Mac tells Rappler that it’s been ‘a healing full-circle moment’ to listen to the songs in his latest album, as most of them had been written in 2016 and 2017
MANILA, Philippines – Mac Ayres dropping out of college to pursue a full-time career in music is a fact that many of his longtime listeners already know about him.
“I remember building up the courage to call my mom back home while I was at school and just telling her that I wanted to leave and work on my own stuff at home and then just go and try to make it,” Mac recalled.
Even before his college days, though, Mac has already been a solid musician — getting an early start as a member of the school choir as a kid.
He had also mentioned a singing teacher, who, merely going off how he described him, seemed to be a pretty iconic figure from his childhood, having exposed him to much of the music he still listens to today. It was also through this teacher that he first learned piano, which eventually led him to be the self-taught multi-instrumentalist he’s become in the present.
These are arguably some of the most pivotal moments in the American singer’s life, as he would later go on to mold himself into a prominent R&B figure in the global music scene, courtesy of records like Drive Slow, Magic 8ball, and Comfortable Enough — and those are just half of them.
Now, he’s back with his sixth album, cloudy, and he describes its creative process as “a really fun walk down memory lane.”
The nostalgia in ‘cloudy’
The majority of cloudy consists of songs that Mac wrote in 2016 or 2017 in his college apartment — most of them just remastered and slightly polished for when it finally came time to release the full album to the public. The 15-track record as a whole, then, serves as somewhat of a nostalgic snapshot of when the “Easy” singer was really beginning to solidify his roots as a musician.
“It’s really interesting to listen to those songs and think about where I am today, because at the time I was writing them, I was very uncertain about the future, and I didn’t really know if I was going to make it in music or if I would have any kind of a career. But it’s just been a really healing full-circle moment for me to revisit these songs,” he told Rappler.
Referencing his past wasn’t what challenged Mac when he was working to put cloudy out, though. Interestingly, it was the quality of his mixes that stood as a roadblock. With years of growth and experience between the inception of those tracks to now, it’s only natural that he’d spot things he’d want to improve.
“I was just a college kid. I was just using the stuff that I had at the time. I didn’t really have any fancy studio equipment. I was just compiling some Christmas money and just using whatever I had,” Mac quipped.
But perhaps it’s what’s left of the original rawness of the record’s sound that makes listening to it such an interesting experience.
The release of cloudy had been a long time coming — happening mostly after Mac finally gave in to his fans, who had been asking for it to be on streaming platforms for years. And now that it’s out, the 28-year-old singer and his listeners alike now have a pretty solid record to tune into, not just because of the production quality of each song, but also through the definitive memories it’s packed with.
“I think that those songs are really special for not only myself, but for a lot of people out there. And I thought that it was really important to put it out and make it accessible on all streaming platforms. But also, I just feel like I’m at a point in my life where [there’s] been a lot of change, a lot of good change. And I think that it was just a nice sort of a full-circle moment,” Mac shared, adding that he even got to return to Boston, where many of the tracks off cloudy were written.
For the love of the game
Almost every year, Mac would drop a new creation, be it a single or a full-length album — and cloudy is just the latest addition to his expansive, ever-growing discography.
It doesn’t take a music expert to know that this feat’s impressive on its own, usually begging the question, “How does he do it?” But Mac’s secret is quite simple: it all just lies in having fun.
“I think it’s easy to lose sight of the love that you have for something when it becomes your job. But I think I just always try to remember that music is really fun. It doesn’t always have to be strenuous and a challenge to overcome. I have always just really loved to make music so I think that’s what keeps me coming back every day. I wake up and I pick up an instrument. It’s part of who I am and it’s my favorite thing to do in the world,” Mac reflected.
It’s his love for the craft that puts heart into his music — and that’s the one thing that never changes with everything he releases. While he says that each album he drops “has its own flavor and feeling,” his passion stays the same, and it’s not going anywhere. – Rappler.com