Rachel Maria Cox Reveals The Inspiration Behind New EP 'Boy In A Band'

Say You Love Me

Say You Love Me came about from coming up with that opening hook on the piano. I wanted to create something that was inspired by some of my favourite LGBT pop artists like MNEK, Troye Sivan and Rina Sawayama. It’s about being in the early stages of a relationship where you’re seeing each other all the time, and everything feels really light and fun and colourful. It sets up this narrative that runs across the whole EP about this relationship that’s doomed to fail because even in this song where everything is bright and optimistic, there’s still this element of hesitance to commit.

Intense

Intense is my answer to the question, “what if there was a musical theatre song about having an insecure attachment style?” I wanted to play on the ideas of the crazy, obsessive partner a little bit, where even though they know they’re being crazy, they kind of can’t help it. The pulsating, persistent synth bass interspersed with the shorter bars and pauses between sections are supposed to mimic the feeling of being caught up in spiralling thoughts and then having to catch your breath. The lyric idea came about on a weekend when I had laryngitis and was by myself all weekend. I was thinking about the Little Mermaid, and the idea of feeling stuck trying to get someone to understand your feelings because you aren’t able to articulate them clearly.

Boy In A Band

This song was intended to be a playful and fun comment on the toxic masculinity that persists within the music industry. I’ve never really shied away from talking about gender issues in the music world, but oddly enough had never really written a song about it until I wrote Boy In A Band. This song started with the riff idea, and then I got the idea for the chorus, with Boy In A Band being a twist on the way we talk about women in music as ‘girls in bands’. The verses just drew on a bunch of guys I’ve encountered over the years, including the ones who give unsolicited advice (aka criticism) post-gig and the ones who think ‘political correctness has gone too far’ but will begrudgingly put a single female acoustic act on as the opener.

Get Low, Get High

Another song that started with a concept in mind, I wanted to take that plucky synth bass sound and make a sexy club banger, and I got one lyric draft in before I realised that I am not good at doing sexy. So instead, it became about being in a toxic relationship, and the dynamic of things either being really good or really terrible and just being constantly on edge because of the uncertainty around it.

Heal

This one started with the piano chords, I was playing around with a 6/8 ballad feel chord progression and really wanted to make something that sounded like Ariana Grande but with an Australian accent. This one is very straightforward lyrically, it’s about recovering and finding confidence again after a relationship ends. Recording vocals for this was super fun, and it is absolutely one of my favourite songs to perform live.

Stream or Download Boy In A Band here.