By Bridney C.
It is a pleasure to interview Meg for the Sweet Scoop.
Meg, who prefers to go by her stage name, is a singer-songwriter from Groton, Connecticut. "It’s not my birth name but that’s what I’d like to be recognized as. I like the mystery of the public not knowing my real name," says Meg.
Meg says she loves introducing some form of mystery or puzzle when it comes to creating anything. She loves to add deep thinking and thought to her material, which is why she decided to apply that to her stage name.
She fell in love with creating music when she realized it could change the world while she was in middle school. During the 7th grade, she learned how to play piano and guitar, which she considers her "soul instrument."
Her mentor, Valarie Walsh of Holistic Expressions, held yearly talent shows which slowly built up her confidence in performing. In the 8th grade, Meg attended the Dual Language Arts Magnet Middle School where she met a lot of students who shared the same love for art and music she expressed.
"At the school I joined a rock band with a couple of my friends, playing the electric guitar. I gained a lot of experience working together in a band, performing, and working under deadlines," says Meg.
During her freshman year of high school, Meg started attending open mics and posting music covers online. She is currently a sophomore in high school and is excited to perform in Season 10 of the New London Talent Show.
Meg now plays the ukulele on top of playing the guitar and piano. She taught herself how to play the "uke" for a gig she had at a wedding last year.
"It [the ukulele] is what I played at my audition for the New London Talent Show," says Meg.
In this edition of Q&A, Meg described the creative process for her latest song, "Come Easy," current projects she's working on, and opened up about being apart of the New London Talent Show.
Bridney C: Who were your biggest writing influences? Which musical artist first inspired you to take singing to the next level?
Meg: I don’t think I’ve had any past writing influences. I think I’m just now getting into writing my music full time. What I mean by that is, I’ve decided to focus on putting out my music, and MAYBE a cover here and there. So I’ve just recently kind of been looking at other people's music and using them as inspiration. My biggest influencers at the moment are WILLOW, Daniel Caesar, Moses Sumney, and Harry Styles. I first knew I wanted to take performing and music to the next levels after I went to my first concert. It was in 7th grade, and it was Shawn Mendes.
BC: Who or what inspired you to write the song, "Come Easy?" What was the creative process like?
M: When I wrote "Come Easy," I was going through a phase of feeling a lot of creative energy, and I was just driven one night to write a song based on a “special someone”. Previous to that song I had written a lot of sad, sappy songs. I wanted to get away from that style. So in writing “Come Easy” I wanted to challenge myself and evolve in my craft.
“Come Easy” went through a couple of different phases. The night I wrote it, in 15 mins I already had lyrics down and finalized. When I first put it all together, the instrumental, vocals, etc. the tempo ended up being slow. Maybe 5 times slower than the final version. Then around a year later the New London Talent Show opportunity was a great platform to mix it up. I knew I wanted to perform this song, but it had a very coffee house/open mic type vibe to it. Going into the talent show I knew that I wanted to play it differently. I wanted to take my performance and music style to the next level. So I got to work. I ended up adding a whole new bridge, back up vocals, new guitar style, added a little bit of a beat and sped it up. It became a whole different sound and tone but I think it enhanced the essence of what I originally wanted the song to speak to.
I spent hours in my room, pulling all-nighters, recreating this song. I recorded myself playing guitar and then I added my makeshift beat. I used only my hands and then used filters and editing to try to get it to a good deep base sound as best I could. For the first time I played around heavily with layering and using melodic tones to give more texture/liveliness to the song. I experienced a whole new level of creating music and got to know what I had for resources. It was the most fun I had ever had making a song. I wasn’t even phased by the hours I was putting in. When I had found my flow, found my structure, and saw my vision, I took it and RAN with it. I was in my zone, it was addicting. Creating is addicting.
Bridney C: What is "Come Easy" about? What is your favorite lyric in the song?
Meg: I don’t want to say. I want to leave the meaning of the song up to the listener. One of the things I love most about art, and what I think all forms of art have in common, is that there is no right or wrong. It is all perception and in that, you are completely free to make it anything you want. You take what is presented to you and make that into your vision, through your own eyes. That is when we connect and bounce off of each other with these incredible ideas and then branch off into something even better and more powerful, and that is one of the major things I want to do with my music, I want to form connections and create new ways of communicating and understanding each other and open up new ideas and concepts. I think if I explained the ‘meaning’ of the song, it would take away some of the transparency of it and that’s the last thing I want to do. I always want to keep that mysterious theme going.
My favorite part of “Come Easy”, is the entire chorus portion. “Oh, baby please don’t leave me, oh baby please come easy." Those lines bring me back to that tranquil, blissful feeling I found in the creative process. It’s when I expanded on the story of the song and gave it more depth. I vividly remember dancing in my room and jumping all over the place because I knew I had hit something big for myself and I was high on that amazing happy feeling.
BC: Are you currently working on any new projects? If not, do you have anything planned or something you're currently working on that will be released soon?
M: I am currently working on three songs at the moment. They are more than halfway done. Two of them are my originals, and one is a part of something larger that I can’t speak of at the moment. I’m shooting to have those two originals done close to the beginning of summer. I have not started actively making an album of any sort, but I have so many ideas in the back of my head of what I want to do. I’m just waiting to be in the right place to start working on it. I’m feeling like this summer is going to be beneficial for me. After school is out of the way, I’m going to be working on a lot of stuff.
BC: Talk about the New London Talent Show. What were you looking forward to the most before the pandemic? Which song were you set to perform? And what was the whole experience like as a newcomer for Season 10?
M: I was most looking forward to working with the directors and the other performers. Seeing videos from past seasons I saw the close bonds that were formed. I was interested in what that experience would be like performing on a real stage with lights, cameras, etc. in front of a sold-out show. I was also really, really excited to see the behind the scenes work of creating performances like this. I think the whole thing was just an awesome eye-opening opportunity for me.
As of right now I’m set to be the opening act and to perform "Come Easy." The whole experience of being in the show is seriously like something out of a daydream. I never would’ve thought I would be doing this at my age or get an opportunity like this, THIS early. I do feel like it changed the way I present myself. I feel like I matured a lot myself as well as my music. If I never got into the New London Talent Show I would have never found that new way of creating music and I would have never released this final product of my song which in turn, got me this interview. It pushed my boundaries so that I could grow and flourish. I saw a different side of town and a different side of humanity working with the other artists. I met new friends... You could feel the support in the room and it was powerful and so refreshing to be around. I left every meeting with so much drive and enthusiasm. I owe a good part of the way I present myself and talk of things I’m passionate about, to the directors and mentors of the New London Talent Show. They were truly, truly passionate about what they wanted to leave behind and what they wanted to do to impact their city. It was a good taste of what I aim to work with moving forward.
BC: If you could choose a theme song for the year 2020, what would it be?
M: I think that “Me in 20 Years” by Moses Sumney would be the perfect way to describe how people have been feeling throughout 2020, and I think it also explains one of the underlying lessons we could learn from this year.
To hear and see more from Meg, be sure to follow her
on Soundcloud, Twitter, and Instagram.