INTERVIEW: Paige teams up with Ant Saunders on her latest single ‘Miles Away’: "I want to write music that people can connect to on a deeper level."

New Zealand’s Paige first released music in 2017 with the EP On My Own and ever since has attracted global acclaim. Her music embraces warm indiepop with the occasional splash of electronic pop and has been shared by superstars Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Ruby Rose, accumulating over 40 million streams.

She recently released her new single ‘Miles Away’, a collaboration with American singer Ant Saunders. The song is a gorgeously gentle pop ballad that leans heavily into soul and R&B and explores the concept of intimacy without touch: “I'll keep you close to me / Your spirited love / I feel so in touch from miles away,” she sings.

“Working with Ant on ‘Miles Away’ has been really beautiful as we both have our own interpretation of what this song means to us,” Paige says about the creation of the track. “It can be digested in so many different ways and we’re excited to see what this song means for others and how it relates to them.”

‘Miles Away’ follows the single ‘I Hope You Knew’ which will features on an upcoming project from Paige which she also teased music from during her support slot on Holly Humberstone’s recent New Zealand tour.

Paige is a remarkable talent who seems to burn brighter and brighter with every release. Full of love, heartbreak and dreams it is music to hold close and happily drown in. We recently caught up with Paige to find out more.

Hi Paige! My goodness, what a voice and ear and a brain to pour into such beautiful dexterous, simple, but at the same time encompassing songs. Seriously, you're phenomenal. Thank you, first of all, and how are things with you?
Oh, thanks first of all, that's so nice. I'm good. I am just working on heaps of music at the moment, just trying to put stuff out and trying not to get COVID while doing it! I'm glad the world’s back to normal a little bit.

You're making the music that we all listen to when we're wrapped up in our blankets or in our cars, so you definitely can't go down! Because if you go down, we didn't have anything else to listen to.
I'll try and remain a comfort to the people!

New single ‘Miles Away’, just between you and I actually forgot that I had to do a write up on it because I just kept pressing play and play and play. It is so beautiful and it champions both your and Ant’s vocals just so beautifully. It's the song that every human heart has sung at least once in their lives. It's beautiful, so congratulations. Talk me through it.
Thank you. That's such a beautiful thing to say about it. I appreciate that so much. I wrote it with two of my friends, Josh Naley and Ash Wallace and we wrote it about love without affection. Intimacy that doesn't involve physical touch, like laughter and human connection and talking to each other and stuff like that, and how that's the greatest form of intimacy. I think people could probably relate to the song if they've lost somebody that they love, or if somebody lives far away from them. There's also that intimacy that comes with distance. I've been in a long distance relationship in my lifetime so I can understand how you have to be intimate in different ways than physical touch. You have to connect by speaking about things that you both are passionate about, and that's just as beautiful as a hug.

That's so beautiful. Earlier this year, we also received ‘I Hope You Knew’ which is such a beautiful track. I love reading people's comments about this song, the message boards are just like, ‘Oh my God, thank you Paige’. You've got such an amazing community and they don't seem to fit into any demographic, it's really gorgeous. What is it that makes a song for you? Because you've clearly nailed it.
I hope I've nailed it. I feel like I'm quite a selfish songwriter in the way that I write from my own self expression. I feel like if I've written a song, and I've expressed everything that I feel in that moment, and I execute those emotions, well that's when I know I've written a song that I love. But I do also want to write music that people can connect to on a deeper level. I want to be writing about things that people can listen to and be like, ‘oh, man, I've never heard something that explains my situation so well’. That's what I try to do with my music and I hope that I've done that with these two songs. I think I have. That’s what makes a good song for me.

Growing up, were you always writing? Were you always singing?
I was always singing. I started performing when I was five at community talent shows and stuff like that. And then I started singing in bars, but I only really started writing proper songs when I was about 12. But it's always been something that I've felt passionate about

You were always singing and you're singing other people's songs. Who were those artists that you were listening to made you think ‘Oh, hold on. I can do this too’.
When Ed Sheeran came onto the scene, he was a big influence for a lot of songwriters. But especially for me, he has a song called ‘Autumn Leaves’, which I loved. I sang it at my uncle's funeral, I thought that it was such a great way to express everything at that time, and I was so inspired by it. I was like, ‘oh, man, I really would love to write songs like this, with metaphorical deeper meaning’. Ed Sheeran was my first and then I really like Lady Gaga as well, I like her songwriting in particular. I think she is really cool and has a really interesting way to articulate herself. So you're probably them too.

That's two very good heroes to follow. During the initial global collapse with COVID, you also launched a mini series of podcasts, Paige’s Space, exploring sexuality and love and mental health and predominantly just your own navigation in growing up. It was so beautiful. Can you talk me through your reasonings behind it?
Yeah. When I think about my passions in life, obviously it's music, but it's music because of the connection I have with people. With a podcast, I could connect in conversation with people, and that's why I wanted to do it. I'm really passionate about mental health and I'm really passionate about the LGBTQI+ community and I just wanted to have a platform where I could speak with people. I kind of used it as an excuse to talk to people! I'm so fascinated by all the people that I talked to and I'd love to do it again with more of a free flow, less structure in the podcast. I love listening to podcasts as well. It was just a way to connect with people during the pandemic and I got some really good conversations out of it.

I'm loving this new generation of artists that have so many more tools available to them to really reach their audience and their listeners. You've created this podcast, there are other people making fanzines there is all these things to go ‘okay, there's my song, there's my story, but there's also this other avenue for my story’. And that's where you get these fans that you just mean so much because you're singing and speaking and living the truth of your lyrics. It's gorgeous.
It's a pretty interesting time we're living in now where it's so much more than just the songs. It's quite fun, and I'd like to do another podcast again, at some point.

Watch this space people! You recently opened for Sydney's wonderful grentperez, what an amazing pairing. You've performed with some very impressive artists, George Ezra, Nina Nesbitt, Holly Humberstone. How are you loving this tour life and these live performances?
I love [playing] live. The thing that makes me want to do music is performing. A lot of people give me a bit of credit for the songwriting that I do, but I only write songs because I want to perform them, and I want to connect with people in person. So I really enjoy it, and I really enjoyed the grentperez show, I think that was one of my favourite shows. I opened for Ruel in 2019, and that was my favourite one as well, just because I love how excited people get. I want to do more touring. It’s just so fun. I never want to stop doing it.

We have obviously ‘Miles Away’, which is just going to be played and played and played and put onto mixtapes and sent to loved ones and all the things that it will become. Tell me Paige, what else is coming up for you this year?
This year, I have one more song coming out next month, which will be really cool. And then I have some shows in New Zealand with Six60. And then next year, I have the album. My album is quite an honest album, half of the things that make me a good person and half the things that make me a not so good person. I want to help people understand that nobody's perfect, and [the album] glorifies the idea of imperfection. It's what I'm trying to do with my music at the moment. There's lots more music to look forward to, which will be fun.

‘Miles Away’ is out now via Sony Music. You can listen here.

To keep up with all things Paige you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.