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

Maddy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was little, I wanted to be a singer/songwriter/actress/author/veterinarian. The vet idea was short lived, and then it became clear that I really just wanted to do something creative. I’ve been writing songs and stories my whole life. It’s always been my way of expressing myself, and performing came naturally along with that. While I knew generally that I wanted to do something with music as a kid, it wasn’t until middle school that I really began to commit to it. I took up the guitar, I started playing my original songs at open mics and talent shows, and I even took some online classes in songwriting through Berklee College of Music. When it came time to pick a college, I doubled down on my decision to pursue a career in music by choosing to attend Belmont University as a Songwriting Major.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m an artist and songwriter living in Nashville, TN. I write and release mainly pop / singer songwriter music. I’m passionate about building catchy melodies around interesting rhythm and rhyme schemes, and I always prioritize storytelling in my songs. While I was in college studying songwriting, I released two albums independently. In my last semester this past January, I decided to post a different original song on TikTok every day of the month. This led to my first major success online, as viewers were drawn to a few of my songs, including “Kinda Over It” and “Sleeping with Anxiety.” I signed with Overall Recordings in April and released both of those songs as singles after graduating in May of this year. To date, “Kinda Over It” has three million views on TikTok and a million streams on Spotify, which is the most streams I’ve ever had on a song and is something I’m very proud of. Since then, I released a new song “Picture You Naked” and I have several more releases lined up with Overall Recordings over the next few months. I’m excited to continue to build my fanbase and write and release more music that people connect with.

The most important thing to me as an artist is to inspire listeners and give them a soundtrack for their lives. It’s meant the world to me to see comments online of listeners who related to my songs or felt inspired to write their own. I write for myself, but I share my writing because I want to inspire others the way my favorite artists have inspired me all my life.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I tried to ignore TikTok for a long time, I really did. I’ve never been the first to jump on new social media, as I’m typically a very private person. But once I saw that TikTok was here to stay, I decided I needed to give it a full shot if I wanted my music to be heard by more people. In January of this year, I posted part of an original song every day of the month as sort of a challenge for myself. I didn’t expect major results at all, and I was posting songs that I never intended to release. I felt great when even a few strangers commented something nice about my music.

Toward the end of the month, I randomly decided to film that day’s video while lying on the floor with my Sterling by Music Man St. Vincent guitar. It made for an interesting visual. I really didn’t think the song was anything special. It felt too specific to be relatable, and I didn’t even plan on finishing the song. Over the next few days, the video garnered hundreds of thousands of views. I was blown away.

A few days into February, I was still posting a song every day since it seemed to be working and I had lots of songs to share. I was feeling pretty low one night, so I decided to play a song about being fed up. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to post it because some of the lyrics were a bit more vulgar than my usual writing, but it was honest and authentic about the frustration I was feeling. I sang it at my desk with my St. Vincent guitar, real tears in my eyes, and a deadpan expression. The next day, I was still feeling low, so I posted the video in the morning and didn’t open the app the rest of the day. By the time I checked my phone at 11pm, it had a million views. I was absolutely floored.

My advice to any artists just starting out online is to be consistent. Posting every single day is hard work and I struggle to do it myself, but I promise that it will pay off if you are also authentic with what you post. I recommend getting into both TikTok and Instagram Reels, as both are leading to similar successes for new artists these days.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When my music started taking off early this year, I was actually struggling more than I ever had in my life. I had completely overbooked myself in my last semester of classes, I was going through some very difficult things in my personal life, and my mental health was worse than it had ever been. Most days, I woke up at 7am to get to classes, spent all day in school or running between two different internships, and stayed up until 3am working on homework or my artistry. I wasn’t eating or sleeping as much as I should have been, and I wasn’t taking care of myself.

I found TikTok to be an outlet during that time. Even before I was getting many views, it felt special to share something that I wrote and have others validate my experiences and my abilities. When a couple of my videos really blew up, I drowned myself in the comment section, replying to every single one. It genuinely helped my mental health to engage in this community that had come seemingly out of nowhere and had experienced a lot of the same things as me.

Toward the end of the semester, everything mellowed out a bit and I was able to take care of myself. I’m currently in a place where I’m very happy and fulfilled. I’ll always look back on that dark time and feel proud and grateful that I held onto my creativity so tightly, because that’s what pulled me out of it and into something amazing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.maddyhicks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maddyhicks13/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/maddyhicks
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maddyhicks13 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/maddyhicks13

Image Credits
William Lipchik Audrey Bergeron Benjamin Dufresne