We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mael Morningstvr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mael below.

Hi Mael, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

If you told me anytime between the ages of 13 to 25, that I make music and this is my career path, I don’t know if “Past Me” would believe you, I don’t know if they would be happy, in shock, or just simply laugh at you. You see, I never thought I’d live past the age of 14, nevertheless 21. I never knew what I wanted to do with my life, mainly because I wanted to do everything, and the world kept telling me I had to pick one. I remember being told that a career should be something that speaks to your purpose in life and if you worked a job that you loved, you’d never work a day in your life. And I wanted that feeling, but also I still wanted to do everything. I’ve had so many different jobs, lived in so many different states, tried so many different things, and when I started making music, it just hit me, because now I could write, make art, perform, travel, be a model for my own brand, and network with other creatives. One thing turned into everything, and I said to myself “okay, this is my passion, this is my purpose, I could honestly die in peace tomorrow knowing that I finally figured it out”–I think that’s when I knew.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Wassup Light bringers! I’m Mael Morningstvr. I go by They/Them pronouns and I’m a Singer/Songwriter. I joined the music industry pretty late in the game, at the age of 26, and I would say how I got in was happenstance, but nothing is a coincidence. I first set off to be this “makeshift music manager”. I was working at this warehouse, and one of my leads was a producer, so as I was in the process of making my speel to get him and my partner at the time, to collab, he asks if I could sing too? I’m like, “Oh no, I can’t sing, I just pitchmatch.” And he’s like, “Pitchmatch? What’s that mean? Show me.” So I plug into the work speaker, and play “Overthinking” by Micheal Minelli, and in front of my whole crew, I just start singing just like him over the song. And he goes, “Now you’re the one who’s over thinking. You can sing.” And he said it so nonchalantly, as if I was silly to ever doubt my ability to do so, and I was, but it was something I really needed to hear from someone else, and it shook the inner child in me.
Prior to that, I had recently had this innate spiritual vision that I was going to die young, just like Left Eye. With the combination of this “newfound” knowledge and talent, it just pushed me even more into music. I felt on top of the world, I knew myself, I was proud of myself, I was high on life, and other things, which later turned my pride into overconfidence & ego and I stemmed into some contemptible behavior. I started singing and writing songs, about the kind of message I wanted to leave behind, particularly with no unfinished business like a “musical, shakespearean elegy”.

It was something about making a fool out of myself, not knowing how much time I had left, and just seeking to be a better person than I had been that prompted these songs of change and redemption. I began using music to tackle my triggers, my past & generational trauma, my toxic patterns, and the emotional thought processing that occurred in my connection with others and myself.

When I took on the persona of Mael Morningstvr, I really honed in on everything I intended on accomplishing. One being, representation & inclusion. I never had an example to really lead me, no one that looked like me and shared my differences and sought the same creative dreams, so I desired to make it happen with myself. So now, I’m a Black Trans Non-Binary Pansexual Rockstar who encourages and advocates for spiritual awareness, sex-positivity, ethical nonmonogamy, and body-positivity. I seek to push all the boundaries to emerge as everything I am and desire to be, similar to way Farrokh Bulsara became Freddie Mercury.

Second thing I strive towards, is artistic expansion and limitless reach. I’m a very musically-oriented person, and my goal as an artist is to incorporate that wide-ranged palette to generate the melodies and lyrical compositions of my songs; never allowing myself to be boxed in to any category or debasing myself to a niche sound–because that’s what cripples artists, even the biggest of stars. I have many influences that stem from an eclectic list, including inspiration from: Måneskin, Dominic Fike, Elvis, Jon Bellion, Imagine Dragons, & Aidan Bissett. When I learned that Grammy-Winning Latin Artist, Selena, learned to sing in spanish phonetically WELL before she spoke it, that sparked me to make a song in Greek, so now I’m currently working on a song called “Ευρυδίκη και Ορφέας”.

Because the possibilities are endless,
and that’s my ultimate message. If there’s something you don’t think you can do or someone says you can’t, you go out and do that thing…and some…plus more…just cause.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Anybody that knows me, knows that when I’m not making music, I’m watching TV. Shows, Movies, Documentaries, all of it, as long as the captions are on. And although, it’s not quite educationally esteemed as Books or TED Talks, I enjoy watching things that put me into perspective of my own life.
The shows and movies I watch influence my personal philosophies and lay inspiration for the storytelling behind my songwriting. The documentaries I watch grant me a layout on what I want my brand management to encompass and lead to. I’ve chosen 4 to mention, 2 of them are shows, and 2 of them are documentaries, from which I’ve also included 2 quotes from each that have impacted me as a person and my message as an artist.

1. “Boy Swallows Universe” (Limited Mini-Series)
It’s a Coming-of-Age story where two brothers and their family are met with disadvantageous circumstances which are tried and overcome by the perseverance of hope and the power of love.
•”Time can be anything you want it to be. If you want it to go fast, you can trick it into whizzing by. And you can slow time by focusing on every tiny detail.”
•”You can spend years thinking about the shitty parts of life, or you can find a way back to the good bits.”

2. “ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke” (Documentary)
It’s a film that discusses Sam Cooke both as an artist, and an activist. He was a powerful black man and performer that not only sought to break the boundaries of racial segregation, but he also encouraged the artistic freedom and mutual success of other up-and-coming artists, and shifted the perceptions of what black masculinity looked like and could be.
•”I hope by refusing to play a segregated audience, it would help to break down racial segregation here.”
•”I am aware that ownin’ a record company is a losing deal much too often for comfort, but this company of mine is concentrating on recording negro artists I feel have the ingredients to become as successful as I have. And if I lose a few dollars along the way, in the end, it will be worth it to me. Morally, it’s a worthwhile project.”

3. “Move to Heaven” (Show)
It’s a K-Drama series about a man on the autism spectrum who cleans people’s homes after they’ve died, and in doing so he also embarks to solve the mysteries of people’s lives.
•”Dad says what makes a good person is how they try to understand others, not how they talk.”
•”Two of us are looking at the same thing, but one sees love while the other sees hate.”

4. “What Happened, Miss Simone?”
It’s a film about Nina Simone and how she went from being a classic pianist to becoming a black power icon and musical legend. It dives deep into the melancholy of her life and how her mental illness and her civil rights activism put a strain on her career and family life.
•”What I was interested in was conveying an emotional message, which means using everything you’ve got inside to barely make a note or if you have to strain to sing, you sing. So sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream”
•”To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, black people. So my job is to make them more curious about where they came from and their own identity and pride in that identity. That’s why my songs…I try to make them as powerful as possible, mostly just to make them curious about themselves. We don’t know anything about ourselves. We don’t even have the pride and the dignity of African people, but we can’t even talk about where we came from. We don’t know. It’s like a lost race.”

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Personal Freedom, Radical Self-Expression, and Emotional Vulnerability. I spent a great deal of my time emotionally closed off from others, suppressing my feelings with anything accessible, and disassociating, running endless time loops and memories over and over in my head. When I started making music I went from feeling trapped in my own mind to creating my own world from the very thoughts I once thought haunted and tortured me. Making music has became the therapy I never knew I needed or knew I had, for that matter, and from it, I felt a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Music became a way for me to finally get it all out, without having to filter myself, without having to worry about what someone else was going to say or how they were going to respond. Music allows me to be unapologetically me. And in doing that, I inspire others to do the same. I’ve always known whatever I was to do, I wanted to reach people, and help them, and hopefully impact them. If it became a means of an outlet, and a healthy outsource for me, imagine what it could do for others, how my own stories and lyricized feelings could help others process their lives and experiences, and change themselves and the world. That’s why the Mantra attached to my brand as Mael Morningstvr is, “Come Darkness, We Alchemize Greatness”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/mael_morningstvr
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mael_morningstvr?igsh=cmliOTg2ZGN0M2Vq&utm_source=qr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@Mael_Morningstvr?si=YHh6ETZyZKkfWo9o
• Other: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/maelmorningstvr/loves-a-fools-errand https://www.tiktok.com/%0A@mael_morningstvr?%0At=8KgICrmplVS&_r=1 https://on.soundcloud.com/%0Aek8VAFDYtFcC2d1w6

Image Credits
Info Black @infoblack Mael Morningstvr @mael_morningstvr