Rising R&B star Mac Ayres left music school to pursue music
The story of when Mac Ayres knew he had to drop out of the Berklee College of Music is a funny one.
It was the fifth week of school. He was in a class where students learn how to write for drummers. The teacher asked if anyone knew what a hi-hat sounds like. No one raised their hand. That’s when Ayres stood up and walked out the door. By winter 2017, he was gone.
“Because nobody knew what a hi-hat sounded like in that class,” says Ayres, now 22. “So, I had to leave. I was just baffled this was the best music school in the whole world and these are kids that didn’t really know anything. So, I had to get out of there.”
If you’re aware of the Long Island native’s self-taught history as a singer-songwriter, you could hardly blame him from wanting to bounce. At 10 years old, he sang at the U.S. Open in Queens. A year later, he started playing the piano. With the help of a friend’s iTunes password, he downloaded the Logic Pro digital audio workstation, which allowed him to work on his producing chops.
“I just started messing on there, and it eventually, through trial and error, became something I love to do,” he remembers. By the time he was at Berklee, he already had what would be his 2017 “Drive Slow” EP sitting in his computer.
Now based in LA, Ayres would go on to drop “Slow” as well as his full-length debut “Something to Feel” in 2018. Both projects are full of the smooth, baby-making bedroom music you’d expect from someone who obviously counts D’Angelo and Marvin Gaye as influences. Being the alabasterskinned fella that he is, his blueeyed soul grooves has taken many people by surprise — like his white girlfriend’s mom. “When I started dating her,” he says, “she had played her my music, and she did not think I was a white kid either.”
For his latest album, “Juicebox” (which was released in August), Ayers looked to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder for inspiration, in order to come up with midtempo tunes that would get people dancing at his shows. But even though Ayres went the silly, smart-alecky route when it came to naming the album (dude does love juiceboxes!), it’s still a project that comes with a lot of personal baggage.
“When I started writing, I was in the process of firing my manager and leaving my record label at the time that I put out the last two projects with,” he says. “So, a lot of the songs are just about that and trying to regain confidence and, like, fun and, you know, having this as a career. Like, I was not really grateful for a while, and I think that, through making this album, I just really relearned how to not take yourself so seriously and just have fun in music, because that’s always been when music is at its most rewarding for me.”
Ayres doesn’t consider himself a one-man show. He often collaborates with friends who are also up-and-coming artists, like Chris Anderson and Zach Berro, even appearing on each other’s projects. “A lot of those guys are my roommates, my friends for a long time,” he says. “I’ve been friends with Chris — we went to high school and middle school together. So, we’ve been friends since we were, like, 15. I met Zach when I went to Berklee my first year — like, my first couple of days there. So, I’ve known him for five years now at this point. I like making music with people that I, like, really respect and admire and, so, it’s like automatic with these guys. I play every show with them, and we just have a good sense of each other’s energy and we work well with each other.”
Ayres has been touring all around the world, even finding die-hard fans in Asia. As he comes to Houston this weekend, it makes you wonder: Has this man, who has accomplished so much at such a young age, felt overwhelmed by all of this? “Sometimes, it might feel overwhelming and like it’s all coming on to quick,” he admits. “But, lately, I’ve just been riding the wave, feeling really good about everything — just enjoying myself.”
Mac Ayres
When: 8 p.m. today
Where: House of Blues (The Bronze Peacock), 1204 Caroline Details: $15; 888-402-5837; houseofblues .com/houston