…biog by Nick de Cosemo
”When a recording artist talks about dropping bombs, they are usually speaking figuratively. But for red-hot Maya von Doll her formative musical experiences were genuinely explosive.
“My earliest memory of music is Blondie’s ‘Atomic’, with the sub bass provided by Syrian, Israeli, French, British and US artillery. We’d take cover from the bombs in the sandbagged ground floor entrance to our building in Beirut and I’d listen to the same album on my Walkman on constant repeat.”
Born of mixed Lebanese and English parentage, she was whisked back to the UK as a pre-teen, fleeing the war that was tearing her homeland apart. This also proved to be the first step on a different kind of journey – one of musical discovery.
Years later, Maya formed Sohodolls – a five-piece band that paired her vocals and songwriting talents with brooding, abrasive electro rock. Signed to Alan McGee’s Poptones label, the band managed to clock up an impressive 2.5 million youtube views, toured the world regularly and had their songs featured on some massive TV shows including Gossip Girl, Nip/Tuck, Californication, Drop Dead Diva, The Hills and Vampire Diaries – gaining a loyal, global fan base along the way. But for Maya, it wasn’t enough and her musical eyes began to wander.
“Basically, I fell in love with club music,” she explains. “I was obsessed with acts like Major Lazer, Boys Noize, Bloody Beetroots and the Ed Banger sound. Hearing those mind-blowing synths and super processed beats was like discovering real music as a teenager all over again. It was the first time in years that I was genuinely excited. I became the annoying girl at parties asking the DJ to play this and that just so I could experience those tracks on the mega sound systems they were designed for. Hearing those sounds and seeing what they do to a crowd on the dancefloor was like entering a new dimension – something rock stops short of. I wanted to be part of that movement but I also wanted to bring my own skill for melody, storytelling and programming into the equation.”
Maya has locked horns with some of the biggest, most-forward thinking producers in the business – including Flood (Depeche Mode, The Killers, PJ Harvey), Dave McCracken (Roc Nation, Beyonce, Oh Land) and Dimitri Tikovoi (Placebo, The Horrors, Nicola Roberts) – to help produce her debut solo album. Plus, she’s furthered her dancefloor credentials by launching the club night and magazine, Shut Your Pretty Mouth, with style journalist Lisa O and electro It Girl Charli XCX.”