Maya Hawke and Christian Lee Hutson - Live from SXSW

Pushkin.

Mya Hawk first became known to audiences as an actress, especially through her work in Stranger Things and in film, but she's been quietly building in parallel life as a songwriter of genuine depth. Since her debut album Blush in twenty twenty, she's released four records that are ever more reflective. By Treya Corso, her fourth album arrives at a formative moment in Hawk's life, following her marriage to longtime musical

All right, thanks for having.

Us, No, thanks for coming, Thanks for being here. It's cool to be in Austin and south By Southwest.

It certainly is.

This is one of my I think I'm out on the flight here.

There's like five American cities that feel like they have their own internal logic different from any other.

You know, it doesn't feel like that.

It's not better then, it's just very different than any other part of America. New Orleans feels that way. New York feels that way. I would throw LA in the Bay or the LA Area, the Bay Area in Austin, you know, I feel like, just completely their own unique.

Chicago's kind of unique.

Too, are Chicago? And would agree, Yeah, you know what that that is true? That is true, and it has it certainly has a history.

All those other cities do.

So I wouldn't. I wouldn't take that. How did you, guys, just musical connections start?

What where? How did you guys start playing.

Together via email, so I was going to say, yeah, the Postal Service, we yeah, exactly. We have a mutual friend named Benjaminlizzard Davis who produced my second record, Moss, and played bass on my first record, and he knew Christian from working on Aquaville River.

Right exactly, which which you I which?

I did a tour with them and just met the band kind of and then the guy Will the songwriter and I wrote a few songs together cool.

And Benjamin joined them. That's he's a member.

Now he's like on again.

It's like one of those bands like Bright Eyes, where it's like who is the members of it?

I don't know any who? Who's who? Round right?

Right?

Yeah?

Right?

Yeah?

Collective?

But Will and Ben were on that tour. Will is obviously Akuaville rover, but then there's another Will will Graffe who's also been playing with me since I started who We were on that tour with Christian And then I asked Ben to work on this record with me, or really to work on an EP. And then all of a sudden, I had like nine more days off of Stranger Things than I was supposed to have and was like, what if instead of making an EP. We made a record because we've got some extra time. So then we

So that's how he was a great first poem too. I wouldn't. I was like, this is awesome.

Ben sends crazy emails and that was a really good one.

Because good, yeah, yeah for you did it feel like this is maybe like the idea of it, like you're okay, you're going to get these poems in some form and write to them. Is that is that like a typical process for you or did that feel like were you surprised by how he's easy or natural?

That process was kind of I mean I was writing. I like to write in a lot of different ways, and that was a really fun way to be. Like, you know, sometimes you'll go in a room and someone has like seventy five percent of a song and you're like, cool, I'm just gonna throw out some like ideas for the last twenty five percent and there this was a fun way to just be like this has no music and no you get to decide what the rules are because

Yeah, And then we had really a lot of fun and we met kind of making that record.

It's incredible.

I want to get back to just sort of the evolution of how you guys got to the latest record. But I mean, it's interesting because you or maybe maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just gonna say this, you're not primarily like a songwriter or you were new to it at the time, right right.

I would argue with that, I would, but I would say, but I don't just maybe it's let.

You up here.

Yeah, I would say that is constantly writing songs.

She writes songs every single day.

She is a naturally in the form of like in the absolutely I feel like before I like I am even awake, there's like a full, like a complete song that I'm just like, what the fuck is this?

Well, okay, What I will say is that a big part of what's happened in my own musical evolution, so to speak, is that Christian, when we worked on Moss together, was so encouraging and was so like, well, actually show me, like when you wrote this poem, what music did you imagine? And I would play it for him and you'd be like, wait, that's good.

What do you like?

Why didn't we do that? And I was like, no, it's not, it's trash. Because I was a very fortunate young person who who was around artists my whole life. And around amazing musicians my whole life, and people that were so good at guitar and piano that it felt embarrassing to pick up an instrument in front of them, you know, and who were such extraordinary composers and instrumentalists that it didn't feel like I had anything to offer.

And that was your third album.

So by the time you did your third album, you did start to have more confidence in yourself as a person who is writing songs.

Absolutely and I and like, which isn't say that I wrote them by myself. I didn't at all, but I would instead of coming to the table with just a piece of paper with words on it, I would come to the table being like, this is what I've been playing, Like, what do you think? I really like this chorus, but the verse melody sucks. Let's make it better. You know, it was a sort of more. Wouldn't you say that that's an accurate description of the vibe.

Yeah, I think that's a really accurate description. I think that you like chronically underestimate what because most of the.

Musical you're working on it.

I know most of the musical ideas that you have.

I'm like, wow, this is so fucking heady and trippy, and.

There's a certain maginner's mind when you don't know, like what the rules are, you don't know that you're breaking.

Them in a way very very good underc I am.

Very good at turning a compliment into an insult. It's it's truly makes me wonderful to be around.

That is.

I'll be like, oh, so you're saying I look beautiful by what you mean, I'm dumb? You know, It's like, really, I'm you know, it's really there's a lot of fun ways to sentence.

Really convoluted to go from.

You I'm a pleasure you are actually?

Yeah?

Is the inverse true? Like if someone says you're smart. Do you feel like, well, why aren't you complimentary?

Come on, aren't I beautiful?

Yeah? What do you mean?

I'm smart?

Do you know what I think about this?

So you're saying I'm ugly?

I have three daughters.

Yeah, well one's a baby so that she doesn't really count, but I have so two daughters are sentient in the sense of they can understand what I'm saying.

I can kind of screw them up or or or or.

Maybe set them up for some sort of you know, healthy life, you know, And I'm always like, oh, wow, you look so beautiful. I'm like, oh, yeah, but you're smart too, Like how was he like? Fuck, I shouldn't have just said that. I'll be like, oh, you're so smart, and I'm like, oh, I don't want her to think she's just.

Like a nerd. Oh you're beautiful too, And I don't know. I don't know.

I'm very neurotic about like balancing any compliment I make with him.

Yeah, being a woman sucks, you know. I mean there's just like it's like there's just like it's all bad. Oh don't clap for that. No, it's okay, but like it's all bad. But I will. I think as long as neither one is that heavy, you know, I mean, smart can be heavy. But I think it's just all about like, Yeah, it's not about what your parents says. It's about what you think they value about you. Yeah, and like, And I think that kind of extends more broadly.

Yes, the intents, the intent or perceived intent.

At least in terms of when there's intimacy, it's about intent. Yes, when it's a stranger, it's about what you said.

I think generally right, Yes, that does make sense.

I mean I hadn't really thought about it or broke it down the way, but I think that's probably accurate.

Yeah.

I'm curious about because you both are really you know, potent artists and engaged artists who have had different paths, you know, each have had your different path and they've kind of converged in this way. But what was your experience with the arts growing up? Like, what was your relationship with it both in terms of how was it introduced to you and then how.

Did it sort of evolve on your own.

How did it become something that you sort of took ownership of and felt like, well, this is like for me, Like I grew up with a lot of I grew up with my grandma who was from Detroit, So I just grew up in Motown in the house, and I thought to the point I thought it was new music. But then I got to junior high, I got into skateboarding and I was like, oh, the Ramones, like that's my music, you know, and that sort of and then you circle bas circle back at some point to Motown.

I'm going to set you up, and I'm going to set you up by saying that I think that we know positive like you see it positive, like just one. I think the thing is cool about our friendship and collaboration is that we had really different experiences. Like I was drowned in the arts, and I think Christian really had to find it on his own.

I didn't.

I don't know if if somebody said the arts when I was a kid, I don't know if I would know what they were talking about. Really, there was no like art in my life there, but there was. Weirdly, there was Motown like a lot of My grandmother was a record collector, but like didn't talk about the arts. She just grew up in Chattanooga and like was loved getting Stax records and Motown records and showed me all of that and and.

I did that take. Absolutely. I was obsessed with it.

But I also thought it was new music, which was very funny because I would like take it to school and it was like wow, no one kind of knew what I was talking about, like, oh, yeah, it's a song from like remember the Titans or something or whatever, and yeah, so I didn't really know about it. And when I was like a teenager and there was an

But yeah, yeah, versus.

I went to a high school where, not while I was there, but in its origin, the headmaster used to take parents on school tours and say that if the students didn't have interracial sex and tried to at least three different drugs before they graduated, he would consider himself a failure.

So yeah, I had a very different headmaster.

It's very different priorities than you, really different priorities.

You know, he had his own issues Stanley Bosworth. But what I mean to say generally is that I I really was just like the arts seemed like the main option. Like I kind of remember meeting people with other jobs and being like what do you do and people would tell me to be like why you know, and and just like you know, a normal thing to do every weekend was go to the Metropolitan Museum r of Art

Yeah, growing up in I mean, like you said, you grew up steep in the arts and in New York City, so like art probably has to go pretty far for you to feel like it's rebellious.

Right, I Mean this walks us down a whole new rabbit hole that we could talk about forever, which is like, how do you make rebellious art now? How do you make protest art?

Now?

Don't have an answer, Like I it's very it seems very borderline impossible because of the way that the Internet works and the way that like moments happen and like niche niches happen, and how difficult it. Like I was reading something about you know, like it used to be so the way David Bowie dress used to be so transgressive and now it's like Harry Styles and Ben's and Boone and like, you know, everyone dresses like David Bowie and so how what could you possibly wear that would

What sound could you make? That's what I don't. I don't know.

I know, like the Yoko Ono is like the closest like still, I mean, yeah, like that's the most transgressive.

It's just bad. It's like, oh, not that she's bad, but like what I just did is bad.

Well, she's amazing. Is transgressive at all anymore? Because everything is everything?

Yeah, And the only way you can pretend to be transgressive is to like be ugly or unfortunate or like like like make it or make some make a sound that like no one wants to hear, I mean, like sonically ugly. By the way, the.

Biggest way it could be transgressed is just shut the fuck up.

Yeah, that would be a crazy rebellion.

Yeah, we all are obsessed with ourselves.

I guess getting off the internet you mentioned quitting social media. I don't know if I heard that right, But getting off the Internet, I guess is which is it's I don't want to say it's a week a week way it'll be transgressive, but it's I mean, in the grand scheme of things, is I guess it's not that it's more of a personal thing than it is.

It's psych I.

Don't think I even get any points for being off social media because I'm still benefiting from it and profiting from it because I have the capacity to have someone who can like run my social media for me, right, So I like, that's not not a rebellion at all because I'm entirely participating in the system of it. I'm just trying to protect my own brain and peace from it. Yeah, so that's like zero rebellion. That's like, that's just like

We'll be right back with more from Maya and Christian after the break, but we'll talk about a song like Lioness on your new album is something that seems like it's a large degree ripped out of your life, but probably that there's also some things in there that we wouldn't necessarily recognize.

You know, Well, I guess I would say that I

You know, you did do that voice.

Is different.

It's kind of I maybe just because my voice is lower, a little bit scarier. I would say yours is kind of charming and easy to interface with.

Well, you'd say, yeah, yours.

Minus like you are you are not doing good, you are doing bad stuff, and you're no one likes you, and you're you're delusional weirdo exactly.

And like sometimes when I go to like a fashion event, I speak in an accent and I do it accidentally, but she's like really fabulous and she says darling. She's like, yes, darling, I'd love a glass of water, you know, And like these kinds of different characters that exist within all of us, right, you have like the little demon in your head, and you have the fabulous person in your head, and you have you, and I think sometimes I like to write

Yeah, I mean they're external in the way they have behavior that is like different, an amalgamation of different. I'm like a collage artist of just different stimuli or whatever it is. Mainly my characters aren't anyone specifically, but they're sort of kind of.

Songs. There are stories from experiences that you never had.

Yeah, exactly, but that's what I mean.

It's just like a collage of different people's experiences or whatever, and how they would it's like a fan fiction of of life of people and stuff.

You know, they got they got that joke.

Okay, well I didn't even mean to make that.

Christian is a song called fan fiction and he and they laughed, and I think it's because they know that.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I'm ashamed I didn't pick up on.

Well I didn't pick up on it either, and I'm embarrassed that I accidentally quoted myself.

So you know, I want to ask.

Maya, you're as some maybe still are a fan of Taylor Swift totally.

I mean, I mean, how, yes, how what? How could you not be? She's the goat, Like she is inspired a generation of songwriters to be themselves and to be free and believe in themselves.

That's what I wanted to hit on. So what is it about her songwriting and her influence.

She's an extraordinary musician who I'm pretty sure can do anything, but I think she chooses to write songs that are really simple and really approachable or you know, like a lot of the time musically, and so much music is so intimidating, especially for young women, and I think it is really When I was a little girl and I like got my first guitar and I went home and I like typed in, Oh, I want to learn how to play you know, all you need is love by the Beatles, And I was like, I can't like what

Yeah, it's like punk rock. It's like the Ramones or whatever.

When you I'm sure that like everyone that plays music had the moment where they're like, oh shit, I could do this today.

Yeah yeah, right now, Yeah, just go to.

Like the thrift store and buy the thing and I could play like fucking whatever.

That's what Taylor Swift does.

I think, And then she does that, and then it also happens to have like written I think a lot of the greatest songs of the last twenty years and like an over and over again album after album, and it's pretty impressive and does it well being like pretty incredible role model at the same time and not seeming to have that be too much of a burden. So it's pretty cool.

Yeah, what is your favorite Taylor Swift album?

Fearless? But I've been in the game from the beginning, and you can't replace your first experience, you know, So I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't. I don't. I wouldn't say it was the best album, but it is my favorite.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's also he did fall in love to a Taylor's to to to Fearless, the Fearless song, and then it's some red, so I would say, like Fearless Red and then Torture Poet's Department.

Wow, you guys fell in love to Fearless.

We had some pivotal We've had some exaggeration bonding moments.

It's most men that you meet as a young woman when you say you like Taylor Swift, they say, oh, that's so annoying. Don't put it onto the car. I don't want to listen to it. I don't like, Oh, you're so like And you get to meet one who puts it on in the car on purpose, not to manipulate you. It's a pretty big deal, you know.

Christian, I'm speechless.

He's a lifelong fan. He like's like he's on. He heard Taylor on the country radio and went to go see her live during the Fearless Fearless era.

During the self Title Self Title era, I was, I grew up in LA and there's one country stage. I don't know what there is now, but there's one country station. Go country right. I don't know what the numbers are, but the or the letters, but it was teardrops on my guitar. They started playing, and I was like, I used to listen to country music because my dad introduced me to Hank Williams.

And I was like, this is fucking rocks. This guy is amazing.

Yeah, this new music from the nineteen forties. And when I listened to country music mainly as a joke because you could turn it on and be like, damn you hilarious. They're punning on this truck so hard, like a song after song truck puns, fish puns and Taylor Swift or whatever, Tim McGraw or whatever I think is what it was. That and I was like, this is amazing and like like weirdly like meta and felt like the Internet at that time and like the MySpace days of the internet.

Or whatever, and it was cool.

And I called into the radio station and won tickets on the radio to go see her first LA show and went and was very an embarrassed, like fifteen year old boy who was like, oh shit, it's a bunch of little kids here and I was front row, uh.

Just ripping it. It was amazing, could go.

I went with my best friend at the time, Michael Mann, who is not the director but a different guy.

So in other words, I'm the luckiest woman in the world.

That is phenomenal.

I want to ask you about Heavy Rain from your newest album. I'm so glad that you do that is it's stunning. It's a gorgeous song, and there's like some like halfway through something happens halfway through one of the core verses that is like I don't even know what you guys do, Like something just.

Changes. I wish I could play it.

That's my yeah.

I mean there's a modulation that happens because Maya. I was on tour in Europe and Maya had sent me of this that we tried the old method of Maya sends a poem and like a vague melody and try to map it out. And Maya sent me like this crazy melody that modulated all over the place. And then I'd sort of figured, I don't even think I've really figured out how to do it, but figured out how to modulate the into a different key at just boring.

You, figured how to do the guitar, how to play against what she.

Was singing, Yeah, and like change it.

She went into a different key in a way that was really effortless and like kind of like WHOA, just something I never would have thought to do that.

You know, have you ever seen on.

YouTube those videos of people like re harmonizing like a guy on the news or something like that. Yeah, or like sort of like I tried to do that with the thing that she sent over.

It was a really cool That song was really fun to write and fun to communicate about, and came from a really special Like some some songs kind of drop out of the air, and that was one of them. I was having a weird day and I went with my my brother was doing a play at Lincoln Center,

Wow.

And and it was and I like, and it's now that's like my favorite song. We really Christian taught me about Judy Sill, beautiful, one of my favorite Yeah series and songwriters ever, and we really I was like feeling very in inspired by her at the time, and we were really inspired by her for the production on the song awesome. And I so it's like, I don't know, but that song feels very magic magic to me.

Wow, I would There's no way I ever would have imagined Judy Sill was the inspiration for Yeah.

Wow, that's incredible.

Well, last break and we'll be back with Maya and Christian. Were you aware of that modulation you did or was that just that was it? Was it a conscious effort to do that or a just decision.

No, no, not at all. I mean I was just like in the cab, I think, and was like, oh no, this was later Christian like sent me back a voice memo of like him putting music to the song, and I was like, it's it's really good, it's really good. But for the bridge, I was just I was hearing this thing and I'm not trying I'll try to sing it for you. It's like, you know, it goes like this, and I and I sang it into the thing.

And for the bridge, it's.

Just like this really complicated, like baroque ass, fucking like Gregorian chant, fucking like deep music thing that I've never heard of. I feel like I had to go to the library to like figure out what it was like. No, just this like little thing that's like the most insane thing you've ever heard of.

Well, I've been musically incredible.

I've been working on having more security with instrumentation, but I'm not a very secure player. But I love to sing, and I sing a lot of melodies, and so I'm like, oftentimes melodies will come to me, but I don't understand the chordal makeup of them, and so I and and usually they're just like naturally within a key, but sometimes they're not. And this one it wasn't. But I swear

Did you did you write? Did you win the cab? Did you write it on a notepad or was it my notes?

App Well, it was raining. I am usually a notepad girl, but you know what, inclement weather, it's.

It's not good. It's not good notepad weather when.

It's Yeah, speaking of Gregorian, uh devil, the Devil you know feels and uh, it feels a little Gregorian in some ways.

The way the vocal is produced. You know.

That's so cool.

Yeah, And I feel like you did something similar on on your previous album on Better Totally.

Thank you for connecting like.

The first person ever to bring up this song that we were like the day in the studio where like this fucking rocks.

I was like, this is gonna be such a big hit. I think like a really cool rapper is gonna sample this and put it in there, Like I think this is gonna be the you know what eminem what's the song where he samples Dido. I think this is gonna be I think this is going to end up on like so confident. It's like when I go to my Spotify for artists, roll down, it's like the bottom one I was. I am the uncanary in the coal mine. If I think something is going to succeed, it means it will not.

But uh, maybe that says the same thing about me too. That's one of my favorites.

Yeah.

Good. You should never pick a single.

Well yeah, yeah, I mean neither, But I really I think you're so right in some ways, my like dream of what I wanted to have happened with that song is kind of what we tried to do with them well you know, which I'd never thought about before, but

Really, yeah, you did you add anything to the voice? Did you add any layers to the vocal?

I think we we it's vogue coder with the voice memo, and then I think I overdubbed the lead, but I'm not sure.

Yeah.

Ben is like always there's like sneakily like it's like two hundred something.

He's always like, great, let's do a double, let's do a triple. What if we quadrupled it? What if we you know, quintupled it?

And he did you? And did he?

I guess he recorded you guys recorded some of this at Ben's place. Just that song, just that song, okay, And but that was his place.

In and then he recorded other pieces on the other two songs that he worked on, which was last Thoughts on Morning Star or not that he worked on a ton of them, but last Thoughts on Morning Star and uh in terms of estrangement, yes, yes, yes, and he did a lot of pieces of those in his studio in La But I wasn't there for it, got it, but devil you and I was there for it with him.

So cool.

So you guys have a little You guys are gonna do a tour for the and I should ask you that, can you? I don't want to mess up the name Matria my trea.

I mean, God knows, it's an ancient word. How do you say it? I don't know. That's how I say it, and how my mom and dad say it, and I don't know, but.

Uh, I should add what does it mean?

Though?

What Trea my traya is?

The word comes from Tibetan Buddhism. She's a boody sapha. But what kind of why it's my trea? Corso? I mean Corso is after Gregory Corso, the beat poet. But I wanted this. We've been reading fantasy literature together for the last two years, we've been reading like every single Sarah J. Moss book and all of the Fourth Wing, and we've just been having so much fun with our private, little secret smutty book club and it's been amazing. And I love fan to see, you know, my whole life.

It's beautiful too, and it's rare that you can like google something these days and not.

Find an answer. Yeah, a kudos on that.

It's a rebellion in some.

Ways'm raging against the internet. Yes, yes, I want to be ungoogleable. Never gonna happen, Never gonna happen. My whole life totally googleable. I was joking in the day, was like, everyone I know I can google their birthday. I don't need to remember their birthday because I can look it up. And that's my weird life.

But anyway, sadly I've.

Done that for friends.

It'll be on the next record.

But yeah, are you gonna do you? Are you?

I imagine you guys are gonna keep making music in all kinds of different iterations, right.

Like yeah, probably certainly in all kinds of iterations.

I think.

So that's the plan. We'll see.

Do you.

Do you ever, because you're also make incredible music, Christian, thank you?

Do you ever bring Maya into that process?

Absolutely? I mean it's we my last record. We wrote a lot of it together.

Whenever I'm usually flattering to me, I'd never written on anyone else's record ever, and it kind of I never thought anyone ever want me to and meant the world to me to be included in that way.

I'd also never had anyone right on that might be on like oh cool, that was your idea and I expanded upon it or whatever it was. Maya is one of my songwriting heroes, so I think like most songwriters, I know, they have like a little collection of five different people that they'll send voice memos to when they're like think they have a good idea and be like do I suck?

Or like what's what's up?

Like safe places.

Maya's my number one guy to send stuff too, so it's always like, I don't know. We work on all kinds of my stuff together and her stuff, and it's kind of like it gets blurry occasionally and then.

We fight about it and then we figured it out.

Yeah, I always figure out. I'm like, no, I want that, and you're like, no, I want that.

Yeah, Well I gotta see.

I'm I'm somewhat jealous of the I mean, it's really beautiful that you guys.

Not only do you have the sort of musical.

Connection and collaboration element, but the smutty book Club and.

The Carport's good.

I highly recommend the drawing of cartoon characters to get out to you. I mean, you guys have an incredible amount of you know, ways of bonding that are just like really, I don't know, I don't know. Not everyone has that, you know, these really deep, incredible but yet fun ways to create.

Bonds and create memories.

And it's really beautiful and the album is really, really, really good. I wish I could play heavy ring because that is my it's my favorite song right now.

I wish we could do. We haven't worked it up yet, and as we've talked about for about twenty minutes, is hard.

Yeah, very difficult.

Yeah, I need to like go back to school for four years to learn how to play.

It for a little tool.

We'll play it on tour because it's my favorite song on the record too, But but I do not feel qualif.

Tonight even qualified to think about it really.

Yeah.

Great, Well they'll get a chance to see it on tour. I can't wait to see it as myself. And thanks so much for coming out, guys, and so.

Happy, thanks for having me.

Really awesome be able to listen to the last couple of weeks.

Thank you, Thanks my hawk, Christian Lee Hudson, Thanks guys, thank you.

An episode of description you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite songs from both Maya Hawk and Christian Lee Hudson. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see you all of our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rhoads, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken