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Maddie Urie: On the perils of the music industry,
sibling rivalries and coming back from the brink
By Rob Forster
Maddie Urie has been around the industry a lot longer than her young age should suggest, at this point she should be a veteran of the industry with many years and albums under her belt, seemingly her career should have really panned out in some sort of parallel with the likes of Amy Meyer and Isabel Merjos. But instead it’s been a more unsteady path for the twenty-two-year-old. She began way back in 2010 as part of the bubble-gum-pop duo ‘Two Equals Three’. That venture didn’t exactly take off, a couple of Warped Tours and a few supporting slots on bigger stars’ tours was about as successful as things became for the couple of high school buddies.
It took about three more years before Maddie finally put to bed the existence of her former project and decided to go it alone as a solo artist. Not the easiest of things to do, with her brothers James Urie and Matt Urie enjoying their own success the former as a solo star and the latter as part of the popular pop-punk group ‘Suburban Sunrise’. Maddie stepped up her game however and had one of the most promising rookie years as a solo artist. Releasing two moderately successful singles and then followed-up by the release of her debut album “Young Blood” which became a number one hit at a time when the industry was full of immensely promising new artists and bands, another two promising singles were released the following year however the promise of a sophomore album never quite came to fruition for a number of reasons and quickly the buzz faded for Maddie Urie and the star had to take some time out from the industry to focus on some of her own personal issues.
Maddie went on to spend the majority of 2015 struggle badly to find direction and had what she has described as the most challenging period of her life. She suffered with many personal struggles during this period and was forced to move out of her Los Angeles apartment due to her financial situation. Stuck with the decision to find somewhere more affordable on a very inconsistent income in Los Angeles or start again in another city, she opted for the latter. A decision which proved to give the youngster her life back and give her a new sense of confidence and inspiration that has helped her to re-ignite both her personal life and her career as a promising musician.
She was metaphorically picked from the sandy grounds of the west-coast and taken directly to the hustle of Manhattan, New York and it was her partnership and friendships with a small group of people that truly brought Maddie Urie back from the brink of her own personal destruction. Here is the first exclusive interview from the musician about her struggles and her hopes for her comeback.
Venturing up the stairwell of a Manhattan apartment on a late autumn evening, I’m greeted by the striking blue hair and cherry red lips of a young Maddie Urie who allows me access to what is a larger home than I initially expected, upon questioning it turns out that the California born native shares with three of her closest friends, “Sometimes it’s like a ghost town and sometimes it’s like a damn hotel some days” she says with a smile as she explains that the comings and goings of her friends are often fleeting and irregular. She shares a home with her three closest confidantes, industry personalities; Cara Zayn, Faith Browdy and Alia Kane. I mention that it must lead to some interesting evenings consider the reputations of these women, she laughs and gives the old adage of, “Oh shit, if these walls could talk.” Then following up with “Thank the lord for headphones, right?”
She offers me a seat and a beverage as we set up on the balcony which looks down onto a busy Manhattan sidewalk, “I wouldn’t have it any other way right now. I think the key to surviving in a City like this is to have a strong support system in place. We know that no matter how shitty our day has been, we can come home and feel that warmth once more.” I ponder whether it feels like a sorority to which Maddie lets out a chuckle that says it all, “Some nights we like to keep each other warm.”. She points out that the relationship status of the four of them is very non-committal which can lead to the occasional lonely evening of which, “we’re all there for each other.”
She sits cross-legged on her chair and lights a cigarette and pours herself a glass of wine, giving a thoughtful glance out across the city to the skyscrapers as she takes in a long drag of her cigarette, “I wouldn’t want to be in any other place right now.”. and with that, we begin our conversation.
You’ve been in the music career longer than most people seem to realize, do you feel like a veteran or do you feel like you should have more under your belt than you have?
I can’t lie and say that I don’t feel a little disappointed with how my career has panned out so far. But I do believe that what I have done has been of a great quality. But no, I absolutely agree with the notion that I’ve not lived up to what I should have become and what I can be and do in this industry. I started out in 2010 with a project that really was nothing more than a five seconds of fame sort of thing. Two Equals Three was never going for longevity. Hell, we were incapable of writing a full albums worth of decent songs, I think eventually we recorded maybe four songs and everything went south pretty quickly there. I was a bit down from that, but I was only sixteen and I was always hearing how I’ll make it and that there’s people keeping an eye out for me and all that bullshit that they say to keep you head in those clouds.
But even with the solo stuff. I fucking love my debut record, I think it surprised a lot of people and I put all of my heart into that album and I guess I naively thought that I could work that for a couple of years and it was never going to have that sort of longevity. I’ll admit I was a bit lazy, I just wanted to tour the record as much as possible, take as many opening slots on tours and do that for as long as I could. When in reality, I should have been writing new songs for the next record along the way. I was constantly being told to think about when I’m ready to go into the studio and record some new stuff and I kept putting it off. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was laziness. I don’t know. But yeah. I’ll be honest and say that my career should more impressive than it is at the moment.
It was a great debut album and maybe the pressure of writing the sophomore record was always going to get to you. It’s been known to kill many a great act in the past. Sophomore Slump being a term that this magazine has used many times over the years, do you think it was pressure that got in the way of that?
Pressure almost killed me. The thought of spending time writing more new songs and putting them out there and for them not to get at the very least a reaction on the same level of my debut stuff, yeah, that was really fucking terrifying for me. Like, anxiety is very real. I’ve struggled with that epically and I still do, and I think no matter what career path I would have taken. The anxiety would have gotten to me in some way, it’s in my DNA. But yeah, I think it was pressure, it still is because it’s three years later and we still ain’t got that sophomore record. I’m working on it now and with a new mind-set, but the pressure is still there every day I’m in the recording studio because, what if I fail?
Well that’s always going to be a possibility. However, judging from your recent comeback track, it looks like you could be onto a winner. Dare I say, something that even could eclipse your debut record?
That’s the hope. I released the track, ‘Anxiety’ and the reaction that it received has warmed my heart and laid rest a lot of those fears that I have. But putting out a single, is a lot different to putting out an entire album. I think the time away since the last album has helped kill some of the expectation and now I almost feel like I’m in my rookie year again, which may be the way for me to release music and somehow keep my sanity. I hope I can get past the internal issues that I have and release things consistently, I know I have an idea for the follow-up single, so it’s looking a lot more positive this time around. But I’m working hard in the studio right now, I’m trying my very best to live up to any promise that I may have had and I’ve got a good group of people around me.
So let’s step back to your time away, it was over a year of nothing. No singles, no album, no headlines, no tours, no public appearances, no interviews. None of that. All the while, your brother James was touring the world and becoming one of the industry’s top stars. What did you do in that time. Fill us in on the journey of your lost year?
Like I say, I was struggling with the pressure to succeed. I spoke to the guys in charge at my label and basically said, I know I have a contract here and you’re a business but I don’t think I can fulfil our agreement here. At that time, I had tried to write song after song and nothing would come, to the point where I stopped writing altogether and for a while, just stopped listening to music. I was living out in Los Angeles which is not the best place to be for your ego. You constantly have people telling you you’re great and everything is rosy when it’s just not true and I guess I was living a lifestyle that wasn’t helping me. I struggled with sleep for a good six or seven months, found myself taking pills in an attempt to help with that on top of a ton of other stuff to numb whatever I was feeling. Basically whenever I felt anything remotely real or painful, I took something to try to get that feeling to go away.
I was out drinking heavily on a nightly basis and I was living a lifestyle that I just couldn’t afford, at least not while I wasn’t working on my music and finding a way to support that sort of lifestyle.
It got to a point at the beginning of 2015 where I was evicted from my home, a dispute with neighbours and there was this whole big thing. I had a few people that would talk about how they were worried about me and how I was spiralling out of control, but nothing was done to help me out, instead I found more people encouraging me to continue down this path. It was an ugly time and it took a lot to get things back together and my releasing new music is the conclusion of hopeful this whole thing turning around.
When you were evicted, you moved out to Manhattan, New York and you basically crashed at your friends house. How important was the move out to New York for you in turning things around?
It's a completely different vibe in New York to Los Angeles. In LA, I was being told what I wanted to hear. As soon as I got to New York, I had people telling me what I needed to hear. You can fake it out in LA, if you look like a star you’ll get treated like one. In New York, it’s such a fast environment that nobody will give you a second glance and it’s so fucking freeing it’s unbelievable what a difference it made. It took a while once I got there, but the move to New York helped straighten things out, for sure.
I moved in with Cara and Faith and another of our friends. They were working at ‘Songs to Love and Die By’ and eventually went on to run the company together, but at that time, they were just A+R and I was signed to the label so we had met each other and spent a lot of time together over that first year. But we all had a real bond and became our own little clique, so it was those three that really set things straight for me and showed me that it’s possible to actually be happy in this business. It was truly needed because even with the success of the album, I had never truly been happy. I was doing the thing I loved and touring the world, but it never felt like I thought it would and they showed me a way to be happy. I watched them closely make something big for themselves and I took inspiration from them which eventually led to me finding my confidence to go again and get back to what I always wanted to do.
But coming from a genetic line that must have some sort of music ability ingrained inside of them, both your brothers Matt and James both have and had a lot of success. Did living up to those two ever have an adverse effect on you?
Nah, I don’t think l ever felt like I was living in their shadows. My entire family has some sort of musical ability, my mom sung lead in church when we were kids so we always heard her beautiful voice at home and in car rides and my father used to occasionally teach piano lessons from our home. So I think there’s definitely something there in our genetics that pushes us towards music or at least the arts.
But I never felt that pressure. Matt was the first one to reach the heights with his band Suburban Sunrise which led way for me to try it out and fail briefly. Then James began his career and we were all surprised when he said he had signed a record deal as a solo artist. He had always played with local bands and had built quite the reputation but he decided that he wanted to do it alone and it was easily one of his better decisions.
Later seeing what he managed to do on his own kind of helped encourage me to give it another go after my little pop duo didn’t work out and auditioned for a couple of labels before being signed and began working as a solo singer which was a scary prospect. But I surrounded myself with a couple of other people that also signed at the same time and were relatively new to the solo thing. Myself, a guy called Alex Simms and Miami hung out a lot and had a great couple of months together before our careers went and took us away from each other. But I think watching Matt and James in particular helped to encourage me in the first place to try it out alone.
How would you describe your relationship with your brothers now?
We were real close as little kids and early into our teenage years. I think because the age gap between us is pretty small, we all sort of connected pretty easily and had similar passions and interests. But around fourteen onwards we sort of went our own ways and hung with our own friends and came together when we had to. We’ve always had a close connection and I think that will continue no matter how little we may see each other these days. But Matt and I were always closest to begin with but as time has gone on, both myself and James have become a lot tighter and our bands has grown through some tough situations.
It’s odd because James and I have always fought and had this destructive nature to our relationship, we’ve fallen out so many times over the years but despite that, we’ve always become closer. We have had periods where weren’t speaking to each other but I think that bond will always be there. Right now, the three of us just sort of do our own thing and call each other every once in a while and I think maybe that’s the best thing for us at this moment. It’s a formative period for all of us and we could use the time away from what is familiar to discover who we truly are.
And what about where you are right now. You say you’re recording new songs and working on that long anticipated sophomore album. Can we expect Maddie Urie to come out all guns blazing and make up for the time lost?
That’s the aim, that’s what I want to be able to provide right now. I don’t assume that I’m gonna blow anybody away, all I ask of myself is to put my heart into my craft and hope that the voice that the listener hears is one that feels true. Authenticity is a tricky thing to find in this business and I’m in search for it each time I step into the studio. I feel a weight from those lost years, I really do and I would love to find myself on a steadier path than I’ve been on over the past couple of years. But the mood feels like nothing before and there’s a light and positivity happening in the recording sessions right now that give me hope that what I’m doing is right. It feels great to be without that burden and worry and anxiety that I carried for so long and maybe the time away was the best thing. Perhaps if I put out my follow-up record when I intended to, it wouldn’t have been good enough. Maybe it would have been incredible, who knows?
But right now, I’m in a place where I feel happy within myself. I feel I have a lot to say in this new music and I hope that there’s still an audience there willing to listen to it. Or at least give it a try. |
