Self-professed Princess Peach—crown firmly on, sunstone personality set to blinding, and turning every feeling she’s ever had into a sequined, steel-toed country stomp—Bellah Mae doesn’t just make music, she throws glitter at it until it surrenders. Her six-track EP, Keep It Peachy, is both the motto and the mission statement, covering everything from self-love to the eternal audacity of boys being devastatingly predictable boys. We caught up with Bellah to talk about her classical soprano background (operatic pipes lurking underneath all that twang like a secret weapon), how she lassoed the approval of none other than Dolly Parton‘s manager—who loved one of her tracks, no big deal—and to pull apart some of the lyrics we haven’t been able to stop chewing on.
You began writing songs at eight and then picked up guitar at 11, with your dad as your first teacher—does playing still bring him to mind?
I think playing guitar will always remind me of my dad. He taught me every chord that I know how to play, and he bought me the guitar that I use the most. When I’m touring or playing live shows, I’m using my guitar he bought me. It brings me a lot of happy memories of him!
Speaking of learning, you also trained as a classical soprano for 11 years. How does that operatic foundation sneak its way into the country and pop-punk chaos?
I probably pull on my many years of training as a soprano singer more than I am aware of. The part that I’m most grateful for is that I have pretty good vocal health because I know when to push it and when not to push it. So I tend to be able to keep my voice pretty healthy whenever I’m touring or I’m in the studio a lot. And I think it sneaks its way into country all the time. I will say, I think I have a pretty good vibrato, and that came from a decade of soprano training!
One of the highest accolades in this industry is when your fave notices you—and Dolly Parton’s manager, Danny Nozell, did exactly that when he picked up a song you independently released at just 17. Can you let us in on that moment?
So my parents have always been my biggest, biggest fans and probably always will be. I don’t think anyone will ever come close to supporting me and believing in me the way that they do. My mom actually found Dolly Parton’s manager’s email all those years ago. I still have no idea how she found it, but just being a proud mom and wanting me to make it, I think she was just thinking, ‘who’s the biggest person I can think of in country?’ and obviously that being Dolly, she just went and found her manager’s email and sent him my first song. We got to talking, and about three weeks later, I flew out to Nashville for the first time, did meetings with them on the day I landed, and then he went on to be an amazing mentor of mine for many years. He’s still a friend, so I am very grateful to him and forever to my mom!
Your 2022 debut track, ‘Boyfriend of the Year,’ was your first real taste of strangers having opinions about your inner world. Have you made peace with that going into this EP, or does putting your thoughts into song form—where literally anyone can hear—still catch you off guard?
I think I’ve always really found being very vulnerable and open very natural and easy for me. I have never struggled as an artist, as a songwriter, or as a human being really expressing how I feel. Even back when I was putting ‘Boyfriend of the Year’ online for the first time and writing about a breakup and knowing friends and family and people from school were gonna hear it, it just never bothered me. I’ve always been really happy to be honest, and I’ve kind of kept that through all my song lyrics. The part that I struggle with more than being vulnerable online is putting out a song that I really love in hopes that people that like my music love it too. I don’t have any control over what people are going to want and what they would prefer for me to put out. The only thing I can really do is put out music that I love in hopes that other people are going to love it too. That’s the part that I’m still learning and growing with. But in terms of being okay with being vulnerable, I’m very happy to do that.
Your SoundCloud bio reads like a witty welcome letter to the Hot Ex-Girlfriends Club, which became a whole podcast too. If you were curating an official initiation basket for new members, what’s going in there?
The Hot Ex-Girlfriends Club initiation basket would look like light-washed Levi’s, sunglasses, some little gold hoop earrings, probably a name necklace (I never take my name necklace off), an Aperol Spritz, some English chocolate and candy (I don’t like American chocolate and candy), some headphones, and a whole crate of farmers market peaches.
‘Kiss My Levi’s’ is such a fun subversion of the classic phrase. If we were drafting the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants reboot, what’s your ultimate stance on the standing-on-business jean—skinny, wide-leg, or flare?
I’m just a big fan of denim in general. I love lots of different types—very unpopular opinion, I still do love a skinny jean from time to time. But I do like all jeans I don’t think there is a style of jean I’m not into—maybe culottes I don’t wear that much. But I will say my favorite at the moment is like a little bootcut—just a little, nothing too crazy. They’re tight at the top and a little bit loose at the bottom, and they’re kind of doing just everything I need them to do at the moment.
‘Love Me Less’ sits in that really vulnerable space of fearing that letting someone see the real you will make them love you less rather than more. What’s fascinating is that in the first verse, you set him up as someone who loves your no-makeup face—he wants the real version of you—and then immediately you drop a very specific bra size he’s after, which completely reframes the picture. What was behind that contrast?
So the opening verse of ‘Love Me Less’ is just very specific lyricism. It opens with, “You say that you like me no makeup / Say you love a 34b cup / But I’ve got mascara and push-up on.” So that basically means at the start of a relationship—when even if that person is trying to tell you they love you the way that you are—you actually don’t fully know. So you say that you like me without makeup on, but I still have mascara on, so it’s not actually makeup-free, and you say that you like my bra size, and I have a push-up bra on, so it’s like—do you actually love me or do you love the version I’m showing you? I don’t know whether you would love me in the ways that you say that you do because I’m not showing you myself fully. And I just love how so, so vulnerable it is straight from the get-go of the opening verse because it just sets the tone of me taking off every layer and unmasking the whole idea of letting someone know you more.
There’s a lyric in ‘Home Safe’ that we’re a little obsessed with—“I don’t miss flowers with no note / You always making me decode”—because it captures that particular situationship cruelty so precisely. Where did that one come from?
So this lyric, I didn’t know if it was too specific and niche to put in. The person I wrote this song about, whom I had dated, sent me flowers, but they would never include a note, so they would never say who it was from; it would just be a blank note. And I always felt like it was a bit of a control tactic because yes, I should be grateful that you’re sending me flowers, but it was always so cryptic and intentional to not leave a note with it. It made me feel like I had to be grateful, but also, there was something where it wasn’t fully for me, and they still had to obtain some power in the situation. But it was such a relevant part of the relationship and I always try and stay true to myself as a songwriter, and I do want to put in as specific lyrics as I can because that’s what’s unique to me in that situation I was writing about. Most of the time, it ends up being that it’s more often relatable than not, so that’s why I kept that line in there. If you’ve ever had someone send you flowers without a note, then you’ll know exactly what I’m writing about—you kind of want to be happy, but you also just feel a bit like, hmm, thank you? It’s like a bit of a backhanded gift.
You’ve been teasing songs that aren’t even on this EP yet, including one with a lyric about microdosing—how fun is it to drop a little lyrical spoiler and watch the internet react in real time?
One thing I will never change is teasing when I’m not supposed to—there is nothing like just loving a song of yours at that exact moment in time and not waiting until it’s agreed upon to be a single and just popping it online. That’s really how I started my career: I was just writing little songs a lot of the time just in my bedroom. I would just take a little video and put them online because, realistically, that’s what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis: I’m creating a lot of music. And so I just love to keep people involved in what I’m making at the time, even if it has no plans to come out right there and then. Also, nothing is off limits. If I were to want to put it out, we could do that. But I do love a cheeky tease!
And yes, that’s one of my favorite lyrics I’ve written in a while, “you’re always taking little mushrooms, it opens up your mind / Maybe this time you can microdose yourself into a better guy.”
And finally, you’ve already been bringing some of these songs to live audiences—including one venue with a spiral staircase that let you live out your full Princess Diaries moment. What has it been like watching a room of people connect with songs that started as just your own experience?
I will say performing live and hearing people sing your lyrics back to you never ever gets old, and it’s something that will continue to always fill my heart in a way I can’t explain. But being on the other side of the world and doing live shows in a country for the first time that isn’t my country, where I’ve been building my live audience, where I’ve just gone on this recent support tour—my first ever US shows—it felt like I was doing a headline show. I was just so surprised that people there knew so many of my songs and were singing them back. It just felt so unbelievably rewarding and special and just so surreal for me that there’s people in a completely different part of the world than where I’m from still singing the songs I wrote in my bedroom crying. It’s really hard to put into words and very hard to explain, but I just feel very, very grateful!
What song’s got you trying to Keep It Peachy as you strut past your ex in your best Levi’s? Let us know on our socials—Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook—and we’ll do the recon to confirm whether they looked. Spoiler: of course they did. They always do.
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