Singer/songwriter Mia Day grew up in Capitol Hill outside of Seattle, Washington. Even though she looked to Taylor Swift for musical inspiration, she wanted her sound to be a bit grittier. Her parents loved the 90s Grunge era that she followed their amazing tastes in music. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden to name a few bands that helped create her sound.
I recently chatted it up with Mia about coming to terms with songwriting, her love for 90s grunge, and where she is headed next.
What made you pick up guitar and follow the grunge aesthetic?
The first artist that made me believe I could write a song and play the guitar was Taylor Swift. I remember being nine and watching her perform “You Belong With Me” with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammys on my parents small TV in their bedroom, and thinking “I can do that. I can write a song and play the guitar like that.” At the same time, I remember craving something grittier, and felt like there was a part of myself that was heavy, and needed a sound that reflected that. My voice was never like Taylor Swift’s. It was this wild, sharp thing that sounded deep and sometimes out of control. Following a grungier aesthetic is what felt natural, because it largely felt like a part of me that couldn’t be changed.
Did the Seattle grunge inspire you at all? Your vocals remind me of Courtney Love’s.
Thank you! That’s a huge compliment. The Seattle grunge scene heavily inspired me, because I was surrounded by the aftermath of it. I was born in Seattle in 2000, and I lived in an apartment in Capitol Hill with my parents. My room was a closet that had a view of the space needle. My parents took me everywhere in a baby backpack, and even though I don’t remember it, I feel like the sounds of the city made an imprint on me. My parents loved grunge music, and nineties/early 2000’s alt. It was the soundtrack of my life.
“Marigold” and “Severed” are your fiercest tunes on Hellier, Forever. The rest of the album sounds very folk.
I realized that too! At first when I was making this album, I wondered if the rest of the songs were too slow, but as more pieces fell into place, it started to make sense. The driving sonic inspiration for this album, and what I constantly referred to while creating it, is the album The Bends by Radiohead. There’s a lot of songs off that album that have folk elements at their core, but use weird electric guitar effects over them to take the listener to another landscape that feels more dissonant. I wanted to do that in my own way.
Speaking of Hellier, Forever—what is the meaning behind the title?
Hellier is a small town in Kentucky where a lot of supernatural things happen. There’s been alien sightings, rumors of cults, strange things that happen in the abandoned mines that still rest there. Everyone who lives there seems to be affected by it in some way. I learned about it through a docuseries that me and my ex watched together. We loved it. After we broke up, I felt like I was in a place between worlds, kind of like the show. I felt like I would be there forever. It was a really traumatic year of my life, and I was trying to hold on to something real, when nothing felt real. Hellier, Forever became the place where these songs lived. It’s a feeling too, of being in between holding on and letting go.
Did you feel any pressure putting this project together or was it a cathartic experience?
Writing these songs was a cathartic experience, but I felt a lot of pressure moving on from there. I was so proud of them, and I was scared to start building them into something bigger than just songs I wrote on my acoustic guitar every morning after eating cereal with my eyes full of tears. These songs came from such a special, broken place, and I was scared of ruining them, or messing them up. I had to trust myself and trust the people I chose to be a part of this project. It really healed me.
What’s the song “Daddy Issues” about?
“Daddy Issues” is probably the most vulnerable and uncomfortable song I’ve ever written. It’s hard to write a song about a parent, because they’re complex and multi-faceted people. You know that there’s reasons for the way that they are, and that they’re human and make mistakes, and at the same time, it can’t erase the ways they’ve deeply hurt you as their child. I love my dad, he’s a complicated person, and I know that ultimately, he does love me. I also walk around and live my life through patterns from my relationship with him that I constantly feel I have to
break.
Are most of the songs about prior relationships?
Yes and no. When I first started writing this album, I probably would have said that most of the songs are about my ex. However, through the process of creating it over the past two years, I’ve realized that these are songs about myself, the way that I am in relationships, and how love and relationships impact my life. Almost everything is biographical, and that can be very revealing for the people who are a part of the story, but ultimately, everything in these songs says more about me, even if I’m talking about or to another person in them.
What’s next for you?
I want to write happy songs. I want to write songs about joy. I don’t remember how to. I want to capture my life beyond sadness and pain. I want to make people dance. Sonically, I also want to get heavier. “Severed” really marks the direction that I want to go, and that I’m growing towards. I want to get better at electric guitar, I used to be so scared of it. This is the first year that I’ve had a pedal board, and I love it. I would love to make music like Hana Vu and Wednesday, and to write songs like Waxahatchee. They have been my biggest inspirations lately.
