Mia McIntosh
Singer / Songwriter / Producer / Musician
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“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
OUT NOW
“Who You Are”
New Single / Video Out Now
“CHANCES ARE OVER” EP
OUT NOW
One afternoon when Mia McIntosh couldn’t have been any more than four years old, her parents overheard her plunking out notes at the family piano, shaping the melody of a song she’d heard on the radio that morning. Almost immediately, they started looking into piano teachers who could help nurture this budding talent. Today, the Maryland-raised singer-songwriter is as grateful for those early lessons as for the music her parents shared with her in her childhood—classic greats like Paul Simon, the Eagles, and Willie Nelson. “Paul Simon was a staple of my childhood,” she remembers. “My favorite song as a kid was ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.’ I always loved the music, but now I think more about the lyrics when I listen to his songs.” The music she’s writing these days tends to be more directly inspired by contemporary pop auteurs like Olivia Rodrigo and Ariana Grande, artists she admires for their ability to “create catchy music about sad experiences, without diminishing the emotion.” But at the same time, her songs continue to embrace the influence of songwriting icons of the 20th century, creating an unusual combination of touchstones for an artist her age.
“My dad listened to one of the songs from my EP, and he said, ‘It has the vibes of a Stevie Wonder song!’ and I thought, ‘Oh, wow, that’s amazing!’” Mia recalls. “I was not directly aiming for that, but I like that a lot. I’ve been a huge Stevie Wonder fan since I was a sixth grader.” Now a junior in high school, Mia tends to categorize many of her musical interests along a timeline of certain ages and school years. In eighth grade, she had a musical revelation watching Paul Simon in concert, and she has a noted “soft spot” for Billie Eilish because her debut album was the soundtrack to Mia’s freshman year. She started composing music and writing lyrics in third grade; by fourth grade she determined that she wanted to be a singer when she grew up; and by fifth grade she was finishing the songs she’d been starting. “Then when I was in ninth grade,” she adds, “I started recording my songs and decided this was what I really wanted to do.”
Mia downloaded GarageBand to her phone after noticing a classmate playing around with it on a school computer, and almost immediately she started using it to record and produce her own music. Even now, it’s still a huge part of her creative process. She produces the majority of her material on a screen the size of her palm, inventing and organizing sounds piece by piece until she’s ready to show them to her supportive network of friends and family. Her debut single, “In Your Eyes,” was released during her freshman year in 2019, and her first EP, Chances Are Over, was released in 2021, the summer before her junior year. Her arrangements are modern, thoughtful, and curious, frequently grounded by piano parts that hint at classic rock balladry even in the midst of a fizzy, modern soundscape. The result is precociously smart and stylish. Savvy listeners will appreciate how Mia seems to effortlessly synthesize her love of both contemporary and classic rock music into a sound that’s easy, natural, and soulful.
Her outlook on songwriting is similarly instinctive and unfussy. “I just write about whatever I’m thinking, mostly,” she explains. She’s often elated by new ideas, but she’s willing to sit with them for months, patiently revisiting and reworking them until they feel just right. With new music due out by the end of the year, Mia is deep in the throes of writing for
her next release and looks forward to exploring new corners in her work. “I’m excited about having people that I know and people that I don’t know hear my material,” she begins. Then, with palpable enthusiasm, she adds: “I’m excited about just continuing to work on stuff and having many more experiences connected to music.”
At eighteen, Mia McIntosh has a lifetime of experiences ahead of her, but even her recent releases show a musical maturity beyond her years and an impressive, era- spanning grasp of the craft and history of songwriting— plenty of reasons to savor her current work in the meantime.