Acousticmaddie is a soundartist which means she creates new worlds and stories with sound. She plays several different instruments. and enjoys writing songs on the guitar, ukulele, keyboard, thin whistle, bass, harmonica, or whatever weird instruments she finds in the attic. She looks at music and musicianship as art and has an urge to make people feel both with her lyrics and compositions.
Acousticmaddie gets her inspiration from every corner she pass, a dialogue at the bus aswell as your dreams. She also writes a lot of lyrics and love to collab. She studies songwriting and soundart and her focus is folklore and storytelling and she likes to experiment with voices and make the guitar sound weird.
Exposed Vocals Score 8.7/10
Exclusive Interview
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Acousticmaddie: I grew up at countryside of Sweden and as a child I was doing both sports and music. Music has always been a huge part of my live but by then I never really felt I was supposed to become an artist so I did a lot of sports for many years. Handball and Thai-boxing. Then thanks to a friend I kind of slowly grew into my genre of music and started to believe that I could actually do it. A couple of years ago I also send a song to a Swedish Norse-ballad competition and came to the finals. Somewhere there I started to go back to the uni and study music and do it all for real.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Acousticmaddie: Haha really boring story. I play mainly acoustic “Things” … I say things be course I study to sound artist and most things can actually contribute to songs. But most of all I like to tell stories with my acoustic guitar finding ways to create sound FX with just that. So since Maddie is a pretty common name I just added and registered Acousticmaddie. Although I am not so acoustic anymore
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Acousticmaddie: I like to support my fellow artist and try to the stuff I like and I do think online sharing is good in many ways. You don’t make much money online anyway if you are not commercial like Beyoncé or so. You make money on live gigs and with placements but I do think you should support the indie artist you like by buying their stuff. I think people in general don’t understand the amount of work we put in behind the scenes. Musicians can get questions like:
“I have a suggestion why don’t you do a song about … and give it to me … for exposure”
First of all it would be very rude not to credit and expose the musician even if he/She get payed and second of all you should pay people for the work.
On the other hand I do give away things for free in two cases. Sometimes I make music for my fellow lyricists and sometimes they give me lyrics it’s about scratching each other’s back.
I also have done charity EP’s like one about trafficking awareness last year (At the end of your street-BC only,), The song for the seven year old girls Sydney (Eng. Am not afraid, Sw.: Inte rädd) that was dying in Leukemia- where all money goes to Child cancer research and I am working on a current EP called “Out of this hell” (With two lyricists) about Suicide awareness/mental Illness where the money will go to the organization Suicide zero
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Acousticmaddie: I mainly got mine by word so be kind, be social and be seen.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Acousticmaddie: Haha yes of course usually on songs I think I know by heart and have played a thousand times. Last week I actually had a real weird incident. I was playing a funeral and I’ve played hundreds of them and this particular Swedish song by Kent band is very common both on funerals and weddings. I also loved the song (before I had to play it so many times) but this time I sat there and by the chorus I was totally blanc. All of a sudden I had absolutely no idea of what it was about. But I have done Improvisation Theater for several years so I did the worst thing you can do on a funeral. I freestyled the whole chorus. And then I held my breath wanted to fall through the floor. Although nobody said anything. Except for when I was packing up my gear at the end and the son of the deceased came through and said: “I really loved what you did with the chorus. I have loved that song forever but you gave it some real heart making it personal for my dad. Thank you!”
Unfortunately I have no idea what I sang but I am happy it worked out.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Acousticmaddie: No not really if you don’t count busking (which is my absolute favorite form of performance) in Europe between May and October.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Acousticmaddie: I don’t work by inspiration. I work by dedication. Every day I do 5 minutes of Pat Pattissons sense bound object writing to wake up my mind then, when mind is ready, I can write about anything you give me and I ask everybody for prompts. My Boyfriend, my kids, my friends, and I write/compose at least one thing every day.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Acousticmaddie: Yes I do. My solo one is www.acousticmaddie.com and there is also a bandsite for mine and Marcus Mittiläs duo www.mackanåmörkret.nu (With Swedish å and ö) and I do use Spotify, itunes, tidal, Bandcamp and YouTube. I also got Facebook and Twitter
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Acousticmaddie: None, haha I don’t see music as embarrassing. Every musician has its crowd and I might keep a few that common people don’t listen to but I stand up strongly for everything I listen to.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Acousticmaddie: Working as a sound artist with only artsy stuff.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Acousticmaddie: No plans right now. I work mainly in reaper DAW and I got the gear I need. I might even have a bit to many (If that expression exist in the world of gear) mics. I could get a better ribbon mic but for now I am more looking into a new computer. It’s about time to upgrade and maybe after that I get into new things but I did recently upgrade my soundcard and my monitors so for now the only thing I really want is not really studio related since it’s an acoustic bass.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Acousticmaddie: By live gigs and to participate in twitter chats, communities.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Acousticmaddie: Where is unimportant but I would die to perform with Tom Waits course he is my absolute rule model and a unique artist with a soul and sound hard to be found in anything.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Acousticmaddie: I am currently working on two big things an album “Kissing Spiders” with one of my absolute favorite indie artist, Pete Murphy, will be out. It’s an honor to work with somebody you admire and I promise the album is fabulous with 12 gorgeous dark and delicious tracks
Also in a few weeks the suicide awareness EP “Out of this hell” (with two lyricists: Cindy Prince and Elisabeth Petty). It’s a soft metal album where every penny goes to suicide prevention organization in Sweden Suicide Zero. And also a Swedish Ep with the duo Mackan å mörkret.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Acousticmaddie: I live here and now, therefore that question is impossible to answer.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Acousticmaddie: Haha yes it was on a flea market with dad and a Swedish folk album (Med rötter I medeltiden by Ulf Gruvberg and Carin Kjellman) I still live by. I was five or six and the album cover looked like something from a farmers place only brown and beige. Really boring but the inside got stuck and I still play those songs when I busk in Sweden.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Acousticmaddie: I never sleep, ha ha well I don’t have a recipe that works for everybody. I priorities music. I do not watch TV-series and stuff people claim they do. Kids live every other week at their dads and they are also into cultural stuff. We might not be as other families’ course we priorities a day out playing ukulele in the rain than “Have to” stuff.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2018?
Acousticmaddie: The album with Pete Murphy is absolutely great and the Swedish EP with Mackan å mörkret will be absolutely awesome. And if you are in Sweden the 9: Th of June I will be putting people’s poems to music at the cultural festival in Haninge municipality. Bring me your lyric or whistle me a tune and we work something out.
