Rendering relatable life stories into genius, catchy tracks. Singer-songwriter Maisie Peters explores the blur of teenage life with themes of love, loss, hope, empowerment, and hysteria. Having seized pivotal moments of adolescence that is now carrying her through to adulthood, Maisie tells us her experience in navigating the music industry as a young woman whilst she prepares to go on tour with her mentor and friend, Ed Sheeran.
Maisie Peters has the kind of mentor that anyone in the music world would love to have – Ed Sheeran, no less, he has invited Maisie to support him on his forthcoming sold-out tour, starting this March.
She started to make waves on YouTube six years ago. Now this young, English sensation is swiftly making her way up the global ranks as a well-established singer-songwriter at just 21 years of age. Holding the revered title as the first artist to be signed to Ed Sheeran’s record label, (Gingerbread Man Records), Maisie Peters is undoubtedly set in stone to have an incomparable legacy.
Let’s dispel the false narrative that female artists must be confined to a box. Her music captures the essence of raw, electric teen spirit, as she transports and reawakens listeners to the kaleidoscope of emotions faced in the real world.
Inspired by the likes of Lily Allen and Taylor Swift, Maisie has an aptitude for storytelling, vividly narrating her personal anecdotes to her young audience in a melodic manner. She moved to London from the small town of Steyning in West Sussex as a teen, armed with what she describes to be “a deep desire to be taken seriously.” Accompanied by hesitance of stepping outside her comfort zone, it made writing her pop single ‘Psycho,’ a despicable experience. “That song is so much fun and there’s an incorrect opinion that I’ve had before (and that others can have), where it’s like fun isn’t serious, which is insane and wrong,” she says.
Earrings:Boodles
Rings: Boodles and Atelier Romy
Initially exploring folk music, Maisie was convinced that pop was outside her realm. Highlighting the importance of trusting people, she says “I’m signed, I’m managed and there’s a point to that.” Thankful for the push, she remarks, “I’m really glad I did! – I love it now – it’s like the biggest song of all the shows.” As a young artist, Maisie thinks “being a teenager in the music industry is an amazing thing but it’s a crazy thing.” Needless to say, she is grateful for the praise she receives, finding it “so cool” to hear the words, ‘you’ve done really well’.” Her loyal fans – with whom she connects on an emotional level – have also encouraged her immensely. In a way, she says, she’s “grown up together” with them. The fan base is mostly young women, who all depend on her music for moral support as they journey through their formative years. Often bumping into her in the city, she describes the experience to be a surprisingly ‘unfazed’ encounter for both parties.
Her new album, You Signed Up for This, features the hit single John Hughes. Maisie explains that it was written about a party she attended as a teenager. Emphasising how “hopelessly melodramatic” the nature of the song is, she reflects on its nostalgia, attesting that it is “exactly how you feel when you’re 17, [an] important age.”
Shorts and Jumper: Free People
Earrings:Carolina Bucci
Rings: Atelier Romy
On the floor: Never fully dressed, Kitri Studio,Celia B,Milshenko
Her music evokes a “little dash of empowerment, a dash of sadness, and also a dash of hysteria because that’s real life.” With her ‘backbone’ tracks harbouring a notable strength that encourages acceptance, they touch on an influential message often left out of youthful songs. The tracks angst “emotions that are complicated – [because] people are complicated.” The songs are simultaneously
“hopeless and hopeful,” she says, reflecting the reality of life which Maisie explains “is not as black and white as one or the other”.
A myriad of emotions rush through the title track of You Signed Up for This. “I am a storyteller, and I felt like, your first song is your opening chapter.” The track aims to authentically capture her persona (at the time of initiation), setting the scene for the rest of the album. Maisie explains how intuitive writing the album was, with spur-of-the-moment light bulb ideas that helped everything to fall into place… “It felt a lot like the beginning of a lot of things, and also in a way the end of a certain phase in my life.” When asked about the writing timeframe of the album, Maisie says, “It was oddly over [her] whole life, but intensely over a couple of years.” Officially kick-starting in summer 2020, she explains how completing the album was a bittersweet moment as she feels that she has come “full circle” at such an early stage in her life.
A myriad of emotions rush through the title track of You Signed Up for This. “I am a storyteller, and I felt like, your first song is your opening chapter.” The track aims to authentically capture her persona (at the time of initiation), setting the scene for the rest of the album. Maisie explains how intuitive writing the album was, with spur-of-the-moment light bulb ideas that helped everything to fall into place… “It felt a lot like the beginning of a lot of things, and also in a way the end of a certain phase in my life.” When asked about the writing timeframe of the album, Maisie says, “It was oddly over [her] whole life, but intensely over a couple of years.” Officially kick-starting in summer 2020, she explains how completing the album was a bittersweet moment as she feels that she has come “full circle” at such an early stage in her life.
Returning to Latitude festival last year to take on the main stage, Maisie says that performing there was a “magical” pinch me moment after starting out “on a little stage in the woods” back in 2019. “I think it was kind of an emotional moment – I’ve played a lot of amazing festivals, but that festival just felt electric.” Being the first festival since the pandemic, she explains that the energy was unmatched. “I was feeling like I don’t even know how to do this, like I’ve done rehearsals but – you don’t really know what you’re stepping into,’ she laughs. She must not have signed up for this.
Jewellery: Adler
Speaking from admiration, Maisie shares how grateful she is to have Ed Sheeran as her mentor. “You will not find an artist that has had the success that he has had that has managed to retain this incredible humility and graciousness and gratitude for everybody around him – I’m his biggest fan on many levels.
She went to the VMAs with Ed. “It was hilarious and amazing, but like, kind of insane. I had done Kimmel, I had been in LA, and I flew to New York and spent the weekend there. I wore a Versace dress, and I went to a fitting… I mean, even though I am a jeans and jumpers girl, I’m absolutely a dress up girl. I fucking love a dress up, like get me some little heels and a little dress, and I’m all over it,” she says.
After an incredible performance at Kimmel, Maisie explains that “playing live is really so different and, it took [her] some years to find [her] feet in it.” Continuing with her central, underlying message of acceptance, she says, “I think that it’s important that [to remember that] no one comes out a perfect Popstar – apart from maybe Beyonce. I like to think I’ve found my feet a little bit more, I think I was more like an excited and wonderful little lamb and now hopefully I’m a little bit more stable, little bit more seasoned, but probably not, we’ll see.”
So, what’s next for Maisie? “I want to evolve and grow and do things I wouldn’t have done two years ago, but also, I’m very aware that I’m 21, there’s plenty more albums to be made, plenty more years to be lived. Yeah, time is long.”
In the meantime, she’s pleased with her first album. “F*ck, I really, really love this album,” she laughs. Eager to get back to the road, Maisie says, “It’ll be the time of our lives – I really love touring; I love my band and I haven’t played a lot of the album live yet so I’m just excited to play the shows and be on the road.” Celebrating “the culmination of luck and effort,” she starts the next chapter in her life.
Photographer
Arved Colvin-Smith
Stylist
Jennifer Michalski-Bray
Make-Up Artist
Lisa Potter-Dixon
Hair Stylist
Narad Kutowaroo using Unite Hair and GHD unplugged
Styling Assistant
Kayleigh Dennis
Retoucher
Natalya Tran
Videographer
Sam Jones
Location
Shangri-La The Shard
@shangrilalondon
shangri-la.com
31 St Thomas St, London SE1 9QU
