Meet Maisie Peters

What does celebrity look like in 2020? Well, if Maisie Peters is anything to go by, today’s pop stars are intelligent, opinionated and not afraid to get political. Currently enjoying a major label record deal and hundreds of thousands of online followers, she started out posting her songs on YouTube — only to see her career snowball form there. But through it all, the success still hasn’t gone to her head. She’s a lot more likely to be caught sticking her head into a book, daydreaming or working in the studio than at the hottest party. 

For her VERO takeover, she’s taken our followers deep inside her world to introduce them to her reading recommendations, music favourites and some of the issues which she feels most passionate about in today’s world. On 25 August she’ll be debuting a musical treat, right here on hungertv.com, but, in the meantime, she answers a series of rapid-fire questions from team HUNGER below. 

How has your 2020 been so far?

Hmmmm. Self-reflective? Boring? Warm? Good at heart? Funny? Facetime-y? Frustrating? Rewarding?

Describe your personality in three words.

Sharp, humorous, steady.

Who do you look up to?

My mum, Taylor Swift, Margaret Atwood, Fiona Apple…

You’ve described your sound as “emo girl pop”…what does that mean to you?

I would rather leave it up to you to interpret as you wish, emo girl pop is really more a state of life than a musical genre. My friend once told me that I make music for girls who can cry in the bathroom one minute and then walk straight out and break into a huge bad bitch dance the next.

When was your “big break”?

I don’t know if I’ve had one big break as opposed to lots of little cracks that over time have formed a bigger break.

What’s the biggest misconception about Gen Z?

That we don’t care! And that we are lazy and apathetic because I would argue that it’s the total opposite. I think we are the most considerate generation ever and I like to think that will be our superpower in invoking actual important change. 

And what are the biggest challenges facing young womxn today?

I think the same challenges that have always faced young womxn but through the lens of 2020; it’s the same fight to be heard, listened to, respected, empowered, with this obviously differing in extent throughout the world. 

Last song you had on repeat?

A song called “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” by Del Water Gap, I randomly found it and listened over and over on the tube the other day. I texted a friend a link to it saying; “this is the song form of the type of boy I would fall in love with on public transport”.

Can you tell us your top three hotspots from your hometown of Brighton?

Snoopers Paradise for second-hand shopping and random objects you never knew you needed, Pelicano for coffee and cake, and then the lawns off of Brighton Pavilion for chatting and creating a life plan. Oh and also The Hobgoblin for destroyingly cheap rum and cokes and a secret beer garden.

You started your own book club during quarantine, so you must be a bit of a reader — what’s the last book you read?

The last book I read was Circe by Madeline Miller and I loved it; it’s Greek mythology spun with a modern tone and it felt super vivid and emotional to me. I loved the main character Circe, and it reminded me of The Silence of the Girls, a book I read last year and also loved.

You’ve got a pretty big social media following — do you feel a pressure to be online? How easy is it for you to step away from your phone?

Definitely, it’s impossible not to see those numbers as a real-time estimation of your importance, even though I know that’s not true. It helps that most of my close friends don’t really use social media, so when I’m with them, social media feels like a different world that I don’t have to be so locked into all the time. I am notoriously terrible at stepping away from my phone and do need to get better, though I have tried to instead find different ways of being on my phone but in a more healthy way. For example, I’ve gotten super into Pinterest, so instead of scrolling through Instagram models in Paris, I’ll scroll through Parisian watercolours and paintings.

Who’s your Vero essential follow?

I love all the other women you have worked with; Kara Marni is a friend of mine and an absolutely hilarious, amazing powerhouse, so I would say her.

What have you got planned next?

More music! I wrote a lot this summer that I’m really proud of, so I guess I’ll be burrowing away in studios trying to finish it, eating copious amounts of biscuits. If you miss me, that’s where I’ll be.

VERO is an authentic social network — no ads, no algorithms, just great content. Go to vero.co to sign up and follow @hungermagazine for more exclusive content and to catch Maisie’s music takeover, which runs until September 25th.