Mae Muller – short bio
A bold voice for a frustrated generation, Mae Muller makes pop music that packs a real punch. With a deft ability to celebrate the female experience and capture a generational mood, she has amassed a huge following, garnering millions of listeners.
A natural storyteller, Mae’s first love was literature, and she was–and still is an avid reader. Never without a book, reading would go on to inform her ability to paint whole worlds with her words. At school she excelled in English and spent her lunch breaks helping younger children in creative writing classes. It impacted her music taste, too. She grew up listening to her mum’s favourite singer-songwriters in the car, artists like The Dixie Chicks, Gwen Stefani and sixties touchstone Simon & Garfunkel. Hearing Lily Allen’s refreshingly candid debut album, Alright, Still was a pivotal moment for Mae.
She started writing her own music at the tender age of eight. For years, she made music in the privacy of her bedroom, quietly growing in skill and confidence. She was still a teenager when she decided to leave her job at American Apparel and work in a pub so that she could pursue music in the day. Pulling favours from wherever she could, she asked a friend who knew how to use Logic to produce a few demos in exchange for a bottle of wine. She uploaded them to Soundcloud in 2017; and an unexpected whirlwind followed.
Mae was still working at the pub when she landed her first publishing deal. Within two years she’d released 3 EPs full of pop gems that stood out by their melodic hooks and lyrics that were feisty and unapologetic in their frankness. Full of bangers and ballads, they burst with emotion – from revenge to self-love. Stealing the attention of the industry, she supported Little Mix on their 2019 stadium tour, landed millions of YouTube views, and scored a top 10 US hit with single Better Days which she performed on Jimmy Fallon.
Throughout her rapid ascent, Mae has been sure to do things on her own terms, surrounding herself with the support of women. Far from stalling her, the pandemic brought a new opportunity for Mae to look inwards as she worked on new music. ‘I became self-aware enough to realise that I’d always had a problem with needing validation and constantly thinking about how I was being perceived by others. I had to ask myself, who am I even doing this for?’ she explains.
Instead, Mae focussed on herself and her songwriting. While a fierce feminism often informs her writing, her new music exposes a more vulnerable side as Mae explores love and loss, dating and relationships with fearless honesty, confronting her own experiences (from dating apps and insecurities to breakups and beyond) with granular detail, while also capturing the broader frustrations of young women today. ‘I feel like I’m slowly learning to be vulnerable. I can be strong, sassy, confident, and I can be sad and have my low moments: I’m still me.. It’s just as empowering to show both sides.’