- Feb 14, 2020 - Listen to Walking Home on Spotify. Mac Ayres Song 2019.
- Listen to Something to Feel on Spotify. Mac Ayres Album 2018 11 songs.
Mac Ayres is not slowing down anytime soon. Born and raised in Sea Cliff, NY, the 20-year-old multifaceted soul artist is garnering unprecedented acclaim from fans and the music community alike. His biggest hit Easy has received over one million plays on Spotify alone. We discuss with Mac Ayres his SoundCloud origins, recording music in a van, doing one take recording sessions in his bedroom, and his upcoming EP, Drive Slow, releasing on August 11.
Feb 14, 2020 - Listen to This Bag on Spotify. Mac Ayres Song 2018. Mac Ayres 'Easy': Oh you heard What they say Oh, the more things change The more they stay the same Ain't that a shame. Spotify is all the music you’ll ever need. Skip to content. Spotify Click the install file to finish up. If your download didn't start, try again. He takes inspiration from the great singer-songwriters of our time, such as. Jan 6, 2020 - Get to You Again, a song by Mac Ayres on Spotify. Jan 6, 2020 - Get to You Again, a song by Mac Ayres on Spotify. Jan 6, 2020 - Get to You Again, a song by Mac Ayres on Spotify. Jan 6, 2020 - Listen to Get to You Again on Spotify. Mac Ayres Song 2018.
Degenerates Club: When did you start learning and playing instruments?
MA: When I was eleven, my Mom bought me a little Yahama keyboard and I sat at it for nine years. I’ve been singing my whole life, but the keyboard was my first love. I feel like I’ve been singing as long as I’ve been talking.
DC: What is your family background like with music?
MA: I come from the least musically inclined family. They are very supportive, but they aren’t musicians. It was something I found on my own and I just grew with it.
DC: How would you describe the music you created?
MA: Good question. I would describe it as having elements of a lot of different genres in music. I would call it “soul” music if somebody asked me. It has elements of R&B, hip-hop, everything. It’s hard to say.
DC: When creating new songs and beats, what is the process like for you?What about songwriting?
MA: It’s not much of a process at all. Honestly, I love to make music so it’s just something I do, pretty much all day every day. I just sit down and do it.
I used to be a big advocate of writing in a notebook. Lately, I’d say the past seven to eight months, I’ve been using the notes on my phone. It’s easier to hold in the booth and you don’t hear the paper rustling on the board.
DC: What was your first upload to SoundCloud?
MA: Back in early high school I did a cover of Lil Wayne’s How To Love. This has since been deleted. [laughs] This was like 10th grade in 2012 or 2013. I don’t know if anyone knows that. My first upload that is still up was from an EP that no one listened to either. [laughs]
DC: What was it like creating your 4-track EP I Know Enough?
MA: It was amazing. I still appreciate it now for what it’s worth, even though I feel like my music has gotten better. That whole EP was my first introduction into producing my own stuff. I got to experiment with the kind of sound I was going for. I love that EP very much.
DC: What differentiates your “live from my bedroom” recordings besides the name itself?
MA: [laughs] Not a lot to be honest because everything is made in my bedroom. That’s where we’re at right now. “Live from my bedroom” is done all in one take. I queue up the mic and the keys at the same time and whatever happens, happens. I might be releasing a “live from my bedroom” tape on SoundCloud or a Bandcamp variation. You never know with me, I’m a wild card.
DC: Your biggest breakthrough song was Easy so far. How did this track come into fruition? How do you feel about its success today?
MA: Just as any track before and after, I was in my room uploading my original songs to SoundCloud for my family, such as my Grammy, to listen to. The songs would get about 500 plays. When I uploaded Easy, I woke up the next morning to 5,000 plays. I was like “oh, that’s cool,” and it kept growing from there. I’m very proud of it, just like all my music. I love that song. I went on tour with POMO for a couple East Coast dates, so I’ve performed Easy at these shows.
DC: How do you feel about performing at live venues?
MA: I love it! Being so involved in the production side and then being able to perform is two completely different games. Performing is just as important. I’ve been performing in local restaurants since I was eleven or twelve, a couple months after my Mom bought me that keyboard. It’s a big part of who I am as an artist.
When performing, I used to get nervous when I was younger, but I’ve performed for so long now that I get anxious instead right when I’m about to get on. When I’m about to play and the opener is going, I’m in the green room saying “ugh, I need to be on stage right now!” In terms of nervousness with messing up, I never feel that way. Whatever happens, happens, y’know?
DC: What are the stories behind blue skies, circles, and slooow down?
MA: blue skies I made with my good friend Chris Anderson. He writes a lot of my tunes with me and he’s a dope drummer. We made blue skies early on in my production career, so we wrote the whole tune and mixed it all in his Volkswagen the night we were sitting in my driveway. We mixed the whole thing in there. We didn’t have monitors or anything like that. The Volkswagen was our best audio equipment of the time. [laughs] I love that song, too.
circles was pretty much the same thing. I made the groove with Anderson then we mixed it in his car again. [laughs] slooow down was a little different since that was more recent and I wrote that one myself. I worked on it in my room because I have monitors now to do it. They are all about different things, but that’s how most of them were made.
DC: How is it collaborating with different artists? What collabs have been spontaneous?
MA: It’s gotten easier over time. Every day I’ve found out more and more my niche and what I can bring to the table in a collaborative situation. Now I feel like I’m multifaceted where I can be a producer, instrumentalist, singer, or a writer on a track. That’s helped me a lot in a collaborative scene.
The blue skies mixing in the Volkswagen might be the most spontaneous song as they come. I dropped a tune with Mobocracy and Jack Dine (i’ve always been), both Fête guys, that we made last night. I’m always a candidate for a spontaneous upload. The SoundCloud is always hot!
DC: How was attending Berklee?
MA: I enjoyed it there for a while but I dropped the fuck out this past February. Going to class was always a dilemma for me. I would want to stay in my spot to practice. Some people are students by nature, but I never fit into that mold. I thought it was my time to leave.
DC: Any influences, old and new, who are musically inclined, or within the industry?
MA: First and foremost, Stevie Wonder is everything for me, in terms of his playing, performing, voice, and writing. Everything that Stevie’s got is something I want to emulate in my own music. D’Angelo, Badu, Dilla, all are singing and production influences alike. Big fan of Kendrick Lamar, Michael Jackson, Eddie Kendricks, Teddy Pendergrass—it’s a lot. It would be an egregious list at this point.
DC: What are your Top 3 collabs you’d have alive or dead?
MA: Stevie Wonder, D’Angelo, and J. Dilla would be the big three.
Easy Mac Ayres Spotify
DC: What is one song you’d love to hear for the first time again?
MA: I’ll give it to Chicken Grease on Voodoo (D’Angelo’s second studio album) because the first time I heard that was the first time I realized you can break someone’s neck with a groove. My neck was almost broken the first time I heard Chicken Grease.
DC: Other hobbies?
MA: I’m a big basketball fan. It sucks to say, but I’m a big New York Knicks fan. We’re not so hot right now.
DC: At least it’s not the Brooklyn Nets.
MA: Oh, we definitely don’t like the Brooklyn Nets over here. I like to play basketball and I played baseball in high school. I’m an athletic kid by nature. I like to eat food, all kinds, specifically King’s Hawaiian rolls. If they want to send me sweet butter rolls, you know where to send them. I can already hear them coming! The cover of my EP could just be me eating packs of them at a time. What else? Sleeping and music. [laughs]
DC: If you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do with that time?
MA: I’d probably be doing the same thing that I’m doing right now, making tunes and enjoying life. I would definitely cop many packs of King’s Hawaiian rolls if I only had hours left to live and scarf these down.
Mac Ayres Easy
DC: What can we look forward to next from Mac Ayres and your upcoming EP, Drive Slow?
MA: For the cover art, I used a Chrysler Town and Country, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that since we didn’t get that sponsorship from Chrysler. [laughs] Chrysler, if you’re reading this, hit me up. It’s my Mom’s Chrysler Town and Country on the cover, but I also drive it. Everyone asks me, “Is that your car?” I’m like “um yeah”, but when my Mom is around she puts me on the spot and says it’s only her car.
People are trying to whip it real hard through life. I’m in no rush to get anywhere. This isn’t exactly the theme for Drive Slow, but that’s the way I live my life. I’m very excited to drop this EP. I like my music to do the talking. The roster is crazy. We’ve assembled an elite squad. There will be Chris Anderson obviously, Castelluzzo, Innanet James, Rob Araujo, Declan Miers who plays dope bass on Calvin’s Joint, and me. Shout out to Jack Dine for mix and mastering.
Slow Down Mac Ayres
Elyn Kazarian from the Fête team made the cover art for Drive Slow. She also made the cover art for Calvin’s Joint and easy. The EP drops August 11. There will be nine tracks, which is confirmed by Chris Anderson.
DC: Final thoughts?
MA: Listen to the Drive Slow EP on August 11. It’s going to be wild! Listen to my tunes if you haven’t, which would be my advice. [laughs] Follow me on Instagram! It’s with two “m’s”. So nice that you must put it twice!
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Follow Mac Ayres:
Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify | SoundCloud
- Deliver and maintain services, like tracking outages and protecting against spam, fraud, and abuse
- Measure audience engagement and site statistics to understand how our services are used
- Improve the quality of our services and develop new ones
- Deliver and measure the effectiveness of ads
- Show personalized content, depending on your settings
- Show personalized or generic ads, depending on your settings, on Google and across the web
Mac Ayres Spotify Songs
Click “Customize” to review options, including controls to reject the use of cookies for personalization and information about browser-level controls to reject some or all cookies for other uses. You can also visit g.co/privacytools anytime.