INTERVIEW: Brittany Maggs releases 'Underneath the Sheets' remix: "I'm in this because I want to hear how my music changes people's lives"

Interview: Jett Tattersall

Australia’s Brittany Maggs has been forging her music career since the age of 16, spending many years honing her craft in LA studios under the guidance of Gabriella Mosci, Syco Music’s US marketing director. After returning to Australia in 2018, her career took off after she released a number of acclaimed singles and an EP From Me To You. Alongside her original music, she also attracted attention with her cover versions, scoring an incredible six million views on her YouTube channel. Last year she was handpicked by Dami Im to accompany her on her nationwide tour and this February she released her first new music of the year with the single ‘Underneath The Sheets’. A smooth, addictive pop track that marries classic R&B vibes with a driving electro beat coupled with a voice that is both sassy and beautifully warm, it’s a dream of a track that is further proof Maggs has all the makings of a future global superstar. On Friday, she released a remix of the track from acclaimed DJ Tigerlily and we recently sat down with Brittany to find out everything about her music, career and future plans.

You recently released ‘Underneath the Sheets’, both the original and now a remix by DJ Tigerlily. How are things with you these days?
Really busy! Just working on heaps of music and obviously trying to work this track because it's only just been released. It's been really busy, but good. 

I feel ‘Underneath the Sheets’ is like a beautiful summer driving song. I can even see it on European radio stations which will kick off their summer now. They'll just play it back to back. It's like that poolside perfection. It’s so summery
That's exactly how I imagined the song is a summer track that you can drive to. 

Those summer visuals aside, I'm starting to pull apart the lyrics and it ain’t so much a poolside jam. Can you talk me through your inspiration or the story behind this one?
Yeah, the song's about a girl that's really, really in love with a guy that treats her really well behind closed doors. But the second they're out in public, it's not the same kind of relationship. He only wants her sometimes, but she wants him all the time. But she just can't seem to leave him because she just loves him too much. She kind of keeps falling back into this relationship where it's just so one sided. You know, the poor girl, that’s all she's going to get. But in some way, she hopes for more, but she knows she won't get it. 

I'm getting almost ‘Complicated’ by Avril Lavigne. She had a similar problem. Very different sounding song, but similar problem.
Yeah, very much so actually. No one's pointed that one out. That's cool. 

You burst onto our radar with the feminist pop hit Lazy Boy. This has been a huge favourite in our office and you then followed it up with a soulful warm kind of fireplace ballad ‘Reasons’. You covered some killer tracks like a boss - Bryan Adams ‘Heaven’ and most recently ‘Someone You Loved’. All of this leading to over 6 million views on YouTube. I want to know has that public traction altered the way you write or perform?
Umm, no I don't think it has at all. I used to always dream of performing. I used to pull people into a room and force them to watch me to perform. It makes me feel excited. It makes me feel ‘okay, they’ve heard me sing, they know what I can do let me show them what I'm actually like live’ because live, you show more of a personality. Doing all these covers has helped me with my writing because they help me to discover different types of genres so I guess in a way it has changed a little bit, but not dramatically

Were you at all surprised with how well your music was received or how the listeners gravitated towards it?
Yes, very much so. Because I release music it's what I love to do. I love music and I don't think I would ever do anything else. When I saw people were streaming my songs and finding me on YouTube and my ‘Someone you Loved’ cover had over 1 million views I literally started crying. I was like a million people are hearing me sing that, that's absolutely insane. If you told 10-year-old me that you're going to do a cover and a million people are going to hear it and now it's over 2 million, that's just crazy. It's like the best feeling ever. 

That's beautiful and that's right. Trying to imagine what 2 million looks like or even more what their faces are when they're listening to your songs. 
Exactly. I could not imagine 2 million people sitting there actually listening to me sing. You know, I love that people take the time out of their days to go from my YouTube and then find me on Instagram to send me messages about how my covers or how my original songs have helped them so much. I think that's the best part about what I do. I get to hear people's stories all the time. 

I'm glad you brought that up because quite often with celebrities or with popstars, the public don't think to give them a shout out or they don't think to send a message to give them that good story. It's so lovely to hear you're reading it and that makes you keep doing what you do.
I literally read everything whether it's my comments, whether it’s my private messages, whether it’s DMs, whether it's on TikTok. I love it. I'm in this because I want to hear how my music changes their lives or even has an impact on them. I love it when people tell me that they can relate to my music and to my songs because then I don't feel like I'm the only person going through that. This person's going through that as well. 

Beautiful. Now, you mentioned speaking to 10-year-old you and it's no secret that you're an incredible song writer. I want to know where did that pull to music, particularly when it comes to writing and lyrics and composition. Where did that start?
I used to sit in my study at home and get up a word document when I was probably like 10 and just sit there and write songs. They were not good songs at all, my dad kept them all and I read over them the other day. They're terrible songs! But I grew up watching Hannah Montana and Camp Rock, High School Musical, all of that. Watching them write their songs was so inspirational because I remember always thinking ‘that's what I want to do’. So when I was young i would sit there and copy melodies from other songs and just put in my own lyrics. At the time I thought that was a song that I’ve written but like looking back now it’s like ‘no that's a full copyright [breach]!’ But that's kind of how it all started. 

Oh, do keep those. They’re going to be worth a million one day!
Yeah, my dad has them all in his office and he often tries to get them out to show me. But some of the lyrics are just so bad! They're back from when I was in school and if my friend was mean to me that day i wrote a song about it. I just read over them and I’m like ‘oh my gosh!’

That's so sweet. I think the whole reason we keep journals and our bad poetry is so we can look back and go ‘I'm better now'!
Literally 11-year-old me poor thing having a fight with a best friend and going home and writing a really sad song that was a copyright of Camp Rock's songs!

It doesn't get any better than that!
No!

I want to talk to you about your relocation to the US to pursue your song writing career. You were 16 years old, that must've been incredible and daunting. What was your plan of attack to break into the scene?
Well I started going there when I was 15 and I was travelling back and forth constantly with a team. We originally just went for a holiday and it just so happened I was in the room with some quiet influential people and they looked at me and said ‘do you sing?’ and I was like ‘oh yeah but I’m not here to sing’. They were like ‘sing!’ So I got up and I sang in front of these people. They really liked me and I got to create my own team through them and then I was travelling so much from 15 to 18 and a half. We were going to release music over there and I had songs ready to go but then I just decided I wanted to come back home and I wanted to establish myself in Australia first because I feel that's such a big thing. I was born here, I was raised here. I wanted to have Australia backing me before anywhere else. I obviously would love everywhere else to back me but having your own country support you is the best thing ever. So, that's why I came back here and just decided you know what? I’ll release music here. 

That's so incredible and very grounded for you to say so because I think most artists particularly would just go ‘well, LA's going to have me first’ and then we lose them. LA clearly crafted a bit of your sound because I'm thinking both ‘Reasons’ and now ‘Underneath the Sheets, both very different songs however, they both have this long drive feeling which I really associate with Los Angeles. 
Yeah, my whole thing I do is, if I won't listen to a song when I’m driving then I won't release it. The only way I’ll release a song is if I know myself I could put it in my Spotify playlist and if it came on I wouldn't skip it. So, when I write my songs I’ll go and I play it in a car and if I ever skip a song I know it's not a song to release. I don't know about you but I spend most of my time driving to and from lots of different places. So I'm constantly listening to a bunch of music and, you know, sometimes I get bored of certain music. But if I don't get bored of my song and the trick is if I can play it twice in a row and not get sick of it then I know this is a song I need to release.

We at Women in Pop cannot get past ‘Lazy Boy’. I know it was inspired by talks with your girlfriends about the so-called lazy boys in the modern dating scene. But it's such an empowering song. I mean, I loved that line ‘you know they say that confidence makes you a bitch… if she can hustle be a baby mama all on her own’. It's so good. And I just think this feminist powerhouse of a debut song it's so refreshing. Especially from a pop debut. How important was this song coming first for you? Why did you choose to go with it?
I had a lot of songs that I was writing and [thinking] ‘maybe I should do this song as my first one?’ But then I went in and I finished ‘Lazy Boy’ and for some reason I just felt it was so important to let everyone know who I was as an artist. I felt like ‘Lazy Boy’ just really put it out there. Sometimes I believe men can be lazy but sometimes women can be lazy too. It's both ways. I just wanted to let them know who I was, I wanted to show my sassy side and my strong side and that I can be tough. I have my own thoughts and my own views on stuff. So, when ‘Lazy Boy’ came about it just so happened when we were thinking which song to release it was International Women's Day. So I said ‘‘Lazy Boy’, we have to do ‘Lazy Boy’ on International Women's Day.’

It was an incredible start. You said you wanted to whip that track and with all your tracks you are very strong and you are very clearly self-aware with who you are and you are very confident and you are very assured of what you want. You said that that's who you were. Do you find that comes from being not just a young performer, but also the fact that you're writing your own songs? Do you feel like you're always having to hammer that down?
Yeah, definitely. Because I am an independent artist and I make my own decisions on everything and I'm very strong on everything I release, everything that goes under my name I have to approve of because I don't ever want to release something that's got nothing to do with me. A song always has to be a part of me. Every single time I do a song. I just want to the song to have a point. I want it to relate to people. That's my main thing - relate to people and let them know they're not alone. 

Beautiful. It totally resonates. Now we talked about your childhood, we talked about you watching Disney Channel, we talked about your song writing as a youth. But I want to know, who were those powerhouse women that you pretended to be when you were singing into your hairbrush in front of the mirror?
Definitely Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana. You know? Her alter ego. That was always like a huge one. I love Ariana Grande. Michael Jackson, I grew up always watching his stuff and being in absolute awe that someone could dance the way he did and sing the way he did. It was insane. I love Beyoncé. I will always love Beyoncé. I think that she has one of the most incredible voices. Her stage presence, the way that she is such a boss as a woman. She is so strong and independent. Growing up I listened so much to Beyoncé, Ariana, Miley Cyrus. Now they still have a huge impact on my music. So does Lewis Capaldi. I love Lewis Capaldi, I wish growing up I had him as someone to look up to. He's so cool. He's so fun and he's just so real.

Beautiful and now I want to ask you before I have to leave you. You nailed a beautiful national tour late last year supporting Dami Im. But what is on the horizon in 2020 for Miss Brittany Maggs?
I’m hopefully getting out an album this year. There's definitely going to be some more songs, some more singles coming. Hopefully another tour or a tour of my own. I'm hoping 2020's going to be a really busy one. So far, it's looking like it's going to be. I love being busy. I love not having a minute to do anything else other than music. 2020 will be a good one. 

‘Underneath the Sheets’ is out now. You can download on iTunes and stream on Apple Music and Spotify.

The DJ Tigerlily remix of ‘Underneath the Sheets’ is also out now. You can download it on iTunes and stream on Apple Music and Spotify.

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