Q&A: MyKey Talks Two New Albums, Musical Independence, and the Creation of His Album Cover
LA–BASED SINGER-SONGWRITER — MyKey has done it again. An indie folk–pop artist known for his distinctive voice and poignant songwriting, he combines elements of indie rock, pop, and folk to effortlessly create emotive and heartfelt songs. MyKey's music is full of introspective lyrics, coupled with his showcase of multi-instrumental talent.
With popular songs such as “Was It Something I Said” and “Bender,” the singer-songwriter is back once again to let us into his creative brain with the release of his new album, Auto Repair, out now.
In the 10-track album, expect to hear MyKey’s familiar folk sound. After years of hiding these songs away, he recruited a couple friends to help him bring this collection to life in not one album, but two. Auto Repair, the first release, is composed of classic MyKey acoustic ballads, making a perfect album for fall. The second project, Auto Destroy, will be released on October 31st.
Luna chatted with MyKey to learn what’s new, from becoming an independent artist to the song he’s most excited for the world to have. Read the interview below.
Photo by Jade Sadler
LUNA: As a newly independent artist, how was it to have the freedom to collaborate with all your friends to make Auto Repair?
MYKEY: It was super fun. It actually wasn’t even the intention — the album had come just from random demos I had that my old label didn’t feel like using. There were at least 40 of them. I didn’t want to keep them all to myself so I figured, why don’t I just send this to everyone? It was like a volunteer fire department (laughs). A lot of people actually hop on the next album, but this one coming up has four or five, I think.
LUNA: Wow! So you’re splitting the songs into two albums?
MYKEY: Yes — the first one will definitely be 10 songs. I just picked all my favorite acoustic songs for this one. I had a real talk with a friend of mine where he was like, “I’m going to be so real with you, I really like these 10. And I like the other ones, too, but they’re so random. I won’t be able to put your album on shuffle.” (Laughs) But that made me think of splitting the songs into two albums, kind of a more meaningful one and then one just for funsies.
LUNA: That’s a cool concept to split the two up — different moods for different seasons. Did you know that you wanted to use these demos when the idea of an album came up originally? Or did you just happen to stumble across them again?
MYKEY: These demos kind of just existed in no man’s land for a while. Some of them are from all the way back in 2019 and 2020, actually. I had spent all this time making these songs just for a company to tell me no, so I wasn’t sure what to do with everything.
LUNA: Well, after hearing some of these new songs, I think I can speak for myself and everyone when I say that I’m so glad you didn’t end up scrapping them. Also, the album cover is the cutest thing ever. What inspired the idea of cute rats, but make them mechanics? (Laughs)
MYKEY: So, I didn’t have an album name yet but I had known that I wanted to draw an album cover — just a big empty square. I had seen a TikTok of some dude teaching how to draw a grid from a five-point perspective and thought that it seemed fun. I was driving around listening to the songs after and realized that all the songs were somehow car related (laughs). So I drew my beemer covered in rats.
LUNA: Which was unfortunately based on a true series of events, but at least these on the cover are fixing the car this time instead of destroying it. Auto Repair is all acoustic, therefore making it the perfect fall album, right?
MYKEY: Yeah, I think it’s all really cute! When I think of the whole folky acoustic thing, I think of going back to school, fall weather — all of that.
LUNA: Have you considered hopping on the trend of releasing remixes for any of the new songs as well?
MYKEY: I kind of want to because I saw [Mickey Darling’s] EPs … of their instrumentals and remixes and it seems like a lot of fun to do that.
LUNA: Are you able to share who we can expect to see alongside you on these new albums?
MYKEY: Besides both [Nico Days and sad brad] being there, my homie Elliot sings for fun and is on there. My other homie Axel is on there too — he’s a friend from high school, but we’ve made music together since then. It’s been a lot of fun.
LUNA: Is there a song that you’re the most proud of or most excited to have out finally?
MYKEY: Absolutely. There’s a song called “Wild River” that was a happy little accident, for sure. It was supposed to be a joke — literally a song about truck month (laughs) — but it kept getting stuck in my head so I eventually wrote a real song for it. I’m finally learning how to have fun with music again.
