Since taking Australian airwaves by storm with her debut single ‘Slow Mover’, life for Angie McMahon has been anything but.
“Music is like a full-time job,” says the Melbourne based singer-songwriter. “There’s been a lot of gigs and a lot of planning making the album, all the kind of stuff that comes with the music career, it’s taken over a little bit.”
Music has been a huge part of McMahon’s life since she was a child. She played piano, took up trumpet, and sang in the school choir before taking singing lessons and honing her skills. Even before she broke out as a solo artist she’d already dipped her toes into the music industry, playing in a nine-piece-brass band called The Fabric.
“I was co-writing the songs and we had a horn section,” she remembers. “We put out an EP and it was really fun, and it was a really good way to get into the music scene.”
Going from playing with a band to playing solo might seem like a daunting experience, but McMahon prefers the stillness and autonomy that came with it.
“I’ve always played solo gigs here and there,” she says. “I really loved being able to pause and be in complete control of the room and have moments of silence and weave as many emotions in as possible.
“Sometimes when you’ve got nine people in a band it’s too much noise to be able to do that or there’s too much energy, and I’m just not someone who has a lot of energy all the time.”
The pursuit of a solo career paid off, with McMahon’s ‘Slow Mover’ taking out spot 33 in triple j’s Hottest 100 the year it was released. The overwhelming response to her music was mind-blowing for the young singer, although she now feels a sort of distance between herself and the track.
“It was pretty unreal, I still get messages about that song and it feels like it’s taken on a life of its own,” she says. “It means that I don’t really have to worry about it, it’s out there in the world and people can enjoy it and I’m really grateful for that.”
Since then, she’s been busy working on her first full-length album, releasing songs ‘Missing Me’ and ‘Keeping Time’ to tide fans over until it’s complete. But knowing that people are waiting on her to release new music isn’t a daunting thought for McMahon, who is humbled by it instead.
“I really like being able to write for people to hear, because it’s such a blessing to be able to share art with people and actually have an audience, like I think that a lot of artists really want that,” she says.
“Making time to be able to write is quite hard and the pressures are definitely there, but I don’t think that it comes from listeners. I think that they’re the best part of it.”
It’s no surprise then that McMahon puts so much of herself into what she does, not only in writing, but the performing too. The singer has toured prolifically over the past year, playing headline shows in Australia and overseas, and even tagged along with Angus and Julia Stone for a run of shows in May.
“I remember listening to Angus and Julia Stone when I was in school, and they have this song ‘And The Boys.’ I made a cover of that song and I uploaded it to Facebook when you could upload songs – it was one of the first bits of music I put online. I never would’ve thought in however many years’ time I’d be spending a month with those guys on the road and becoming friends with them.”
Sadly, though, she never got to show them her version of the track.
“I’ve no idea where it is,” she laughs. “But I asked them to play that song because I was like ‘Please it’s my favourite’ and they did, which was really nice. I really hope no one finds it.”
