Rising singer/songwriter Maeve Steele has released her new single “Tycho,” a moody track inspired by the prevalence of the 108-million-year-old crater, one of the clearest craters you can see from Earth.
Drawn to the crater after discovering it on Pinterest, Maeve began messing around and personifying Tycho which initially led to jealousy, thinking how nice it must be to have an existence where time doesn’t matter. As she thought about it more, it became a cliche dilemma. Many of us wish we had the luxury of time without considering how lonely it might be and the life that would be taken out of every day.
“To me, this song is really a deep breath. I wrote it in the context of a lullaby, and there’s something about zooming out and looking to the sky that feels really calming,” shares Steele. “It’s reassuring to remember how small we are right before bed. I’ve always had trouble falling asleep, so this song is what I try to thing about when I’m struggling late at night.”
“Tycho” is the follow up to her recently released dreamy track and music video for “Shimmer,” a dance floor ready, synth-pop gem delivered with the plainspoken poetry and intuitive empathy of a natural born storyteller. PRESS HERE to watch. Recorded with multi-platinum producer/mixer/engineer Brian Malouf (Michael Jackson, Madonna), Steele’s songs are bittersweet meditations on growth, change, and self-discovery, profound works of introspection wrapped in effervescent pop packaging that belies their true emotional depth. She draws on everything from roots music to disco in her writing, and the juxtaposition of such wildly disparate sonic influences only serves to heighten the boundless sense of freedom and curiosity at play in her lyrics.
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Steele developed her voracious musical appetite and distinctive fashion sense at an early age, inspired in large part by the Haight-Ashbury scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. While Steele’s formal introduction to music came through classical violin lessons that began before kindergarten, her family’s home was regularly filed with the sounds of folk, Americana, and country records. The evocative lyrics and indelible melodies proved irresistible, and by the time she was in elementary school, Steele was teaching herself to play guitar and beginning to write her own songs. Hungry to learn more about the business side of things and eager to surround herself with other likeminded folks, Steele moved to Nashville for college, where she studied literature during the day and honed her craft at night. Though she initially envisioned a behind-the-scenes career writing for other performers, her plans quickly changed once she got her first real taste of being onstage. “I was 19 when I started doing these songwriter rounds in Nashville, and something clicked where I realized I didn’t want to just churn out songs and then give them away,” she explains. “I realized that I needed to see my songs all the way through, that I needed to be an artist rather than just a songwriter.”
With a growing collection of mesmerizing, pop-noir gems under her belt, Maeve Steele navigates the world around her through exuberant melodies and vivid lyricism.