Creating for Connection, Adapting in Love and Collaboration—Maya Burns

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

Alexa Ashley: I'm Alexa Ashley, and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode, we get to hear from the singer, songwriter, multi instrumentalist Maya Burns. Maya shares with us her experience immigrating to Mexico from the United States as a young child, becoming enthralled with the Ranchera genre of Mexican music and getting to where she is today, singing all over the world and composing for TV.

Maya Burns: I was born in Monterey, California, and I was raised in Ensenada, California—that's 70 miles south of the San Diego border. And yeah, I mean, when you're yourself, you're just used to living your life, but once you start meeting other people, you realize we're all very unique, and that's a wonderful thing. But growing up, I was an immigrant, and I was learning Spanish while studying kindergarten at a public school. And it was, it was really quite a challenge when I first started, because I didn't really understand anything, but my parents would bribe me to keep going to kindergarten with ice cream, as parents do. But I was like, ”I don't understand.” And they were like, “but you will.” And so I learned just by being fully immersed. I was four or five years old, which is totally possible. So I was able to learn Spanish, and then I started elementary school, and by then I had worked myself a little singing career, because I sang Rancheras, which is an amazing genre from Mexico. 

And I started singing before I spoke Spanish, actually. So I would sing the songs in Spanish, make some friends, and then it just kind of went from there. And then I started learning Spanish and realizing what I was saying. Those songs are just kind of like country songs in the United States, or blues, they're just so sad. One of the songs is “Por un Amor ( For a Love).” It’s like ”My blood dropped out of my heart for love” and the chorus, there's backup singers during the course that go, “don't suffer more.” The lead singer is like, “this life isn't for me, for me, for me. I don't want to suffer another second.” And like when I was singing it back in kindergarten, I thought it was about chocolate, like I didn't understand intense emotions to that degree. So because it says “Cuánto sufre mi pecho que late…” my brain was like, “Oh, chocolate,” you know. So I would experience the culture in a very different way. Then by like, eight, 9, 10 years old, I was like, “Oh, this is a really sad song.” And I mean, I wasn't a sad kid or anything. I just really like the music.

And half of the year, or maybe less than half the year, my family and I would travel to the US and sell tie dyes, which my dad makes, and I would sing rancheras at hippie fest, which was like so random. There'd be a Janis Joplin tribute, back to back with Jimi Hendrix tribute, and then I would get up for like, one or two songs in between bands, because I was very—well, I am very extroverted. And I was like, ”Hey, can I sing?” And the stage manager was like, “Well, you can sing two songs while we set up one band and take down the other.” And so I'd get up and sing some rancheras, just no instrumentation, acapella. And the hippie crowd was great, because they're so open and loving that they were like, “Yeah, I don't know what you said.” That was a very unique experience that I got to have growing up. 

And then I was home schooled through junior high and high school, because I got picked up by the Mexican government randomly because they heard me at school. And so I was in a music school, like, two days a week. And the director was like, “Oh, you should audition for this government program.” And they took me to Tijuana, like, during school hours, and then I, like, came back, and my parents were like, “Hey, how was school?” And I was like, ”I went to Tijuana and sang for a bunch of people I didn't know.” Now I'm in this program…I started singing for foreign dignitaries, and they would take me around when I was 10, 11, up till I was 13. They brought me here to Mexico City for the first time in my life. And my parents were like, “We’re not letting you go alone.” And so they got their tickets, and I'm so thankful that they were so, you know, protective of me, and yeah, so I started my career really, really young—I even sang for religious dignitaries. I forget the name, but I sang for the President of Mexico at that time, Calderón. Like, it was crazy. And my parents don't speak Spanish to this day, and they were like, ”Oh, we're just happy that she's happy, but we have no idea what's going on.” So, because as foreigners, you can't have a political point of view. It's actually in the law, you can get deported as an immigrant in Mexico if you're vocal about one or the other party. So I was at these events, but I wasn't obviously voting. I was like, 10 to 13, and so I started homeschooling because I was missing so much school because of events. So I felt like a rock star. Yeah, the worst period of my ego was 10 to 13. 

And then I started writing songs when I was 12, about bringing the world together. And my parents listened to a lot of Pink Floyd, listened to a lot of Jefferson Airplane and amazing music. And so I was really influenced by that when I started writing songs. But I also had, like, my Ranchera roots, patriotic. I was singing patriotic songs. I was singing like, I will bleed to death for Mexico at events, and it's a wonderful song. It's called Viva Mexico, and the crowd participates. You go “Viva Mexico” and everyone goes “Viva” you know, but on the other side, it was like one pill makes you larger. So it was like these two retro genres coming together and creating this sound that has been expanding since then, and so I never thought, like, “Oh, I could do something else.” I sold tie dyes with my parents at festivals, I could have imagined myself selling tie dyes, but when I was three, my mom says that I told her that I was going to be a singer, and she was like, ”Oh, okay, cool.” You know, I'm also the youngest of four daughters, so they had seen quite a lot by the time I got to the world. “I'm going to be a singer.” And she's like, ”Oh, great. And a very Princess too.” you know? But then in kindergarten, I was learning Ranchera songs. And my parents were not show parents. They weren't telling me to get up there and show them. It was more like me saying, “Hey, can I do this? Can I do this?” And they were like, “Yeah, okay. Like, go, make it happen.” But I'm thankful they weren't stage parents.

During the pandemic, I definitely had a moment where I questioned if music was for me. Obviously, music was always going to be in my life forever. But I did go back to Ensenada, because I moved to Mexico City when I was 18. So I went back to Ensenada, where my parents live, but they sell their tie dyes in California. So I was working with them, and I met this amazing Oaxacan family, and I started singing to them on the Monterey wharf. And I just realized no matter what I did, there's this magnetism towards Mexico and towards music.” So I just started creating that community, and I was like, ”Ah, I have to go back. I have to go back to music. Even if there's nothing happening,” because during the pandemic, it was really hard to perform or anything. But yeah, definitely the pandemic made me question a lot of things. 

Everything I ultimately make is seeking connection. Everything I make is for the other person to connect. Because we all are something different to different people, and it's only if we choose to meet ourselves truly, do we recognize that other people only meet parts of us, or only see parts of us. For me, I think it's impossible to know me fully. There's just so many aspects and everyone is so complicated. So I've come to peace with other people seeing either their projection or what they have seen of me, but not the full me, because that would be impossible. And I've realized that people not meeting you fully sometimes is a good thing, because if the wrong people know you too well, they can destroy you. Not going to go into any examples of that. So sometimes I'm thankful— I’m really, really grateful when I meet people that I can be that full range of who I am with and meet them, and for them also be on that level. 

So it's really, really good, because someone can listen to my music and say, “Oh, you were going through this. You were thinking about that.” And I can tell you about what I went through when I made something. But what's really wonderful is knowing that other people can make it their own. I would love everyone to internalize every piece of music and make it theirs, because I think that's why we were given gifts as artists, and I think we all are given gifts. So when we can share that, and other people can make it theirs, then we're like—I'm doing a circular movement with my hand for the audio—it comes around, goes around in a beautiful way. Also, it doesn't always happen, but when you can just experience other people, experiencing what you're doing, that's like Nirvana to me. And when you can connect different arts together—my creative process has changed a lot. 

Obviously, I used to write thinking mostly about myself and my experience. And I think that over the years, I've been inspired more by a painting or inspired by another artist or another sound, and I've really enjoyed exploring and adapting with love, and I started studying composition, and so I've really learned. While I'm learning, I'm always in the process of learning to adapt, not just to what I feel and what I'm doing, but to new concepts and new ways of doing things. Now, when someone asks me or hires me to write a song, I don't just think like, “Oh, what am I going to do?” I think, ”Who is this person?” I want to investigate. I want to know more about them and meet them where they are. I'm obviously going to bring myself to the table. I don't have to focus on it. So, it's more about getting to that place and creating in collaboration in a beautiful way and in a new way. So I've been enjoying that, and I've been performing less than I used to. 

I used to always want to just perform, but nowadays I'm getting a little more introspective. I would rather do this during the day and then go to bed at a regular time, whereas before I'm like, “2am this is perfect.” We're now like 11pm. I want my creativity to have blossomed before then, and I'm really enjoying this process right now, just learning new ways of creating. I just wrote a song for “The Secret of the River.” This is a little commercial—I had to—for Secret of the River that's on Netflix now, and the credit song of every episode is a song that I wrote the melody, lyrics and performed the vocal songs for. So I'm really, really happy. And then I watched the show—I didn't watch it before I made the song—and it's an incredible, incredible show about this little boy finding their voice. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but yeah, I really connected to that project, and I'm just really excited to continue to adapt, but not adapt in survival, adapt in love and in collaboration.

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Photography by Alexa Ashley

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