Maggie Lindemann is coming into her own as an artist. “It feels great. It’s been a long journey, but it feels like I’m finally really happy with everything and happy with myself and everything’s just good,” she says. After seemingly endless waiting, she gets to share her debut album SUCKERPUNCH with the world. “I’ve been sitting on this album for a year now, so I’m really excited. I started on it about a year ago, so a lot of the songs that are on it are already a year old, which is so weird.” Like many artists post-pandemic, she is also rediscovering the joy of performing. “I have a couple of festivals coming up. I did two showcases already performing some songs off the album and it was my first time performing those. It was really cool. I’m really excited to be able to do it.”
The album is heavily influenced by horror. Horror will always be Maggie’s number one muse. “I think I just really appreciate the way horror makes me feel. It makes you feel so many different emotions,” she explains, her eyes sparkling. “Obviously, you’re scared. It makes you sympathize and it makes you angry, then it makes you scared, then it makes you sad. It puts you through all these different emotions. I also love horror because it’s very planned out. A lot of movies are like comedies. They’re very easy to follow. You can kind of see where it’s going. And I think with horror…the reason that Saw is one of my favorite horror movies is because it’s just so planned out. It gives you this twist at the end that you weren’t expecting. It just really makes you think and use your mind. I really appreciate when movies can do that.” The common horror theme of fighting back against adversity or the unknown motivates her to get through rough times.
As chaotic as her life was during the inception of SUCKERPUNCH, the album kept her grounded. “Writing always really helps me get through things. The only way I can get through things is by writing it and then listening to it,” Maggie reveals.
“Honestly, it even gives you a little bit of an outside perspective because I’ll write these songs about stuff that I’m going through in the moment. And then when I listen to it over again, maybe a week later or a month later, it gives me a whole new perspective because I’m seeing it from a different place. It gives situations a new life and new meanings. It definitely helps me get through whatever I’m going through.”
Maggie wants her music to be a moment of solidarity and clarity for her fans. “My main thing is that I want people to feel like they have someone to relate to. When you listen to this, I hope if you’ve been in this situation or if something you’re going through, you can see it differently. You can relate to me, but it can also empower you or give you a resolution that you needed or whatever you need in that moment. I hope that the album can give that to people.”
She aspires for her music to stand as a beacon of optimism for anyone enduring a heavier moment of life. “It’s important because everyone wants to be hopeful. Everyone wants to know that there’s like a light at the end of the tunnel,” she reflects. “I think I just want people to feel that when they listen to my music, that we all struggle and we all go through things, but there’s always a light at the end. Things will always get better. Things have to. If things were all light and happy all the time, then we wouldn’t be able to appreciate them.
I think it’s important to also feel the low times and to experience those so that the good times can feel that much better. I think it’s just important to be hopeful and to know that it’s not always going to be pain and suffering and sadness. There is that hope at the end.” Sometimes we have to fully learn the depth of life’s valleys to be able to truly taste the sweetness of its peaks.
Believe it or not, Maggie is already deep into plotting her next album. “I haven’t started too much on it just because I’ve been so much busier this go around than I was at the end of PARANOIA. I’ve just been really, really all over the place. But I definitely have some things I want to do and some things I want to try,” she teases. “I’ve had a couple sessions where I’m solely writing by myself now. The goal for this next album is to write it by myself. I really want to write by myself and I have a lot of ideas, so hopefully I’ll be able to capture them.” As she continues to push herself, one thing is clear: she will be the author of her own musical destiny. v
