciding which guitars to record with, which other instruments to include, which musicians to bring into the studio. 

The actual physical recording of the album then happened over the span of a couple weeks in July/August 2023, all while I was also working with my friends Caro Hallock (graphic design + video) and Alex Lyon (photography) on the visuals. A full length album, especially a debut is such a large undertaking, but looking back, I don’t think I would have done it any differently than I did. 

It feels like I was writing this record my whole life, and i’m so beyond proud of where it landed. To go from being a teenager who couldn’t imagine any sort of future to a musician who made a record about that experience and now has the privilege to connect with people who relate to it is truly the most beautiful gift i’ve ever been given. I feel so beyond lucky to be here, and to have had the opportunity to make this project in the way that I did.

You’ve moved between various artistic mediums. What drew you back to music, and do you still find yourself incorporating visual art into your creative process? 

I’ve wanted to make music since I was fourteen, but didn’t grow up playing any instruments and have always been on the shyer side, so I never really thought of it as a viable option. The more time I spent in other artistic mediums, the more drawn to music I became. There’s nothing worse than being so close to what you want and never giving it a real shot. 

I don’t know if i’d say that visual art is a part of my creative process when it comes to songwriting, but it’s definitely a huge focus of mine in the post production. When it comes to the release process, it’s super important to me that the songs have individual visual identities, and I love having a part in creating and planning them.

Do you think that being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community influences your art?

Being a lesbian, and walking through the world as a butch woman are such a huge part of my experience as a human being, so I think it would be impossible for those parts of me to not influence my music. I also love being a part of the community- i’m proud of who I am and who I love. I hope that being out and visible might help someone who needs it feel a bit more comfortable in their own skin. 

On a different note, do you have any guilty pleasures?

Does listening to pop punk count? sometimes I feel like i’m still in my middle school emo era haha

What has been the most challenging experience you have overcome in your music career?

I think just starting? I was always so scared of the idea of getting up on a stage and playing my songs- I think because they’re so personal. It kind of feels like telling strangers your deepest secrets and then having to hope they don’t think you’re insane. Vulnerability is so scary! But it’s also really beautiful when it connects you with people who understand and relate.

Finally, here at Pop Palace, we all have our own little 'Royal Court' of artists who inspire us and keep us going. So, if you could build your own musical palace, who would be sitting on your throne, and who would be in your royal court of all-time favorite artists?

This is so cool! 

I’m a massive Gregory Alan Isakov fan… so I feel like he deserves the throne.

Some other all time favorite artists: Slaughter Beach, Dog , Margot & The Nuclear So & So’s , Tommy Lefroy , The Milk Carton Kids , Andy Shauf , Caamp , Taylor Swift , Bon Iver, The Shins, Mac Miller, The Indigo Girls… etc etc etc