Mixing with Bieber’s crew
Christchurch songbird Maya Payne has been working with one of the heavyweights of the music industry, Mike Alexander reports.
Maya Payne is forging her own unique path in the musical world with a little help from some very influential friends.
She first came to attention at the age of 16 while still at Burnside High in Christchurch when her debut single Fragile was released and started making waves overseas particularly in Germany where Spotify’s Feel Good List Picked it up and championed it.
‘‘My singing teacher at the time had friends in contact with Dru Castro, who is a Grammy awardwinning producer which made it even more exciting! He was coming to visit Christchurch and wanted some work to do while here. So we decided that it would be a crazy and unmissable opportunity for us to work on a song together. I ended up meeting up with him and we created Fragile. It was my first song . . .’’
Another track If Only, demo’ed and produced by Josh Fountain at the same studio – Golden Age – in which Lorde’s album Pure Heroine was recorded, got picked up by a Polish gaming company, who made it the theme track for their Rocky movie Creed official mobile game Real Boxing 2.
‘‘It really made things feel more real,’’ Payne says. ‘‘At the time I was still really early into producing music and being there and seeing all of Lorde’s awards and her Grammy scroll with her name on it set a cool atmosphere for making music. Having seen Lorde’s success over the years and how talented she is, it motivated me a lot.
‘‘And then Real Boxing 2 got into contact with us about using If Only in their trailer for the game. It was so strange but also really cool that they wanted it. You never really think stuff like that is going to happen!’’
Patrick Reza from Los Angeles has already done remixes of Falling and If Only and helped give those songs further traction. Did he approach you? ‘‘Yeah Patrick is great, he’s crazy talented and I love working with him on remixes. He first contacted me on Soundcloud asking if he could remix If only since he really liked the track.’’
With various official singles and other songs available online, Payne has been working on her most ambitious project yet – her debut EP The Lucky Ones, which features Kabyn Walley as a collaborator and producer.
‘‘About two or so years ago, I made contact with him over Soundcloud because I really liked his music. I found out that he actually was from the same high school as me and had been studying in Dunedin. We met up while I was still at school and it all just went from there. We’ve been working together ever since.’’
The final touches on the EP were furnished by Kostas Kalimeris, who spent three weeks mixing the tracks.
‘‘We had met Kostas while in Santorini shooting the video. I had the opportunity to visit Black Rock Studios there where Justin Bieber was working on his album Purpose at the time. We met the engineer Kostas there who had worked on Justin’s album and he’s been working with me ever since on my own songs and helping me out which is really crazy.’’
To say Kalimeris, is a heavy hitter is an understatement. Aside from Bieber’s album, his major project last year, he produced NME’s album of the year – Bring Me The Horizons’ That’s the Spirit. He is now part of Payne’s management team with her dad, Matt Power, and Leo Chantzaras, who is head of international A & R at Imagem music publishing.
The first single of The Lucky One EP is the teen anthem We Are The Wild.
‘‘I wanted it to make people feel good and be a really uplifting power anthem for young people. There are so many things in this world that try to bring us down and I wanted to write something positive and make people feel good.
‘‘My focus at the moment is very much to make the best possible music I can that I love.’’