Interview: Maddy Jane releases debut album 'Not All Bad Or Good': "Music is connection and feeling and being human"

Singer-songwriter Maddy Jane today releases her debut album Not All Bad Or Good. Hailing from the tiny Bruny Island off the southwest tip of Tasmania, Jane has been releasing music since 2015 and her warm, jangly, country infused pop rock has attracted several million Spotify streams globally. Recorded at The Grove in 2019 with Jackson Barclay (Vera Blue, Timberwolf, Apes), Jane says Not All Bad Or Good has two themes: self-awareness and opposites. “When writing, although there has been significant growth, it will always be like self-therapy,” she says. “It’s getting it out and expressing myself, and I’m so grateful that people relate to that too because it’s just me getting shit off my chest! But it will always be the most honest I can be.” With heartfelt lyrics and infectious melodies and harmonies that connect with your soul, the songs cover broken love, flirtation and feminism in a way recalling some of the great singer-storytellers.  “Not All Bad Or Good is about different aspects of life, but I think it relates a lot to a game of cards - you play what you get and its life so it’s going to have some highs and it’s going to have the lows.” Jane says.

We recently spoke to Maddy to find out more about the creation of Not All Bad Or Good.

Hi Maddy, how are things with you in these very strange hours? 
I was just saying we're kind of getting used to it now. I was in prep for albums before this so I was already kind of isolated. I’m ready to get back out there, but, you know, prolonged it a little bit. 

Huge congratulations on your very first and very kick arse album Not All Bad Or Good. How does it feel to have it out across the world?
It's crazy and it's especially weird right now. This should be the most exciting time of my life but it's also a really dampened time for the whole world. I’m just hoping that getting it out can bring some good. People can listen to music while they're still in isolation, so we thought we'd get it out.

I want to talk about the single ‘Perfection’s a Thing and You’re It’. It’s just so good and the video is perfect. What was the story behind it?
A lot of my songs come from really personal and sometimes quite specific interactions with people. This song came from having confrontation with people and kind of realising that if you’re going to paint yourself as perfect and you think you're perfect you're self-sabotaging really, aren't you? It just came from realising perfection is not a thing. So why would you aim for it? Let's forget about that and all be our imperfect selves.

The video goes hand in absolute hand with that. Can you talk me through the creation of that video
It was a bit of a long process. The proms theme came from when we did a prom scene gig at the end of last year in Wollongong and it was all really kitschy and such a cute vibe, it was so nice. My initial idea for this film clip was to have drag queens in it because I knew that's almost how I was acting a little bit in that film clip. To me drag just encapsulates that ‘we don't think we're perfect but we are so perfect because we are our own characters’. That was the initial idea that didn't work out in the end. The prom idea was basically me accepting that I could do that and that's what I wanted to get across. That ‘let go’ kind of attitude. 

Your videos are incredible. We absolutely love ‘Something Old and Something New’ which was the album’s leading single. That's one hell of a cinematic video that has so much heart and it's really ringing true to what the song is. Clearly you're 100% engaged in the production of your music from the sound to the video. How important is that to you, and does it ever hold you back a little bit being in that much control?
Absolutely. It was a big learning curve for me to go ‘it's not done once you've recorded the song’. The creative side of it and having to come up with ideas, it does come from that fear of worrying that it's not going to be portrayed right because I do put so much work into the song. I feel like to do it justice I need to work on all the other aspects around it and make sure that I think I am at least translating those things. But there's also moments where my ideas are limited and it's really good to get input.

You've described your song writing process as self-therapy. Can you talk to me a bit about that? 
It's literally like trying to find the right words to figure out what you're going through and that's kind of what song writing is for me. It's like I've written it all out and it's like ‘Okay, that's what happened. That's why I felt this way’. And then there's the other aspect of getting it out. It’s out, right? It's dealt with. That's just what I enjoy putting it down on paper, like ‘this is what I've figured out’. It’s an extra amazing thing that people relate to what I'm putting out there.

Growing up and listening to music, did you feel that storytelling was missing, or the honesty of it, from the songs on the radio, and was it something that you wanted to bring to it or was it just something you wanted to add to?
Yeah, that's really interesting. Growing up, there was a bit of a gap but then when you did find those people that were doing things you were just blown it away. Someone who's come up recently who I didn't really realise was a huge influence was Lily Allen. She was doing all those songs like ‘Fuck You’ and saying some really feminist things. It's just that brutal honesty that you can laugh at. Then people like Courtney Barnett, she was just huge for me. I remember listening to her debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit and I was like ‘wow, I can actually talk about the mundane, it's just so real, there's no beating around. There's no snottiness’. I guess that goes with my personality. I'm drawn to that.

So do you feel now that you are making the music that you needed to hear growing up?
I can never really know. If I was 16 and I knew that I was doing this stuff I probably would absolutely love what I was doing. But there's still that element of I don't really know what my songs are to other people and will never really know. At this point I'm just putting them out and I'm like ‘that's what that is.’

I think that’s their most resonating quality, the fact you're not trying to market them. You’re just putting them out for honesty. We just noted some incredible Women in Pop there, but the indie rock scene is notoriously one hell of a boys' club. I wanted to know have you ever felt like that you've had to fight harder or fight longer just to earn a bit of respect as a solo artist?
Yeah, and I wonder if that's initially why my music is so blunt and straight to the point. It's just about cutting through it. Obviously as a woman, you do gravitate to these women that you can relate to and that are coming out and saying some things that are like ‘yeah, wow’. The obvious. The things that people don't say. I don't know if it's kind of a nature nurture thing, but you’re definitely walking around as a woman already geared up for that push. You know, there's been amazing instances of when I played at an all women’s line up festival in Queensland, Amy Shark was headlining. Before I got on stage I picked out my guitar from the guitar case and one of these old stage managers he just laughed and went ‘oh can you play that thing?’ At an all-woman festival. He came up and apologised after he got called out on stage! There's a song on my album called ‘Femme' which I really try to kind of address the fact we've come far, but there's so much left and it's just going to happen now so just accept it. We've had those women who've put their foot down and we've said all the things that we needed to - this is not right. We've done that. It's just equality time. Take it or learn, or don't you know?

You clearly love a live show and I just want to know what is it about them that gets you fired up?
Live is just when the music is pure connection in the moment. It’s a bunch of humans and they all have such a different experience with your music. Whether they’re just watching it and don’t know who I am or whether they're up the front singing every word. It's more real and raw. There's just that connection and I think, through this crisis, that is thing we're all really missing now and kind of realising that is the thing that this industry is pretty much all about. It's music, but music is connection and feeling and being human. 

Absolutely. And hopefully as you're a tour monster there'll be more of that with that with the release of the album… when we’re allowed out of our house. What is on the horizon for you?
This will be over and things will happen again. We've got dates on hold for an album tour towards the end of the year. We've just got to figure out if it’s safe to announce those and if they can happen. When the world is back to normal I'd love to start getting overseas, it's not something I've done a heap of. And yeah just start, you know, plugging away again I guess.

Not All Bad Or Good is out now on Lemon Tree Records through Sony Music.

To keep up with all things Maddy Jane, follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.