Maya Hawke says she finds it difficult to release her personal music, calling it an emotionally overwhelming experience.
In a recent interview, the 27-year-old actress and singer admitted she enjoys writing and recording songs with friends, but the real struggle comes with sharing that work publicly.
“It’s always weird. If I’m being honest, I hate putting out music,” Hawke, who lends her voice to the recently-released Audible Original The Summer Oath, told People Magazine.
Hawke said promoting her music feels “like promoting your diary” because many of the songs are deeply personal.
“There is this pointing at the self, where it feels so great to write all these personal songs, and to record them and make them with your friends, but then you have to promote it, and it feels like promoting your diary,” she continued.
“There’s something that feels very yucky to me about it, and it’s painful and hard,” adds Hawke. “No compliment will ever make me feel good, and every insult will hurt.”
She also said that criticism affects her strongly, explaining that negative comments hurt more than compliments make her feel good.
Hawke is known for acting roles in Stranger Things, Do Revenge, Inside Out 2 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
She began releasing music in 2019 with the singles To Love a Boy and Stay Open. Since then, she has released several albums, including Blush, Moss, Chaos Angel, and most recently Maitreya Cors.
Speaking about her newest album, Hawke said she feels both relieved and frightened after releasing it and even compared putting an album out into the world to a funeral.
“I like to see it more as a funeral for the record than as a release of it, because it was yours, it was this living thing that was movable and changeable, and now it’s this frozen dead thing out in the world that people get to talk about.”
“I’m thrilled the people are hearing it. I’m wildly flattered. And I’m so happy to be letting it go, but I’m terrified while I’m doing it,” Hawke added.
