← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Madison McFerrin's New Album SCORPIO (Listening Party)
00:23:28
Madison McFerrin returns with her sophomore album SCORPIO. She joins for a Listening Party.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:29]
Alison Stewart
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. Hi, I'm Alison Stewart, and here's a new song from Madison McFerrin. This is Heartbreak.
- [00:38]
Madison McFerrin
Looks like we are headed for a heartbreak oh I hope it wasn't all a mistake Please forgive me for the things I can't change Cause you gon need forgiveness for what I'm about to.
- [01:07]
Say.
- [01:09]
Looks like we are heading.
- [01:43]
Alison Stewart
Heartbreak is a fitting opener for an album that emerged from a breakup. Other track titles on the record include Fighting for Our Love and I Don't. The album is called Scorpio and it's McFerrin's sophomore release. It's a follow up to her debut I Hope youe Can Forgive Me, which the Guardian described as gorgeous, atmospheric at times, spine, tingly so, and undeniably cool. Well, she is back. Madison recently performed at a Tiny Desk concert and tomorrow she'll be at the Rockaway Hotel tomorrow evening. Right now, she joins me for a listening party. I'm excited to talk about your new record.
- [02:18]
Madison McFerrin
Hello.
- [02:18]
Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:20]
Alison Stewart
So I hope you can forgive me. That's the last time you were here in 2023. When did you start thinking about your next album?
- [02:28]
Madison McFerrin
Well, funnily enough, the release of my debut album was the very start of the end of my relationship. They very much coincided. So it was a very strange moment of wow. I'm having this incredible moment of growth, releasing my debut album. It was years in the making. And simultaneously I know that this relationship I've been in for eight years, years, he was also my manager is ending, and it was because of the release. The way that he responded and behaved that day was like, oh, okay, this is not it. And so that kind of was the rumination of where it started. I mean, I always thought about what my sophomore album was gonna be about or what it was gonna be like. But then heartbreak, literal heartbreak, not just the song, really opened up floodgates to the fastest I've ever written music, definitely the fastest I've ever put out music. I think it's just because it was so much time culminated in this experience and then it was over and I had to grieve through it. And that's How I process grief is music.
- [03:44]
Alison Stewart
What was something that you were able to do differently on this new album now that you had this new sense of freedom?
- [03:52]
Madison McFerrin
Oh, my goodness. Everything I really felt opened up in all of the ways, not just in my songwriting, but I found myself exploring more with the chord structures that I was creating and also just being more open to the community and collaborations that were possible. I created my debut album during COVID so it was a very isolating thing, but part of that was it allowed me to learn how to produce. I had the time and space to do that, and. And so the next step from that in this project is being able to delegate, because I have more confidence that I know what I'm talking about in the studio, not just from a vocal perspective, but from a production perspective. Sounds that I want to hear, different mixing elements that I want. And so I was really able to step into that with a greater sense of self, and I think that that only made making the music that much better.
- [04:52]
Alison Stewart
What do you now know about creating a heartbreak album that you didn't know before?
- [04:58]
Madison McFerrin
Oh, my goodness. Just how cathartic making it was. I think that's one of the biggest takeaways. You know, like I said, we were ultimately together for about eight and a half years, which is essentially a marriage. And I am very confident that I was able to process it and have been able to process it as well as I have in the amount of time that I have because of writing this music. Like I said, this is the fastest I've ever written a project. And it was really just because it was all pouring out of me, I felt very connected to a higher source that was just beaming through me while I was writing this music. It is very much all of the things that I never felt like I had the chance to say, and that in itself was such a helpful, healthy process. I journal every day, and, like, that's one step. I was in therapy once a week while this was all happening, just to try and process what I had gone through. And I know for a fact that the music and being able to sing it out and write it out is the single greatest way I was able to process this grief.
- [06:14]
Alison Stewart
We're talking to Madison McFerrin about her new album, Scorpio. We're gonna play the song. I don't. Where were you when you wrote this?
- [06:22]
Madison McFerrin
Oh, my goodness. Actually, I was walking into my kitchen, and the opening line came to me all of a sudden. I was like, we were supposed to get married today, and it was two days before we were supposed to get married, and that's why it, like, popped in. And it was a very instant moment of, oh, I need to catch that. You know, sometimes you have these sparks of inspiration, and you're like, oh, I can ruminate. But that was one where I was like, turn around. Go into the studio and sit at that piano right now. And I finished it that day. I'm pretty sure. I just remember, like, getting into the chords, and as soon as I was playing it and got to the chorus and saying, I guess I don't. I was like, I remember having the biggest smile on my face and being like, okay, that's a. That's a good one. That's a good one.
- [07:10]
Alison Stewart
This is. I don't.
- [07:12]
Madison McFerrin
We were supposed to get married today Instead I'm here all alone in our home with no one to call my own Got me wondering did I make a mistake in choosing who to say I do too? Cause I guess I don't I guess I don't I guess I. We were supposed to get married today so I put on my ring Just to sing about I love crumbling God, I hope I didn't wait too late in choosing who to say I do too That's.
- [08:35]
Alison Stewart
I don't. From Madison McFerrin. You worked with Willow Smith on that.
- [08:42]
Madison McFerrin
It was really funny. She just hit me up on Instagram. She DMed me, was like, I'm a huge fan. I was like, that's awesome. And we connected. She had been a big fan of my first project, Finding Foundations, Volume one, and she came to a show of mine, and then she invited me to the studio, and I figured we were gonna, like, kind of create something new. And she asked me if I had anything, and so I played her on the piano. Run it back. And this song. And I had written that guitar line, that main guitar line, and was. Would just sing it while I would play it. And as soon as I played, I don't. She was like, we should do that. And I was like, yeah, say less. And it was really fun. She's an incredible musician.
- [09:27]
Alison Stewart
She is.
- [09:28]
Madison McFerrin
She's also stunning. No surprise, given how her parents look. But she, like, is very deep in her craft. Like, she really knows what she's talking about. It was really awesome to watch. We're also both Scorpio Sun, Gemini Risings, and I'm, like, 10 years older than her, so I'm like, oh, I'm like your big sis. It's fun, but she's really. She's such a sweetheart. And it was really fun putting this song together. And it was actually meeting at that studio. Her engineer at the time is this guy named Zac Brown. And he and I went to college together, but we hadn't seen each other since then, and we connected, and he ended up being the co producer for this project because we just hit it off so well. So that was really the start of how this project is able to sound as good as it is. Shout out to Zac Brown.
- [10:20]
Alison Stewart
Okay. Those are all the good things that happened. What was a tough song to write?
- [10:24]
Madison McFerrin
Lesson, Lesson and Blue, which are the two slow songs, are definitely the hardest ones. And funny enough, they're both the hardest for me to sing. Not just from a contextual standpoint, but literally in my register. They're very difficult spots. They're like right in the middle point when you have to fluctuate between your head voice and your chest voice. And I think that that was probably subconsciously intentional, you know? But those were definitely the hardest ones. Those were the ones that I remember. I cried for sure while I was writing Lesson. Cause you're just thinking about all of these moments and looking back and shedding. But yeah, it was definitely those two.
- [11:09]
Alison Stewart
Let's listen to another track from the album, Scorpio. This is an all of it listening party with Madison McFerrin. We're gonna listen to Spent. Tell us a little bit about it.
- [11:18]
Madison McFerrin
Ooh. Okay. So Spent actually was written at the same time as my debut album. It is co produced by Andrew Lapin, who also produced Please Don't Leave Me now on my debut and as well as the song the End on this project. And it was a song I'd written on the piano. And I sent it to him a cappella with the Ooze, because I envisioned in my head that it was gonna be an acapella song. But when I'd played it for him on the piano while we were in the Please Don't Leave Me now sessions, he was like, can you record that and send it to me? And so I did. And I had had this vision of like, RB, Radiohead, R& B.
- [11:59]
Alison Stewart
Okay.
- [12:00]
Madison McFerrin
That was like the inspiration and ultimately also the inspiration for the sonic world of Scorpio in general. But when we finished Spent, I always loved the song, but I knew that it didn't fit sonically with I Hope youe Can Forgive Me, but I knew I was still gonna use it. And as soon as I started writing the music for Scorpio, I was like, oh, that this is where it belongs. This is its home.
- [12:24]
Alison Stewart
We're having an all of it Listening party for the album scorpio. We're talking to Madison McFerrin. Here's Spent.
- [12:44]
Madison McFerrin
Almost sent you the winning. But I thought, why waste my time on such a pretty penny? Still I never spent a diamond for you Still I never spent a time. You said you'd give me the winnings but instead you tuck my mind I can't keep forgetting that I should have spent my time on you.
- [13:58]
Alison Stewart
You are listening to spent from Scorpio. It's the album released by our guest Madison McFerrin. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of you're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're having an all of it listening party with Madison McFerrin. This week, she released the album scorpio. She'll be performing at the Rockaway Hotel tomorrow night. On the song, you stretch your voice. You use it as layers. It's almost like it's an instrument. You've heard people say my voice is my instrument.
- [14:42]
Madison McFerrin
Yes, absolutely.
- [14:43]
Alison Stewart
How do you think of it as an instrument when you're putting together a song?
- [14:47]
Madison McFerrin
Well, I hear harmony in my head better than I can play it. So lots of times that's a way that I just approach music in general. I will say that my piano playing is okay. It's enough to write music. I wrote the majority of this album and the last one on the piano. It's my biggest songwriting tool. But there's something about vocal harmony that hits my soul in a way that feels very ancestral. And, you know, there's a lot of meditation to it. You know, it's almost. Yeah. I think you can kind of get lost in vocal harmony in a way that's really pure and beautiful. And, like, obviously, I come from that world and that lineage, and so I want to honor that as well. It's my way of honoring that. I think the movie Sinners did an incredible job of tapping into the ancestral connection of past, present, future through music. I wept. I wept.
- [15:54]
Alison Stewart
That scene alone should be shown in film school. Should be shown in ethnomusicology class.
- [16:01]
Madison McFerrin
Absolutely. And so I think vocal harmony is just something that feels very. It feels like home. And I know that I'm very good at it. And there are ways that you can make it just so integral to the song that, you know, it is an instrument. Like, I try and use oohs and ahs and those types of background vocals, like, really as another sound bed. I don't treat them as just standard ooze. I'm like, no, this is. This is another instrument in this piece.
- [16:33]
Alison Stewart
When do you decide not to do that? When do you decide it's just gonna be you and something simple, you and the piano you perform?
- [16:41]
Madison McFerrin
I think it just depends on the song.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [16:43]
Madison McFerrin
I find it interesting that the three songs that don't have no two songs on the album don't have any background harmonies. And that's Lesson and Blue and Less no Blue and Run It Back are both just me and another instrument playing. And I think that there are certain songs where that's really all you need. You know, the message of the music is impactful enough. There's. There's so much beauty in space, you know, in knowing when to strip things away. Like in I Don't, for example, there was a lot more string stuff happening in the end that we eventually paired back. It was the. That wedding. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun was happening all throughout at the end. But you couldn't hear it. And it. And like it was just causing noise and it was like, let's just take it away until the very, very last moment, you know, to know when things need to be there and when they don't. And I think that there's something really beautiful about being able to showcase my voice as just it on its own. I don't need to have harmonies to sound good and I don't need a big band to sound good. I can sound good on my own. I can sound good with one other instrument.
- [17:53]
Alison Stewart
Let's hear it like. Like you it like it is. Let's hear run it.
- [18:18]
Madison McFerrin
Do you miss the sash? Just a little. Thinking about your hands upon my waist we could run it back non committal we shouldn't have let this cook go to waste I know you're thinking about me late at night and now you got me wondering Never mind Call you on the phone tell you I'm alone what you got going on? What you got going on See I don't wanna with the feelings and I ain't trying to play no silly games all this time without you the villain love was a was But I know you're thinking about me late at night.
- [19:33]
Alison Stewart
That'S run it back. Is that Corey Henry?
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Madison McFerrin
It is. It is. I cannot play the piano like that.
- [19:38]
Alison Stewart
What do you like about performing with Corey Henry?
- [19:42]
Madison McFerrin
I mean, he's amazing. We've been friends for a while. He's one of the sweetest humans. I had always wanted him to be on it. And originally I was thinking it was gonna be organ, but then that didn't work out, and I had to get it laid down. So I went to the studio and I was just gonna do it myself. It was gonna be bare similar to my song Know it better on my EP Uni. But literally, while I was in the studio, Corey texted me, and I was like, come to the studio right now.
- [20:13]
Alison Stewart
So, and I will put you to work.
- [20:15]
Madison McFerrin
Right, exactly. And so we were just in the studio together and sang it together. Or I sang it and he played it. We played it together a few times. And obviously he sounds phenomenal and just made it a trillion times better.
- [20:30]
Alison Stewart
Tomorrow you're gonna play at the Rockaway Hotel. What's the plan for the show?
- [20:34]
Madison McFerrin
The plan is a mix of old and new. It's gonna be the first time I'm performing some of these tracks in front of an audience, so I'm really excited about that.
- [20:42]
Alison Stewart
Oh, that's gotta be exciting.
- [20:43]
Madison McFerrin
And, you know, it's gonna be fun. It's mostly dance music that I'm performing. It's really interesting being in this phase of having my sophomore album out because I'm realizing that I actually have a lot of music, you know, like, when I have to choose stuff, like with the tiny desk, Like, I had to be very judicious about what I played in that set. And I was like, but I want to play all my songs. And I really wanted to take people through a journey who have been with me since 2016 doing Acapella Loops, you know? So it's like, now that I'm in this place where it's like, oh, what songs am I going to do? It's a little bit harder.
- [21:18]
Alison Stewart
You're gonna go to. People are gonna have to go to the Rockaway Hotel to find out. We've been having a listening party with Madison McFerrin. The album is called Scorpio. It's really great.
- [21:29]
Madison McFerrin
Congratulations.
- [21:30]
Thank you so much.
- [21:30]
Thank you. I really love it.
- [21:32]
Alison Stewart
Let's go out on the song. The end.
- [21:35]
Madison McFerrin
Step one, walk out that door and step two, the one before me. I need a little more than you're willing to give but you say you want another chance at a sweet romance I don't want to dance this dance again. Don't you know you waste your time Praying that I'll change my mind When I hope you're lonely in the end, the end, the end, the end, the end, the end, the end? Oh, I hope you're lonely in the end the end, the end, the end let's set the record straight. Cause I know you're sick of waiting we made some big mistakes that we shouldn't forgive? No, don't you say yeah? Want another chance at a sweet romance? I don't want to dance this dance again don't you know you waste your time Praying that I'll change my mind? And I hope you're lonely in the end the end, the end, the end, the end, the end, the end, the end Oh, I hope you're lonely in the end the end the we're never lonely the end, the end, the end, the end, the end, the end, the end Oh, I hope you hold me in the end, the end, the end.
- [23:48]
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