Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Mya Hawk first became known to audiences as an actress,
Speaker 2: especially through her work in Stranger Things and in film,
Speaker 2: but she's been quietly building in parallel life as a
Speaker 2: songwriter of genuine depth. Since her debut album Blush in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, she's released four records that are ever more reflective.
Speaker 2: By Treya Corso, her fourth album arrives at a formative
Speaker 2: moment in Hawk's life, following her marriage to longtime musical
Speaker 2: collaborator Christian Lee Hudson. The album's built around a central
Speaker 2: persona named my Trea Corso, who serves as a conduit
Speaker 2: for exploring themes of ego, ambition, and creation. Recorded in
Speaker 2: Woodstock in New York City late last year, the album's
Speaker 2: co produced by Hudson and Jonathan Lowe, with album's artwork
Speaker 2: taken from watercolor paintings made by Maya herself. On today's episode,
Speaker 2: recorded live from South by Southwest, I sat down with
Speaker 2: Maya Hawk and husband and co producer Christian Lee Hudson
Speaker 2: to talk about the making of My Treo Corso. Together,
Speaker 2: they reflect on the development of their artistic lives separately,
Speaker 2: Maya and New York and Christian mostly in LA, but
Speaker 2: also what it's like to come together as partners in
Speaker 2: life as well as music. This is broken record, real musicians,
Speaker 2: real conversations. Here's my interview with Maya Hawk and Christian
Speaker 2: Lee Hudson live from south By, Southwest, Hi.
Speaker 3: All right, thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Us, No, thanks for coming, Thanks for being here. It's
Speaker 2: cool to be in Austin and south By Southwest.
Speaker 3: It certainly is.
Speaker 1: This is one of my I think I'm out on
Speaker 1: the flight here.
Speaker 2: There's like five American cities that feel like they have
Speaker 2: their own internal logic different from any other.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 2: It's not better then, it's just very different than any
Speaker 2: other part of America. New Orleans feels that way. New
Speaker 2: York feels that way. I would throw LA in the
Speaker 2: Bay or the LA Area, the Bay Area in Austin,
Speaker 2: you know, I feel like, just completely their own unique.
Speaker 3: Chicago's kind of unique.
Speaker 2: Too, are Chicago? And would agree, Yeah, you know what
Speaker 2: that that is true? That is true, and it has
Speaker 2: it certainly has a history.
Speaker 1: All those other cities do.
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't. I wouldn't take that. How did you, guys,
Speaker 2: just musical connections start?
Speaker 1: What where? How did you guys start playing.
Speaker 3: Together via email, so I was going to say, yeah,
Speaker 3: the Postal Service, we yeah, exactly. We have a mutual
Speaker 3: friend named Benjaminlizzard Davis who produced my second record, Moss,
Speaker 3: and played bass on my first record, and he knew
Speaker 3: Christian from working on Aquaville River.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, which which you I which?
Speaker 4: I did a tour with them and just met the
Speaker 4: band kind of and then the guy Will the songwriter
Speaker 4: and I wrote a few songs together cool.
Speaker 1: And Benjamin joined them. That's he's a member.
Speaker 5: Now he's like on again.
Speaker 4: It's like one of those bands like Bright Eyes, where
Speaker 4: it's like who is the members of it?
Speaker 5: I don't know any who? Who's who? Round right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Collective?
Speaker 3: But Will and Ben were on that tour. Will is
Speaker 3: obviously Akuaville rover, but then there's another Will will Graffe
Speaker 3: who's also been playing with me since I started who
Speaker 3: We were on that tour with Christian And then I
Speaker 3: asked Ben to work on this record with me, or
Speaker 3: really to work on an EP. And then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, I had like nine more days off of
Speaker 3: Stranger Things than I was supposed to have and was like,
Speaker 3: what if instead of making an EP. We made a
Speaker 3: record because we've got some extra time. So then we
Speaker 3: had like two months to write six more songs. And
Speaker 3: I was sending Ben and Will like poems every single
Speaker 3: day and they were, I think, drowning in poems with
Speaker 3: which to put music to, and they were and Ben
Speaker 3: was like, can I send some of your music to
Speaker 3: Can I send one of your poems to Christian? And
Speaker 3: I never responded to the email, and then I got
Speaker 3: an email from the purpose like no, I just am
Speaker 3: bad at my email and uh, and I never responded
Speaker 3: and then I got an email from Christian mean I
Speaker 3: got your poem. And then I was so embarrassed because
Speaker 3: I was a big fan of Christians and was like,
Speaker 3: oh no, oh that poem that was just a first draft.
Speaker 3: Please let me send you an editor. Don't work on
Speaker 3: that yet. But we've gone back since and like read
Speaker 3: those early emails and they're actually very sweet and they're awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're awesome.
Speaker 5: So that's how he was a great first poem too.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't. I was like, this is awesome.
Speaker 4: Ben sends crazy emails and that was a really good one.
Speaker 2: Because good, yeah, yeah for you did it feel like
Speaker 2: this is maybe like the idea of it, like you're okay,
Speaker 2: you're going to get these poems in some form and
Speaker 2: write to them. Is that is that like a typical
Speaker 2: process for you or did that feel like were you
Speaker 2: surprised by how he's easy or natural?
Speaker 4: That process was kind of I mean I was writing.
Speaker 4: I like to write in a lot of different ways,
Speaker 4: and that was a really fun way to be. Like,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes you'll go in a room and someone
Speaker 4: has like seventy five percent of a song and you're like, cool,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna throw out some like ideas for the
Speaker 4: last twenty five percent and there this was a fun
Speaker 4: way to just be like this has no music and
Speaker 4: no you get to decide what the rules are because
Speaker 4: it's also COVID. Yeah, so I was just sitting in
Speaker 4: my closet like with my guitar being trying to figure
Speaker 4: out how to what made the most sense out of
Speaker 4: the things. So it was different and fun and immediately
Speaker 4: I was like, send me another poem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then we had really a lot of fun
Speaker 3: and we met kind of making that record.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 2: I want to get back to just sort of the
Speaker 2: evolution of how you guys got to the latest record.
Speaker 2: But I mean, it's interesting because you or maybe maybe
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, but I'm just gonna say this, you're not
Speaker 2: primarily like a songwriter or you were new to it
Speaker 2: at the time, right right.
Speaker 4: I would argue with that, I would, but I would say,
Speaker 4: but I don't just maybe it's let.
Speaker 5: You up here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that is constantly writing songs.
Speaker 5: She writes songs every single day.
Speaker 6: She is a naturally in the form of like in
Speaker 6: the absolutely I feel like before I like I am
Speaker 6: even awake, there's like a full, like a complete song
Speaker 6: that I'm just like, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, What I will say is that a big
Speaker 3: part of what's happened in my own musical evolution, so
Speaker 3: to speak, is that Christian, when we worked on Moss together,
Speaker 3: was so encouraging and was so like, well, actually show me,
Speaker 3: like when you wrote this poem, what music did you imagine?
Speaker 3: And I would play it for him and you'd be like, wait,
Speaker 3: that's good.
Speaker 1: What do you like?
Speaker 3: Why didn't we do that? And I was like, no,
Speaker 3: it's not, it's trash. Because I was a very fortunate
Speaker 3: young person who who was around artists my whole life.
Speaker 3: And around amazing musicians my whole life, and people that
Speaker 3: were so good at guitar and piano that it felt
Speaker 3: embarrassing to pick up an instrument in front of them,
Speaker 3: you know, and who were such extraordinary composers and instrumentalists
Speaker 3: that it didn't feel like I had anything to offer.
Speaker 3: And Christian was kind of the person that entered my
Speaker 3: life and was like, you have something to offer, because
Speaker 3: it is you that is offering it. It's not about
Speaker 3: the jazz school. It's about the nature of your heart
Speaker 3: and like the truth that you know the music and
Speaker 3: the words and how they combined. And so that sort
Speaker 3: of encouragement working on Moss kind of created Chaos Angel
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways because that was a product
Speaker 3: of me being like, oh, I can incorporate my own
Speaker 3: melodies and I can write music.
Speaker 1: And that was your third album.
Speaker 2: So by the time you did your third album, you
Speaker 2: did start to have more confidence in yourself as a
Speaker 2: person who is writing songs.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and I and like, which isn't say that I
Speaker 3: wrote them by myself. I didn't at all, but I
Speaker 3: would instead of coming to the table with just a
Speaker 3: piece of paper with words on it, I would come
Speaker 3: to the table being like, this is what I've been playing, Like,
Speaker 3: what do you think? I really like this chorus, but
Speaker 3: the verse melody sucks. Let's make it better. You know,
Speaker 3: it was a sort of more. Wouldn't you say that
Speaker 3: that's an accurate description of the vibe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a really accurate description. I think
Speaker 4: that you like chronically underestimate what because most of the.
Speaker 3: Musical you're working on it.
Speaker 5: I know most of the musical ideas that you have.
Speaker 4: I'm like, wow, this is so fucking heady and trippy, and.
Speaker 3: There's a certain maginner's mind when you don't know, like
Speaker 3: what the rules are, you don't know that you're breaking.
Speaker 5: Them in a way very very good underc I am.
Speaker 3: Very good at turning a compliment into an insult. It's
Speaker 3: it's truly makes me wonderful to be around.
Speaker 1: That is.
Speaker 3: I'll be like, oh, so you're saying I look beautiful
Speaker 3: by what you mean, I'm dumb? You know, It's like, really,
Speaker 3: I'm you know, it's really there's a lot of fun
Speaker 3: ways to sentence.
Speaker 1: Really convoluted to go from.
Speaker 3: You I'm a pleasure you are actually?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is the inverse true? Like if someone says you're smart.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like, well, why aren't you complimentary?
Speaker 3: Come on, aren't I beautiful?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What do you mean?
Speaker 3: I'm smart?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I think about this?
Speaker 3: So you're saying I'm ugly?
Speaker 1: I have three daughters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well one's a baby so that she doesn't really count,
Speaker 2: but I have so two daughters are sentient in the
Speaker 2: sense of they can understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I can kind of screw them up or or or or.
Speaker 2: Maybe set them up for some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: healthy life, you know, And I'm always like, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: you look so beautiful. I'm like, oh, yeah, but you're
Speaker 2: smart too, Like how was he like? Fuck, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: have just said that. I'll be like, oh, you're so smart,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, I don't want her to think
Speaker 2: she's just.
Speaker 1: Like a nerd. Oh you're beautiful too, And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm very neurotic about like balancing any compliment I make
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, being a woman sucks, you know. I mean there's
Speaker 3: just like it's like there's just like it's all bad.
Speaker 3: Oh don't clap for that. No, it's okay, but like
Speaker 3: it's all bad. But I will. I think as long
Speaker 3: as neither one is that heavy, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: smart can be heavy. But I think it's just all
Speaker 3: about like, Yeah, it's not about what your parents says.
Speaker 3: It's about what you think they value about you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and like, And I think that kind of extends more broadly.
Speaker 3: You know, your partner or your friends. It's not about
Speaker 3: what they say to you. Like your best friend can
Speaker 3: be like, you're such a match, and you'll be like,
Speaker 3: I know, you know, but like that, and that's a
Speaker 3: wonderful and it's a compliment. And so it's it's never
Speaker 3: about what the words are. I think it's always about
Speaker 3: the feeling behind the words. When it comes to intimate relationships.
Speaker 1: Yes, the intents, the intent or perceived intent.
Speaker 3: At least in terms of when there's intimacy, it's about intent. Yes,
Speaker 3: when it's a stranger, it's about what you said.
Speaker 1: I think generally right, Yes, that does make sense.
Speaker 2: I mean I hadn't really thought about it or broke
Speaker 2: it down the way, but I think that's probably accurate.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about because you both are really you know,
Speaker 2: potent artists and engaged artists who have had different paths,
Speaker 2: you know, each have had your different path and they've
Speaker 2: kind of converged in this way. But what was your
Speaker 2: experience with the arts growing up? Like, what was your
Speaker 2: relationship with it both in terms of how was it
Speaker 2: introduced to you and then how.
Speaker 1: Did it sort of evolve on your own.
Speaker 2: How did it become something that you sort of took
Speaker 2: ownership of and felt like, well, this is like for me,
Speaker 2: Like I grew up with a lot of I grew
Speaker 2: up with my grandma who was from Detroit, So I
Speaker 2: just grew up in Motown in the house, and I
Speaker 2: thought to the point I thought it was new music.
Speaker 2: But then I got to junior high, I got into
Speaker 2: skateboarding and I was like, oh, the Ramones, like that's
Speaker 2: my music, you know, and that sort of and then
Speaker 2: you circle bas circle back at some point to Motown.
Speaker 2: But I did, at some point sort to forge my
Speaker 2: own identity and art outside of whatever my family thought.
Speaker 2: We we're kind of curious how you guys, What do
Speaker 2: you guys came up with and how you guys started
Speaker 2: what music and art sorted to be formative in your
Speaker 2: own sort of identity.
Speaker 3: I'm going to set you up, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: set you up by saying that I think that we
Speaker 3: know positive like you see it positive, like just one.
Speaker 3: I think the thing is cool about our friendship and
Speaker 3: collaboration is that we had really different experiences. Like I
Speaker 3: was drowned in the arts, and I think Christian really
Speaker 3: had to find it on his own.
Speaker 5: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I don't know if if somebody said the arts when
Speaker 4: I was a kid, I don't know if I would
Speaker 4: know what they were talking about. Really, there was no
Speaker 4: like art in my life there, but there was. Weirdly,
Speaker 4: there was Motown like a lot of My grandmother was
Speaker 4: a record collector, but like didn't talk about the arts.
Speaker 4: She just grew up in Chattanooga and like was loved
Speaker 4: getting Stax records and Motown records and showed me all
Speaker 4: of that and and.
Speaker 5: I did that take. Absolutely. I was obsessed with it.
Speaker 4: But I also thought it was new music, which was
Speaker 4: very funny because I would like take it to school
Speaker 4: and it was like wow, no one kind of knew
Speaker 4: what I was talking about, like, oh, yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: song from like remember the Titans or something or whatever,
Speaker 4: and yeah, so I didn't really know about it. And
Speaker 4: when I was like a teenager and there was an
Speaker 4: arts program in school. I went to like a fundamentalist
Speaker 4: Christian school where there was like art was like I
Speaker 4: don't know, it's like a poem about Jesus maybe or something.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, versus.
Speaker 3: I went to a high school where, not while I
Speaker 3: was there, but in its origin, the headmaster used to
Speaker 3: take parents on school tours and say that if the
Speaker 3: students didn't have interracial sex and tried to at least
Speaker 3: three different drugs before they graduated, he would consider himself
Speaker 3: a failure.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I had a very different headmaster.
Speaker 4: It's very different priorities than you, really different priorities.
Speaker 3: You know, he had his own issues Stanley Bosworth. But
Speaker 3: what I mean to say generally is that I I
Speaker 3: really was just like the arts seemed like the main option.
Speaker 3: Like I kind of remember meeting people with other jobs
Speaker 3: and being like what do you do and people would
Speaker 3: tell me to be like why you know, and and
Speaker 3: just like you know, a normal thing to do every
Speaker 3: weekend was go to the Metropolitan Museum r of Art
Speaker 3: and like go to the Nutcracker. Like it was just
Speaker 3: like everything was art and music and film and storytelling
Speaker 3: and so it's something really cool about getting to work
Speaker 3: with you is to kind of combine this like art
Speaker 3: as revenge and art as identity that I feel like
Speaker 3: you hold where like I couldn't rebel by being an artist.
Speaker 3: That was not a rebellion for me, true, but it
Speaker 3: was for you. And I feel like I love getting
Speaker 3: to like bring the feeling of like, no art is everywhere,
Speaker 3: art is everything, and you can bring the like art
Speaker 3: is rebellion, art is crazy, and we can kind of
Speaker 3: combine that in a way that feels really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, growing up in I mean, like you said, you
Speaker 2: grew up steep in the arts and in New York City,
Speaker 2: so like art probably has to go pretty far for
Speaker 2: you to feel like it's rebellious.
Speaker 3: Right, I Mean this walks us down a whole new
Speaker 3: rabbit hole that we could talk about forever, which is like,
Speaker 3: how do you make rebellious art now? How do you
Speaker 3: make protest art?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Don't have an answer, Like I it's very it seems
Speaker 3: very borderline impossible because of the way that the Internet
Speaker 3: works and the way that like moments happen and like
Speaker 3: niche niches happen, and how difficult it. Like I was
Speaker 3: reading something about you know, like it used to be
Speaker 3: so the way David Bowie dress used to be so
Speaker 3: transgressive and now it's like Harry Styles and Ben's and
Speaker 3: Boone and like, you know, everyone dresses like David Bowie
Speaker 3: and so how what could you possibly wear that would
Speaker 3: be transgressive? Yeah, I don't, Like, I don't have an idea.
Speaker 1: What sound could you make? That's what I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 4: I know, like the Yoko Ono is like the closest
Speaker 4: like still, I mean, yeah, like that's the most transgressive.
Speaker 3: It's just bad. It's like, oh, not that she's bad,
Speaker 3: but like what I just did is bad.
Speaker 5: Well, she's amazing. Is transgressive at all anymore? Because everything
Speaker 5: is everything?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the only way you can pretend to be
Speaker 3: transgressive is to like be ugly or unfortunate or like
Speaker 3: like like make it or make some make a sound
Speaker 3: that like no one wants to hear, I mean, like
Speaker 3: sonically ugly. By the way, the.
Speaker 5: Biggest way it could be transgressed is just shut the
Speaker 5: fuck up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be a crazy rebellion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we all are obsessed with ourselves.
Speaker 2: I guess getting off the internet you mentioned quitting social media.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I heard that right, But getting
Speaker 2: off the Internet, I guess is which is it's I
Speaker 2: don't want to say it's a week a week way
Speaker 2: it'll be transgressive, but it's I mean, in the grand
Speaker 2: scheme of things, is I guess it's not that it's
Speaker 2: more of a personal thing than it is.
Speaker 1: It's psych I.
Speaker 3: Don't think I even get any points for being off
Speaker 3: social media because I'm still benefiting from it and profiting
Speaker 3: from it because I have the capacity to have someone
Speaker 3: who can like run my social media for me, right,
Speaker 3: So I like, that's not not a rebellion at all
Speaker 3: because I'm entirely participating in the system of it. I'm
Speaker 3: just trying to protect my own brain and peace from it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that's like zero rebellion. That's like, that's just like
Speaker 3: walling yourself in, which is working for me. But like
Speaker 3: I wouldn't brag about.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more from Maya and Christian
Speaker 2: after the break, but we'll talk about a song like
Speaker 2: Lioness on your new album is something that seems like
Speaker 2: it's a large degree ripped out of your life, but
Speaker 2: probably that there's also some things in there that we
Speaker 2: wouldn't necessarily recognize.
Speaker 3: You know, Well, I guess I would say that I
Speaker 3: think that that song. Miley Cyrus actually talks about this,
Speaker 3: and I quote her all the time about it, which
Speaker 3: is that like every I wish I could remember her
Speaker 3: pithy way of describing it, I don't, but that every
Speaker 3: song is like a an encapsulation of a singular emotion,
Speaker 3: or like like we are we contain multitudes, right, Like
Speaker 3: sometimes you wake up in the morning You're like, I
Speaker 3: hate my life, and then an hour later like I
Speaker 3: love my life, and then like you're you know, like
Speaker 3: we are always so many people, and a lot of
Speaker 3: the time, one thing that helps write a song is
Speaker 3: to zero in on a specific feeling and to take
Speaker 3: out all the nuance and all the different ways in
Speaker 3: which you know you don't really feel that way, and
Speaker 3: to add as much breath and life and blood into
Speaker 3: this singular feeling as possible. And I think that Lioness
Speaker 3: is a song about a moment where I was really
Speaker 3: struggling with gratitude and like, you know, I had had
Speaker 3: all my dreams come true. I was doing the thing
Speaker 3: that I love most in the world, and I was
Speaker 3: doing it and was able to take care of myself
Speaker 3: and provide for myself, and that was everything I wanted,
Speaker 3: and I was really depressed and really not feeling the magic,
Speaker 3: feeling the spark of creativity. And I had this incredible
Speaker 3: moment on set where I got to watch my best
Speaker 3: friend bring the fricking house down with a performance, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, it's not this environment
Speaker 3: that's not allowing magic to happen. It's not the genre
Speaker 3: or the tone, or the budget or the this it's me.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm emotionally shut off. I'm blocking out the magic.
Speaker 3: And I think that was a song that came from
Speaker 3: like me wanting to kind of just do a wake
Speaker 3: up call and get out of the funk that I
Speaker 3: was in. And and so it's kind of like a
Speaker 3: cartoon version of my most ungrateful like Braddy self until
Speaker 3: the last verse, Like we've recently been talking a lot
Speaker 3: about this, you know, you know the voice in your
Speaker 3: head that tells you that you're like an absolute monster
Speaker 3: and that you're a bad person and that everybody hates you.
Speaker 3: Like we've been talking about that voice and been calling
Speaker 3: it like Schmiegel and and like Agel is like you're
Speaker 3: a bad person, nobody loves you.
Speaker 1: You know, you did do that voice.
Speaker 3: Is different.
Speaker 4: It's kind of I maybe just because my voice is lower,
Speaker 4: a little bit scarier. I would say yours is kind
Speaker 4: of charming and easy to interface with.
Speaker 3: Well, you'd say, yeah, yours.
Speaker 7: Minus like you are you are not doing good, you
Speaker 7: are doing bad stuff, and you're no one likes you,
Speaker 7: and you're you're delusional weirdo exactly.
Speaker 3: And like sometimes when I go to like a fashion event,
Speaker 3: I speak in an accent and I do it accidentally,
Speaker 3: but she's like really fabulous and she says darling. She's like, yes, darling,
Speaker 3: I'd love a glass of water, you know, And like
Speaker 3: these kinds of different characters that exist within all of us, right,
Speaker 3: you have like the little demon in your head, and
Speaker 3: you have the fabulous person in your head, and you
Speaker 3: have you, and I think sometimes I like to write
Speaker 3: from those. Christian is an incredible like character songwriter and
Speaker 3: actually writes songs about characters that aren't him at all.
Speaker 3: And I would say I write songs about from the
Speaker 3: points of view of different characters that are all me
Speaker 3: and like, so the Lioness is like kind of like
Speaker 3: this depressed actress. She's like everything's great, eight, I'd love
Speaker 3: another water with ice, But I'm so sad, and I
Speaker 3: don't even feel like an artist anymore? Am I an
Speaker 3: artist that's like that cartoon character that is so every
Speaker 3: And so you write from characters that are external primarily,
Speaker 3: you would say, and you're.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean they're external in the way they have
Speaker 4: behavior that is like different, an amalgamation of different. I'm
Speaker 4: like a collage artist of just different stimuli or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. Mainly my characters aren't anyone specifically, but they're
Speaker 4: sort of kind of.
Speaker 3: Songs. There are stories from experiences that you never had.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's just like a collage of different people's experiences or whatever,
Speaker 4: and how they would it's like a fan fiction of
Speaker 4: of life of people and stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, they got they got that joke.
Speaker 4: Okay, well I didn't even mean to make that.
Speaker 3: Christian is a song called fan fiction and he and
Speaker 3: they laughed, and I think it's because they know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm ashamed I didn't pick up on.
Speaker 4: Well I didn't pick up on it either, and I'm
Speaker 4: embarrassed that I accidentally quoted myself.
Speaker 1: So you know, I want to ask.
Speaker 2: Maya, you're as some maybe still are a fan of
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift totally.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, how, yes, how what? How could
Speaker 3: you not be? She's the goat, Like she is inspired
Speaker 3: a generation of songwriters to be themselves and to be
Speaker 3: free and believe in themselves.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to hit on. So what is
Speaker 1: it about her songwriting and her influence.
Speaker 3: She's an extraordinary musician who I'm pretty sure can do anything,
Speaker 3: but I think she chooses to write songs that are
Speaker 3: really simple and really approachable or you know, like a
Speaker 3: lot of the time musically, and so much music is
Speaker 3: so intimidating, especially for young women, and I think it
Speaker 3: is really When I was a little girl and I
Speaker 3: like got my first guitar and I went home and
Speaker 3: I like typed in, Oh, I want to learn how
Speaker 3: to play you know, all you need is love by
Speaker 3: the Beatles, And I was like, I can't like what
Speaker 3: the I mean, maybe that one is actually kind of simple,
Speaker 3: but like it's weird, right, okay, Like and I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I can't do this. And then I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is so discouraging, right, I'm so like, I feel
Speaker 3: so bad about myself that I can't It sounds so
Speaker 3: simple when I listen to it, but when I try
Speaker 3: to do it, I can't do it. And then I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, I'm gonna learn to play Taylor Swift's
Speaker 3: hours and I was like, oh, I obviously can't play
Speaker 3: it as well as she can, but I can play it.
Speaker 3: I can sit in front of my family and be
Speaker 3: like these are the chords, and I'm playing it and
Speaker 3: I'm singing this song and so encouraging, like it's so
Speaker 3: inspiring and it makes me feel like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: a song that I love that change my life and
Speaker 3: inspires me is accessible to me, and it makes you
Speaker 3: believe that you can write songs and that you could
Speaker 3: write songs that could change the world.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like punk rock. It's like the Ramones or whatever.
Speaker 4: When you I'm sure that like everyone that plays music
Speaker 4: had the moment where they're like, oh shit, I could
Speaker 4: do this today.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, right now, Yeah, just go to.
Speaker 4: Like the thrift store and buy the thing and I
Speaker 4: could play like fucking whatever.
Speaker 5: That's what Taylor Swift does.
Speaker 3: I think, And then she does that, and then it
Speaker 3: also happens to have like written I think a lot
Speaker 3: of the greatest songs of the last twenty years and
Speaker 3: like an over and over again album after album, and
Speaker 3: it's pretty impressive and does it well being like pretty
Speaker 3: incredible role model at the same time and not seeming
Speaker 3: to have that be too much of a burden. So
Speaker 3: it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is your favorite Taylor Swift album?
Speaker 3: Fearless? But I've been in the game from the beginning,
Speaker 3: and you can't replace your first experience, you know, So
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't. I don't. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say it was the best album, but it is my favorite.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also he did fall in love to a
Speaker 3: Taylor's to to to Fearless, the Fearless song, and then
Speaker 3: it's some red, so I would say, like Fearless Red
Speaker 3: and then Torture Poet's Department.
Speaker 1: Wow, you guys fell in love to Fearless.
Speaker 5: We had some pivotal We've had some exaggeration bonding moments.
Speaker 3: It's most men that you meet as a young woman
Speaker 3: when you say you like Taylor Swift, they say, oh,
Speaker 3: that's so annoying. Don't put it onto the car. I
Speaker 3: don't want to listen to it. I don't like, Oh,
Speaker 3: you're so like And you get to meet one who
Speaker 3: puts it on in the car on purpose, not to
Speaker 3: manipulate you. It's a pretty big deal, you know.
Speaker 5: Christian, I'm speechless.
Speaker 3: He's a lifelong fan. He like's like he's on. He
Speaker 3: heard Taylor on the country radio and went to go
Speaker 3: see her live during the Fearless Fearless era.
Speaker 4: During the self Title Self Title era, I was, I
Speaker 4: grew up in LA and there's one country stage. I
Speaker 4: don't know what there is now, but there's one country station.
Speaker 4: Go country right. I don't know what the numbers are,
Speaker 4: but the or the letters, but it was teardrops on
Speaker 4: my guitar. They started playing, and I was like, I
Speaker 4: used to listen to country music because my dad introduced
Speaker 4: me to Hank Williams.
Speaker 5: And I was like, this is fucking rocks. This guy
Speaker 5: is amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this new music from the nineteen forties. And when
Speaker 4: I listened to country music mainly as a joke because
Speaker 4: you could turn it on and be like, damn you hilarious.
Speaker 4: They're punning on this truck so hard, like a song
Speaker 4: after song truck puns, fish puns and Taylor Swift or whatever,
Speaker 4: Tim McGraw or whatever I think is what it was.
Speaker 4: That and I was like, this is amazing and like
Speaker 4: like weirdly like meta and felt like the Internet at
Speaker 4: that time and like the MySpace days of the internet.
Speaker 5: Or whatever, and it was cool.
Speaker 4: And I called into the radio station and won tickets
Speaker 4: on the radio to go see her first LA show
Speaker 4: and went and was very an embarrassed, like fifteen year
Speaker 4: old boy who was like, oh shit, it's a bunch
Speaker 4: of little kids here and I was front row, uh.
Speaker 5: Just ripping it. It was amazing, could go.
Speaker 4: I went with my best friend at the time, Michael Mann,
Speaker 4: who is not the director but a different guy.
Speaker 3: So in other words, I'm the luckiest woman in the world.
Speaker 1: That is phenomenal.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about Heavy Rain from your
Speaker 2: newest album. I'm so glad that you do that is
Speaker 2: it's stunning. It's a gorgeous song, and there's like some
Speaker 2: like halfway through something happens halfway through one of the
Speaker 2: core verses that is like I don't even know what
Speaker 2: you guys do, Like something just.
Speaker 1: Changes. I wish I could play it.
Speaker 5: That's my yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean there's a modulation that happens because Maya. I
Speaker 4: was on tour in Europe and Maya had sent me
Speaker 4: of this that we tried the old method of Maya
Speaker 4: sends a poem and like a vague melody and try
Speaker 4: to map it out. And Maya sent me like this
Speaker 4: crazy melody that modulated all over the place. And then
Speaker 4: I'd sort of figured, I don't even think I've really
Speaker 4: figured out how to do it, but figured out how
Speaker 4: to modulate the into a different key at just boring.
Speaker 2: You, figured how to do the guitar, how to play
Speaker 2: against what she.
Speaker 5: Was singing, Yeah, and like change it.
Speaker 4: She went into a different key in a way that
Speaker 4: was really effortless and like kind of like WHOA, just
Speaker 4: something I never would have thought to do that.
Speaker 5: You know, have you ever seen on.
Speaker 4: YouTube those videos of people like re harmonizing like a
Speaker 4: guy on the news or something like that. Yeah, or
Speaker 4: like sort of like I tried to do that with
Speaker 4: the thing that she sent over.
Speaker 3: It was a really cool That song was really fun
Speaker 3: to write and fun to communicate about, and came from
Speaker 3: a really special Like some some songs kind of drop
Speaker 3: out of the air, and that was one of them.
Speaker 3: I was having a weird day and I went with
Speaker 3: my my brother was doing a play at Lincoln Center,
Speaker 3: which had been a lifelong dream of mine. And I
Speaker 3: walked him to the stage door and then we sat
Speaker 3: out on a bench and we were just like talking
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, just the like you know
Speaker 3: when the sky just like rips open and dumps water
Speaker 3: like out of the blue, and it just and it did.
Speaker 3: And I got into a cab and I wrote ninety
Speaker 3: percent of that song in the cab, like running away
Speaker 3: from the rain while he went into the stage door.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And and it was and I like, and it's now
Speaker 3: that's like my favorite song. We really Christian taught me
Speaker 3: about Judy Sill, beautiful, one of my favorite Yeah series
Speaker 3: and songwriters ever, and we really I was like feeling
Speaker 3: very in inspired by her at the time, and we
Speaker 3: were really inspired by her for the production on the
Speaker 3: song awesome. And I so it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but that song feels very magic magic to me.
Speaker 2: Wow, I would There's no way I ever would have
Speaker 2: imagined Judy Sill was the inspiration for Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Well, last break and we'll be back with Maya and Christian.
Speaker 2: Were you aware of that modulation you did or was
Speaker 2: that just that was it? Was it a conscious effort
Speaker 2: to do that or a just decision.
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all. I mean I was just
Speaker 3: like in the cab, I think, and was like, oh no,
Speaker 3: this was later Christian like sent me back a voice
Speaker 3: memo of like him putting music to the song, and
Speaker 3: I was like, it's it's really good, it's really good.
Speaker 3: But for the bridge, I was just I was hearing
Speaker 3: this thing and I'm not trying I'll try to sing
Speaker 3: it for you. It's like, you know, it goes like this,
Speaker 3: and I and I sang it into the thing.
Speaker 5: And for the bridge, it's.
Speaker 4: Just like this really complicated, like baroque ass, fucking like
Speaker 4: Gregorian chant, fucking like deep music thing that I've never
Speaker 4: heard of. I feel like I had to go to
Speaker 4: the library to like figure out what it was like. No,
Speaker 4: just this like little thing that's like the most insane
Speaker 4: thing you've ever heard of.
Speaker 5: Well, I've been musically incredible.
Speaker 3: I've been working on having more security with instrumentation, but
Speaker 3: I'm not a very secure player. But I love to sing,
Speaker 3: and I sing a lot of melodies, and so I'm like,
Speaker 3: oftentimes melodies will come to me, but I don't understand
Speaker 3: the chordal makeup of them, and so I and and
Speaker 3: usually they're just like naturally within a key, but sometimes
Speaker 3: they're not. And this one it wasn't. But I swear
Speaker 3: to god, I didn't even write this song. It dropped
Speaker 3: out of this guy and Christian helped bring it to life,
Speaker 3: and I don't I don't give myself any credit.
Speaker 1: Did you did you write? Did you win the cab?
Speaker 1: Did you write it on a notepad or was it
Speaker 1: my notes?
Speaker 3: App Well, it was raining. I am usually a notepad girl,
Speaker 3: but you know what, inclement weather, it's.
Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good notepad weather when.
Speaker 2: It's Yeah, speaking of Gregorian, uh devil, the Devil you
Speaker 2: know feels and uh, it feels a little Gregorian in
Speaker 2: some ways.
Speaker 1: The way the vocal is produced. You know.
Speaker 3: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I feel like you did something similar on
Speaker 2: on your previous album on Better Totally.
Speaker 3: Thank you for connecting like.
Speaker 4: The first person ever to bring up this song that
Speaker 4: we were like the day in the studio where like
Speaker 4: this fucking rocks.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is gonna be such a big hit.
Speaker 3: I think like a really cool rapper is gonna sample
Speaker 3: this and put it in there, Like I think this
Speaker 3: is gonna be the you know what eminem what's the
Speaker 3: song where he samples Dido. I think this is gonna
Speaker 3: be I think this is going to end up on
Speaker 3: like so confident. It's like when I go to my
Speaker 3: Spotify for artists, roll down, it's like the bottom one
Speaker 3: I was. I am the uncanary in the coal mine.
Speaker 3: If I think something is going to succeed, it means
Speaker 3: it will not.
Speaker 1: But uh, maybe that says the same thing about me too.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Good. You should never pick a single.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, I mean neither, But I really I
Speaker 3: think you're so right in some ways, my like dream
Speaker 3: of what I wanted to have happened with that song
Speaker 3: is kind of what we tried to do with them
Speaker 3: well you know, which I'd never thought about before, but
Speaker 3: kind of happened. We got I got really Uh that
Speaker 3: song kind of came out of I wrote a crazy
Speaker 3: poem and Christian and I were writing a lot of
Speaker 3: music for this record, and he was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I think you should send that poem to Ben Ben,
Speaker 3: who did Blush and and Ben is like just always
Speaker 3: doing such weird rhythmic stuff and is really good at
Speaker 3: like talkie weird melodic changes, and he kind of wrote
Speaker 3: all those verse melodies. And then similarly, he was like,
Speaker 3: how should the chorus? And he was like, should I
Speaker 3: work on the chorus? And I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I have the chorus. And we were lying in bed
Speaker 3: on Christmas and I sent Ben a voice memo of
Speaker 3: me doing deal with the Devil, you know, And and
Speaker 3: that's still the audio that's he put that ice memo
Speaker 3: through a voice voecoder and and that's still the audio
Speaker 3: that's on the that on the song that came out.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, you did you add anything to the voice?
Speaker 1: Did you add any layers to the vocal?
Speaker 3: I think we we it's vogue coder with the voice memo,
Speaker 3: and then I think I overdubbed the lead, but I'm
Speaker 3: not sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Ben is like always there's like sneakily like it's like
Speaker 4: two hundred something.
Speaker 3: He's always like, great, let's do a double, let's do
Speaker 3: a triple. What if we quadrupled it? What if we
Speaker 3: you know, quintupled it?
Speaker 1: And he did you? And did he?
Speaker 2: I guess he recorded you guys recorded some of this
Speaker 2: at Ben's place. Just that song, just that song, okay,
Speaker 2: And but that was his place.
Speaker 3: In and then he recorded other pieces on the other
Speaker 3: two songs that he worked on, which was last Thoughts
Speaker 3: on Morning Star or not that he worked on a
Speaker 3: ton of them, but last Thoughts on Morning Star and
Speaker 3: uh in terms of estrangement, yes, yes, yes, and he
Speaker 3: did a lot of pieces of those in his studio
Speaker 3: in La But I wasn't there for it, got it,
Speaker 3: but devil you and I was there for it with him.
Speaker 1: So cool.
Speaker 2: So you guys have a little You guys are gonna
Speaker 2: do a tour for the and I should ask you that,
Speaker 2: can you? I don't want to mess up the name
Speaker 2: Matria my trea.
Speaker 3: I mean, God knows, it's an ancient word. How do
Speaker 3: you say it? I don't know. That's how I say it,
Speaker 3: and how my mom and dad say it, and I
Speaker 3: don't know, but.
Speaker 1: Uh, I should add what does it mean?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 1: What Trea my traya is?
Speaker 3: The word comes from Tibetan Buddhism. She's a boody sapha.
Speaker 3: But what kind of why it's my trea? Corso? I
Speaker 3: mean Corso is after Gregory Corso, the beat poet. But
Speaker 3: I wanted this. We've been reading fantasy literature together for
Speaker 3: the last two years, we've been reading like every single
Speaker 3: Sarah J. Moss book and all of the Fourth Wing,
Speaker 3: and we've just been having so much fun with our private,
Speaker 3: little secret smutty book club and it's been amazing. And
Speaker 3: I love fan to see, you know, my whole life.
Speaker 3: And I really just like my imagination ran away with
Speaker 3: these visuals of like these kind of brave, powerful, sword
Speaker 3: carrying women, and I wanted this album to have a lead,
Speaker 3: to be a journey, you know, And it's I really
Speaker 3: I see it that way, Like if if the first
Speaker 3: song is love of My Life, what if I got
Speaker 3: what I wanted and the last song is dream House,
Speaker 3: it's a it's a it's an album about doing what
Speaker 3: needs to be done to learn enough about yourself to
Speaker 3: get what you want. Wow, And I uh. And so
Speaker 3: I wanted it to feel like a journey, like an
Speaker 3: epic quest. And how do you tell an epic quest, Well,
Speaker 3: you need an epic heroin and uh. And I wanted
Speaker 3: to give the epic heroin an epic name. And so
Speaker 3: you know, the heroine of My Dreams is my Trey
Speaker 3: of Corso.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful too, and it's rare that you can like
Speaker 2: google something these days and not.
Speaker 1: Find an answer. Yeah, a kudos on that.
Speaker 5: It's a rebellion in some.
Speaker 3: Ways'm raging against the internet. Yes, yes, I want to
Speaker 3: be ungoogleable. Never gonna happen, Never gonna happen. My whole
Speaker 3: life totally googleable. I was joking in the day, was like,
Speaker 3: everyone I know I can google their birthday. I don't
Speaker 3: need to remember their birthday because I can look it up.
Speaker 3: And that's my weird life.
Speaker 5: But anyway, sadly I've.
Speaker 1: Done that for friends.
Speaker 3: It'll be on the next record.
Speaker 1: But yeah, are you gonna do you? Are you?
Speaker 2: I imagine you guys are gonna keep making music in
Speaker 2: all kinds of different iterations, right.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, probably certainly in all kinds of iterations.
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 3: So that's the plan. We'll see.
Speaker 5: Do you.
Speaker 2: Do you ever, because you're also make incredible music, Christian,
Speaker 2: thank you?
Speaker 1: Do you ever bring Maya into that process?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? I mean it's we my last record. We wrote
Speaker 4: a lot of it together.
Speaker 3: Whenever I'm usually flattering to me, I'd never written on
Speaker 3: anyone else's record ever, and it kind of I never
Speaker 3: thought anyone ever want me to and meant the world
Speaker 3: to me to be included in that way.
Speaker 4: I'd also never had anyone right on that might be
Speaker 4: on like oh cool, that was your idea and I
Speaker 4: expanded upon it or whatever it was. Maya is one
Speaker 4: of my songwriting heroes, so I think like most songwriters,
Speaker 4: I know, they have like a little collection of five
Speaker 4: different people that they'll send voice memos to when they're
Speaker 4: like think they have a good idea and be like
Speaker 4: do I suck?
Speaker 5: Or like what's what's up?
Speaker 1: Like safe places.
Speaker 4: Maya's my number one guy to send stuff too, so
Speaker 4: it's always like, I don't know. We work on all
Speaker 4: kinds of my stuff together and her stuff, and it's
Speaker 4: kind of like it gets blurry occasionally and then.
Speaker 3: We fight about it and then we figured it out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I always figure out. I'm like, no, I want that,
Speaker 5: and you're like, no, I want that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I gotta see.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm somewhat jealous of the I mean, it's really
Speaker 2: beautiful that you guys.
Speaker 1: Not only do you have the sort of musical.
Speaker 2: Connection and collaboration element, but the smutty book Club and.
Speaker 3: The Carport's good.
Speaker 2: I highly recommend the drawing of cartoon characters to get
Speaker 2: out to you. I mean, you guys have an incredible
Speaker 2: amount of you know, ways of bonding that are just
Speaker 2: like really, I don't know, I don't know. Not everyone
Speaker 2: has that, you know, these really deep, incredible but yet
Speaker 2: fun ways to create.
Speaker 1: Bonds and create memories.
Speaker 2: And it's really beautiful and the album is really, really,
Speaker 2: really good. I wish I could play heavy ring because
Speaker 2: that is my it's my favorite song right now.
Speaker 3: I wish we could do. We haven't worked it up yet,
Speaker 3: and as we've talked about for about twenty minutes, is hard.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very difficult.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I need to like go back to school for
Speaker 4: four years to learn how to play.
Speaker 5: It for a little tool.
Speaker 3: We'll play it on tour because it's my favorite song
Speaker 3: on the record too, But but I do not feel qualif.
Speaker 5: Tonight even qualified to think about it really.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great, Well they'll get a chance to see it on tour.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see it as myself. And thanks
Speaker 2: so much for coming out, guys, and so.
Speaker 5: Happy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Really awesome be able to listen to the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thanks my hawk, Christian Lee Hudson, Thanks guys,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 2: An episode of description you'll find a link to a
Speaker 2: playlist of our favorite songs from both Maya Hawk and
Speaker 2: Christian Lee Hudson. Be sure to check out YouTube dot
Speaker 2: com slash Broken Record Podcast to see you all of
Speaker 2: our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on
Speaker 2: Instagram at the Broken Record pot. Broken Record is produced
Speaker 2: and edited by Leah Rhoads, with marketing help from Eric
Speaker 2: Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken
Speaker 2: Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
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Speaker 2: if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
Speaker 2: and review us on your podcast app. Our theme musics
Speaker 2: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.