Interview: Mackenzie Shivers Blossoms on Beautiful, New Record ‘primrose was in season’
Interview by Greg Poblete | Photos by Desdemona Dallas
No one seems to understand the delicacy of life more than Mackenzie Shivers. The New York-based singer/songwriter opens up on her emotional new record, primrose was in season, writing about the healing process during the loss of her first pregnancy, demonstrating her strength and resilience to overcome such heartbreak. Along with collaborator/producer, Kevin Salem, Shivers captures this vulnerability through piano-driven, texturally layered instrumentation, allowing her freeing and bold songwriting to take center stage.
Released March 1st, Shivers’ fourth album blooms during a particularly new season for her, recently celebrating her daughter’s first birthday and enjoying some time at home as the record finds its way to listeners. We had the chance to chat with Shivers about primrose was in season, the inspiration behind the record, and how becoming a mother has changed her outlook on making art.
Greg: First off, how are you and where are you currently in the world?
Mackenzie: I’m doing well, thanks! And I’m in the Hudson Valley, New York, which is where I’ve lived for the past few years.
Greg: How are you feeling anticipating the release of your new album?
Mackenzie: I’m very excited! It’s also feeling very surreal because I’ve been working on this project for about three years now, so it feels like it’s been a long time coming and I’m very excited for it to be set free into the world.
Greg: Before we get into the new record, I want to know what did your musical upbringing look like and how did you first get started with playing music and songwriting?
Mackenzie: I started playing the piano when I was about four and I was lucky enough that we had a piano in our house. It’s something that my parents said I just gravitated towards, and always wanted to be playing around on the piano. So they started me in piano lessons soon after that and I had this immense love for the piano itself, and for music in general. But it was the piano; that was the first thing that I was really drawn to.
My parents both love music. My dad listened to records all the time. He had on Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Sly and the Family Stone, just a bunch of great music. My mom sang in the choir in the church that we went to, and she’s musical as well. She has a beautiful voice. So I grew up around music and I kinda felt like it found me from a very young age. Then I continued piano lessons all the way through college.
Greg: When did you first realize that your songwriting was a tool you could use to channel your feelings?
Mackenzie: That didn’t come until a bit later. I started writing songs when I was really young, about when I started playing the piano I started playing little tunes. But it wasn’t until, maybe the end of high school, when I really started writing as a way to channel emotions and work through feelings as a form of catharsis. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the first time I really liked somebody and it didn’t work out, and I had my first heartbreak, these first really big feelings at that age. The music was there at that point when I was feeling all these really big feelings and I realized, “Okay, this is how I can work through this. This is how I can talk about how I’m feeling in a way that I don’t think I can do otherwise.”
Greg: This new record definitely captures very intimate and vulnerable moments in your life. What would you say is the most difficult part about writing songs from such a personal place? Do you ever feel like there are moments that are too intimate to share in art?
Mackenzie: That’s a really good question, and it’s something that I’ve thought about a lot in preparation of releasing this record. I wrestled with whether to be so candid about the album’s backstory, about the fertility struggle and miscarriage because I didn’t want to alienate anybody who hadn’t been through this experience. I didn’t want to pigeonhole the album or myself. But anytime I try to speak about the music and not tie that in, it didn’t really feel right to me. And I realized that this is a story that I want to tell and I want to share. And I’m hoping that there are people out there that connect with it and maybe it helps somebody out there feel a little less lonely. No two stories are exactly the same, but we are all connected by them and so I think we have to tell them.
Going back to your question about is anything too intimate in art, I don’t think so. Sometimes there are albums that come out where the artist chooses to tell nothing about the backstory and that’s fine too. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong. I think it’s dependent on the artist and the album, and what feels authentic to them.
Greg: The instrumental root of almost every track is you and the piano. How do you feel like playing the piano enhances the vulnerability of your songwriting and what does the overall instrumentation of the record add to the narrative of the record?
Mackenzie: The piano and I feel very connected. My last album, I wrote some of the music on guitar and that was my first time doing that. That was my way of branching out and challenging myself. But for this album, because I was in such a vulnerable and difficult, challenging place in my personal life, I found the piano as such a comfort and something that was really there for me when I needed it.
Whenever I write music on the piano, I think there’s always an argument for the production of it; just staying as that and releasing or producing it as a piano/vocal. I’ve done that before and I feel like with this music, it was calling out for something more adventurous, something more exciting and different than what I had done before. What you hear on the album in terms of electric guitar, the synths, and the electronic drum beats mixed with the organic drums, that’s all Kevin Salem, who produced this with me; that’s just us having fun in the studio.
This was a time where I wasn’t having a lot of fun otherwise, and the studio was my place to let go. I was really happy when I made this music which is such a juxtaposition. But it was my happy place in that way and you can hear some of that in the production of the songs.
Greg: Were there any new production techniques that you tried for this new record? What were some of your musical inspirations when writing these songs?
Mackenzie: Something that we tried to do on this album that was fun is with things like the vocals, really paying attention to how they were engineered so there’s not as much done to them in post. For instance, a lot of the backing vocals were sung through this old radio mic that had this really cool, warm, fuzzy tone. It was the kind of thing where I can sing through it and that was basically it. We didn’t really tinker with it much afterwards.
I keep coming back to this juxtaposition, you have this organic quality and this more synthetic or electronic quality that I find really satisfying that I really love in artists like Hand Habits and Flock of Dimes does some of that really well. These are artists I was listening to at the time. And then going back to Talking Heads, some new wave type of music That was very influential. That was kinda the vibe.
Greg: The record starts with “a cautionary tale” which seems to be a sort of warning for either yourself or those listening to the album. What is the importance of placing this song at the very beginning and setting the tone for the rest of the record?
Mackenzie: That was actually the first song that I wrote for the album and that doesn’t mean that it needs to go first, but I did feel like it was the start of the story that I was telling with the music. I also really liked starting the album with that percussion beat on pots and pans, and a pump organ. I thought that was a cool way to bring people into the sonic world. I never started an album like that before, and I wanted to start with something that kinda had a groove. And it had like you were saying before, a cool texture to it to give people an idea what they will be hearing the rest of the album.
Greg: There are a lot of symbols on the album that portray fragility such as flowers like marigolds and primroses. What is the significance of these particular flowers as well as the spring season, and how do they convey the delicacy of life?
Mackenzie: I’m very drawn to flowers and gardening since moving up to the Hudson Valley because I moved from the city. I lived in Queens for over a decade. I’m constantly inspired by what’s in bloom, what’s in season, things that appear so briefly and then go away only to resurface again about a year later. In that way I feel like there’s this, as you say, fragility and beauty, and also this resilience and reminder that everything in life has a season.
I think I was unconsciously drawn to that when I was writing the lyrics. Marigolds in particular, there’s a lyric in that song about a jar of marigolds beside our bed. And at that time, I was reflecting, and I feel like that song is a bit of a stream of consciousness. I got this memory of those marigolds by the bed and marigolds are used in Day of the Dead to honor those that have died, and they have such beautiful, rich, vibrant colors. And in that way too they make me think of the vibrancy of living. So again, this dichotomy there.
Primroses are known for their healing properties which I feel is very appropriate for this album and what it has meant to me. That also comes from a lyric, from the song “hush now.” It’s “primrose was in season, but I cried for violet.” I realized way after I wrote that lyric that primrose and violets were the birth month flowers for February, and that’s the month my daughter was born. And that’s the month that likely that first pregnancy had come to be that baby would have been born. So I thought that was really magical. It’s one of those really cool moments with writing where I don’t know where that line came from but I feel like it was trying to tell me something when I wrote it.
Greg: You touched on it just now, but how has motherhood changed the way you approach your art? When making music, is there the thought in the back of your mind that one day your daughter will hear these songs and want to know the story behind them?
Mackenzie: Yes, I’ve definitely thought that. It’s really wondrous and a little nerve-racking to think about how she will be listening to this album at some point and I’m sure we’ll talk about it. Even when we’re speaking now, this is all something that will come back around when she’s a little bit older. It’s a reminder for me to always stay true to myself and speak my truth. I think if you do that in life without tearing anybody else down in the process, then you really can’t go wrong. That’s a great way to approach art and life as well.
But yeah, motherhood has made me patient in terms of songwriting itself because I have been a little less prolific in my writing since having my daughter. I just have to remind myself that it's okay, everything has a season. And that doesn’t mean that I won’t be writing ever again, it just means that I won’t be writing as much because everything has shifted.
Greg: What would you say you have learned about yourself as an artist through making primrose was in season?
Mackenzie: I have gained a lot of confidence as a recording artist in the studio. This album is the most me in terms of its production of anything that I’ve put out. It feels really, really good to have gotten it the way I wanted it and in some ways, even beyond anything that I had heard or thought of. A lot of that is credited to Kevin because he was such a close collaborator with me on this. There were so many times where I’d bring him a song and he’d say, “I have this wacky idea.” And then he’d play some of those drum beats and the guitar and I was like, “Yes! This is it!.” He kind of knew what I wanted before I even knew and we just took off with it. So I learned to trust my gut, and I just want to keep having fun with what I’m making and to keep trying new things.
Greg: What do you hope listeners take away from listening to the record and what other plans do you have surrounding the record?
Mackenzie: I’m working on booking some shows because I think that this album will make a really cool, fun, and meaningful live show. I have another video coming for a track called “nest” which is my personal favorite from the album.
I hope that this can give people something, whether it’s catharsis, solace, joy, anything. It will mean something different for everybody. I really, really hope that somebody could listen to it and it makes them feel less alone in whatever they’re going through because I felt really lonely when I was going through this experience that was the catalyst for making this record. And if I found something like this to listen to during that time, maybe I would have felt a little more seen. So if that happens for even one person, then to me, I did a good job with what I did.
Greg: As we wrap up, what would you like for people to know about both you, Mackenzie Shivers as an artist, and you, as a person?
Mackenzie: Wow, that’s a really big question (laughs). I think we kind of touched on it a little before but I feel like a lot of people know me as an artist, the person who makes really pretty piano music. And that’s something that I do do, but there’s a lot more to me as an artist. I think that’s reflective of who I am as a person, somebody who has many layers. Somebody who I think in these past few years has really wanted to show the world who I am through this art. That image sometimes doesn’t have to look perfect. In fact, it shouldn’t.
Make sure to listen to Mackenzie Shivers’ new album, primrose was in season, available on all streaming platforms now. Follow her on Instagram to keep up to date on upcoming shows and other news surrounding the new record.
