Melbourne-based indie musician and creative, Maja's newest single 'He Wants To Know You' is a soothing, powerful, sassy ride of folky, soulful R&B paired with her raw but determined vocals.
Inspired by the late Bill Withers and Hiatus Kaiyote's Nai Palm, Maja says 'He Wants To Know You' sets the tone for her debut record, 'I'll Get There', which she plans to release later this year."I wrote this song in 2018 when I was listening to a lot of Bill Withers. I had his essential hits playing in my car and my producer, Robin Waters, and I were really trying to emulate that Bill Withers groove. We didn't use a drum kit, just percussion and kept it quite minimal in that way.
"I was also listening to Nai Palm's first album 'Needle Paw' and love how she did so much with so little.
"Even though 'He Wants to Know You' is quite a complicated song, I wanted it to feel simple. Also Nai's layering of vocal harmony and Bill Withers repetition with words, really influenced this track."
Ahead of the song's release tomorrow, scenestr warmly invites you to wrap your ears around Maja's 'He Wants To Know You'; it feels like a toasty-warm cardigan on a chilly, late autumn afternoon. Trust.
The meanings behind the song's lyrics came about as Maja was experiencing her own, personal growth; her poetry became an outlet to express ideas of self worth and the origins of love.
"I wrote this song at a time where I was really learning about boundaries and self worth. Being a good communicator doesn't mean being able to speak well, but also being able to communicate the hard truths and when our needs aren't being met," admits Maja.
"I was really learning to speak up at this point in my life and that's when I started really digging deep to write things that scared me.
"The song came out of a poem and that's when my poetry started taking off because the words needed to be written with lines like: 'I am not a prize to claim but a woman of the world you see, not bound by your perception of me'.
"In the chorus, I say: 'He wants to know you but he doesn't even know himself and you've been searching for a love that is outside yourself.' I kind of brought that line back onto myself because I think love is something that always has to come from ourselves before we are able to give to another.
"I wanted the message to be that no matter how many people chase you or give you attention, the love comes from us. I like that my songs can show me how much I've grown over time and this song definitely does that, because I'm in a different place now."
Maja also says the song was the genesis for learning the quality of saying no. "The poem and lyrics of the song actually came after a session with my kinesiologist where I told her this guy was texting me and I was like 'He's annoying me. What do I do?'.
"And she was like 'just don't text him back'. And I thought 'wow I can do that? I can just say no?' I think I'm constantly feeling like I have to explain myself. Sometimes we can just say no, and that's okay. As one of my friends said: 'Learning to say no, is just as important as learning to say yes.'"
