A Quick Chat With Majelen

Majelen is stepping into 2025 with a full heart and a packed schedule, kicking things off with her new album, Stuck With You, out Friday, March 14. A rich blend of indie pop-rock and folk, the album captures her signature warmth and storytelling, drawing inspiration from love, the Australian outback and life’s defining moments.

Recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, Stuck With You is a collection of intimate, melody-driven tracks, with the title song accompanied by a heartfelt music video featuring real footage from her wedding day. Alongside the release, Majelen is embarking on an Australian tour and unveiling a signature guitar in collaboration with Cole Clark Guitars.

We caught up with Majelen to talk about the album, her creative process and what’s next.

Can you tell us what this album means to you and what you want people to take away from it?
This album is a combination of songs I’ve written while travelling the world over the last few years, both backpacking and also travelling and living in the bus in Australia.

The songs on the album are in chronological order of when they were written, each about a different period of my life.

The overall vibe of the album is about how amazing the world is and how incredible it is to have the opportunity to adventure and travel like I have. It’s basically one big worldly love story.

I talk a lot about my relationship with my amazing wife Courtney and the times we’ve shared all over the world.
If people were to take anything away from it, it would be that life is great, we can all live the life we dream, love exists and the world is a wonderful place.

Who are some of your influences, and why?
Tommy Emmanuel for his crazy awesome guitar skills, Mariah Carey’s early stuff for her insane vocals and Ariana Grande as well.

John Butler was also a big influence back in the day when I was starting out in high school playing guitar, and then I also like a lot of the jazz cats like Pat Metheny and Joe Pass.

What's the creative process for you, from writing through to recording?
I have a different process for each song… it’s never really the same every time when it comes to writing.

Sometimes, I come up with a guitar riff and build a song around that, and sometimes I start with the lyrical content and build the music around the words.

Sometimes I write a song in an hour, and sometimes it takes me a few days or weeks to get the whole thing finished.

After it’s written, I tend to perform it a few times and test it out before the recording process begins.

When it comes to recording, all the tracks on this album except for The Story were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London and then mixed and mastered by myself in the bus.

Recording there was a little hectic—I had two days to get as much recorded as possible. I did all the guitar parts for 11 songs on day one; we were there for about eight hours all up doing that. Most tracks I recorded the guitar part in either one or two takes from start to finish. Then the second day was vocal parts—I did 10 hours of singing all up, most tracks I got three takes of the vocal part sung from start to finish.

After we got the parts recorded, I mixed and mastered the album in my bus where I live back home in Australia.

Working with audio in the bus has been a great learning curve and challenged me to increase my skills quickly due to the very ‘imperfect’ environment. But I think it turned out great! The next bunch of music coming out throughout this year is being created from start to finish in the bus, and I’m loving the challenge of working on the next few releases at the moment.

What do you think makes a great song?
I think a great song has the ability to emotionally move you—be it happy, sad, inspired, or whatever other emotion.

I don’t know if it can be put down to an exact musical formula because it’s also kinda individual to every listener. But I just know that the songs that have impacted my life the most are the ones that have made me feel the most.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?
I would love to collaborate with Ed Sheeran because he is so good at creating such catchy loops and hooks, and also for creating a one-dude presence that holds stadiums captive.

When not working on music, what other creative outlets do you have?
Pretty much everything in my life that I do creatively is all interconnected with music in some way—I am a self-managed musician, and the only team I have is my wife and our dog (who is currently working on his pen licence so he can help too)… so I don’t really have time for other creative outlets these days!

Who are some local bands we should check out?
Well, if you’re in Brisbane, you should check out my friend Red Le Clerc—she even sang at our wedding.

If you’re in Cairns, my mate Tessa Devine is amazing.

Winter or summer and why?
Summer. I hate the cold.

I also love being outside and being active, and because I don’t tend to warm up very easily, that is hard to do when it’s freezing outside.

Unless I get to go skiing… but then I want the summer back as soon as I’m inside and dry again.

What do you have planned for 2025?
I’ve got another EP in the works, with a few singles to lead in.