Meg Mac’s galvanic new single Never Be is powered by piano chords on repeat and a persistent kick drum. Mac tells Guardian Australia the song’s chorus was written while in her car “tapping the steering wheel and singing over the top”.
With Mac’s phone out of battery she was forced to keep singing what she’d composed in her head, over and over until she reached home. “That is maybe where the repetition came from,” she says. “And that’s my favourite thing about the song, how it feels like a chant you can tell yourself over and over.”
Inspired by Memphis soul and produced by the Grammy award winner M-Phazes, the song follows her debut self-titled EP last year, which picked her up Triple J’s Unearthed artist of the year and land three of her songs in the station’s Hottest 100.
In 2015 she supported neo soul singer-songwriter D’Angelo on his North American tour, and played a much lauded set at Splendour in the Grass. She is now in the middle of an Australian tour and will see in next year on the Falls festival stage.
Premiering the Never Be music video with Guardian Australia, Mac says she wanted to film outside a studio and “be somewhere natural and real”. Shot with ocean waves crashing around her, Mac describes it as “a larger than my life landscape … to feel I am a part of something bigger and out of my control”.
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Meg Mac is touring Australia with remaining shows in Adelaide (24 September), Melbourne (26, 27 and 29 September) and Brisbane (2 October)
