Hey Music Mag - Issue 4 - February 2019

FEATURE AVA MAX
“It’s exciting, for sure, but I want to achieve
more. I want to release more songs. I want to
release an album,” gushes Ava.
If you haven’t heard Sweet But Psycho
or seen the video, think Just Dance-era
Lady Gaga. Ava is all peroxide blonde hair
and bold outfits; the track super-catchy,
earworm-friendly dance-pop with a heavy
dose of sass.
Her style is unashamedly pop, a bold
move at a time when it’s still sometimes
considered a weaker genre, and she cites
her musical inspirations as The Beatles,
Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera and
The Fugees.
She was first introduced to listeners as
a featured artist on American electronic
musician DJ Le Youth’s Clap Your Hands
track last year. In early 2018 she dropped
her debut single My Way followed by viral
hit Not Your Barbie Girl. She released
another single, Slippin’, and featured on
David Guetta’s 7 album and Vice and Jason
Derulo’s Make Up track as a vocalist, before
Sweet But Psycho put her firmly on the map.
To some it may seem the 24-year-old’s
success has happened overnight with that
one great song, but Ava insists that’s simply
not the case.
“It’s been a chase my whole life,” she
explains. “When I was 14, I moved to
California with my mom for music because I
ended up doing some [singing] competitions
when I was 10, 11, 12. My mom sold her
house and we came to Los Angeles from
Virginia. That year didn’t go so well because
LA isn’t exactly what we thought it would be.
There was a lot of disappointment.
“Then, when I was 15 years old, we
moved back to the East coast and I lived
there for two years, in South Carolina,
before I moved back out [to LA] when I
was 17 with my brother.
“So it’s been this whole chase with singing
and writing songs. Then I finally met the right
people after years of struggling.”
The ‘right’ person in Ava’s case was
Henry Walter, aka Cirkut, a Canadian record
producer who has worked with modern
music icons such as Rihanna, The Weeknd,
18 FEBRUARY 2019