Electro-grunge meets industrial artist Wax On Water (Maya Fire) just released a new single called "Chelsea" and to celebrate we asked her to tell us the story behind the track. Here is the story:
When I first started writing my album Procession, I knew that I wanted the Wax on Water sound to be a meld of hard and soft, ugly and beautiful, as that felt (and feels) like the world I inhabit. Chelsea F*** is the best example of what I was trying to achieve in that respect - if every song on the album is one of my children, I would characterise Chelsea as the abrasive teenager of the gang.
I was born & raised in the UK and grew up on the a musical diet of the classics such as Kate Bush, Bowie, Floyd, Led Zep - and the indie-goth bands I loved like The Cure, Sisters of Mercy and Depeche Mode (who incidentally hail from the next town from where I was born) - but I was also very taken with the grunge and industrial scene in the 90s - I always felt that bands like Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana were producing a really exciting sound that spoke to me on every level.
The song is called Chelsea F*** because I had lived in Chelsea (London) before moving to Camden and I had really hated how Chelsea had turned from the edgy home of Punk to the sanitised playground of the upper classes. Chelsea is a 'f*** you' to tedious normality - it's an ode to anger.
I am a classically trained pianist and singer, but an average guitarist. I tried to find someone to play the guitar sound that I had in my head, but no one got it, so I just ended up playing it myself. I created a grungy-industrial guitar sound and aggressive beats that would musically disrupt the song throughout and punctuate the lyrics of disintegration that I wrote.
You'll notice that in Chelsea, the protagonist is a boy - this is because I couldn't bring myself to write those lyrics about me per se - it felt too painful, too real - even though the self-destruction, paranoia and fear in the song is totally about where I was mentally at that time. The vision that I had of myself was very distorted and my life was spiralling out of control. In combination with a bout of really bad depression, the only thing that I could do to find salvation was to write.
If writing the Procession album was cathartic, then writing Chelsea F*** was my way of reinhabiting who I was; it is the sound of a soul climbing out of a tar pit.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about her forthcoming debut album right here!
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