Georgia Maq is 'insane, romantic, complicated' on her sensational new EP
'God's Favourite' casts aside any remaining doubts over Georgia Maq's post-Camp Cope prospects — except maybe her own.
“I think everyone in Australia hates me,” Georgia Maq tells me from her adopted home of Los Angeles.
“I think that all the time. And maybe they don’t. Maybe no one cares. Maybe no one gives a single shit about whatever the fuck I’m doing or thinking.”
We’re both trying not to talk too much about the past. We are, after all, on this call to discuss her phenomenal new EP God’s Favourite, a country-focused reset that sees the former Camp Cope vocalist sounding sharper and more spectacular than ever.
Still, a legacy as large as Maq’s casts a long shadow, and the conversation keeps drifting back towards Australia, which Maq left many years ago. At one point in our call, discussing it brings her to tears.
“I don’t know how anybody feels about me in Australia anymore and I don’t know how I feel about them,” she says. “It’s complicated because when I left, I ran.”
Those around Australian music over the last decade understand why Maq, in her words, ran. Camp Cope were first and foremost one of Australia’s best bands of the decade, but they were also at the epicentre of an industry culture war around gender.
They became reluctant martyrs, because they were three women, and because they made music on their terms, and because they had the so-called audacity to demand safety and respect at their workplace.
Maq has complicated feelings about Camp Cope, which dissolved amicably in 2023. She thinks the music “sucks” (strictly because of her input, not her bandmates’, she stresses), but also worries it’ll be thought of as her peak.
“I have fears that I’m like, ‘Was Camp Cope the best thing that I ever did? Was that my prime? Is that the most I’m ever gonna be able to do?’” Maq says. “I’m so critical of myself. I listen to it and I’m like, ‘Who in their right mind enjoyed this?’”1
She feels similarly about her 2019 solo debut, Pleaser, which she at one point wanted to completely erase from the internet.
“I fucking hate that record. I almost wanted to destroy that entire era because I’m so embarrassed by it,” she says.
“But then, when I was on tour, this trans woman came up to me at a show and said she realised who she was, and realised she was trans, when she saw the cover of Pleaser.
“I was like, ‘Oh, it’s all worth it, me hating this record and not wanting it to ever be heard again’. Now my feelings have changed, because it helped someone figure out who they were.”
Georgia Maq has a more straightforward relationship with God’s Favourite: it’s good, and she knows it. Her first project since moving to the United States, it’s an intimate and bluesy EP produced entirely by close friend Daniel Fox. It’s, in Maq’s words, the music she’s “meant to be” singing over.
“I always had that feeling but didn’t do it because I didn’t think it was cool, or the tools weren’t available to me in Australia, and I wasn’t good at guitar,” Maq says. “Now, I’m better at guitar, better at other things, I know a lot of people who play a lot of instruments.”
The star of God’s Favourite is Maq’s vocal performance, which is far and away the most captivating she’s ever sounded. In Camp Cope, Maq’s voice shone in an entirely different light — it was jagged, potent, and could go from conversational to riot-starting on a dime. God’s Favourite is comparatively gentle — to borrow a word from Maq — “pretty”.
“I got vocal nodules from singing in Camp Cope, and I had to get three vocal surgeries, and that was so fucked up,” she says.
“Then I found this singer on TikTok who offered lessons, and she taught me how to sing the way Ariana Grande sings. I did maybe three or four lessons with her, and she changed my fucking life. I learnt not to scream or belt anymore — I did it in a safer and nicer sounding way.”
The shift in Maq’s singing allows her songwriting to shine in new ways, too. ‘Citronella’ was the last song on the project to be finished, and it’s one of the strongest.
Written on Maq’s porch, it’s cryptic and lingers in the middle ground between the cheeky (“Being what you can’t handle/And too cute to cancel/Oh well, that’s me”) and the diaristic (“Eucalyptus in the bathroom/Coffee stains on white sheets”).
“I like to keep things open for interpretation a lot of the time these days,” she says. “I don’t even know what it’s about. Just being insane, probably. I don’t know. Romance, being complicated, all that kind of stuff.”
Maq can be coy about the meaning behind her songs. As a friend opined to me, Maq’s music seems to have a lot of herself in it, even for an artist. That can make it difficult to discuss at length, something Maq gestures towards late in our conversation.
“It feels weird talking about some of the songs, because they're very obviously not about the happiest human experiences that a person can have,” she says. “Talking about them feels kind of embarrassing, in a way. It is a weird part of this.”
Still, Maq is generous in confronting the strangeness. One of the EP singles, ‘Slightly Below the Middle’, pays tribute to her late father, Hugh McDonald, famed for his work in Redgum. The track weaves in The Charlie Daniels Band classic ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’, a song he often played during her childhood.
“I think I’ll be singing about my dad forever. It feels like communicating beyond the grave, the songs are a Ouija board or something,” she says. “I’m talking to my dad and trying to continue his legacy of being completely fucking nuts.”
Maq’s mum also gets a mention across the last two songs of God’s Favourite, ‘The LA River’ and ‘Mercy & Grace’.
“I didn’t have a huge amount of appreciation for my mum for a lot of my life. I feel like putting her into songs is making up for that a bit. She’s the fucking best person in the entire world,” Maq says.
“The choruses are essentially saying the same thing in a different way, and they’re both directed at my mum. They’re kind of depressing. They say some really sad things in a beautiful way. I just love my mum, she’s so cool and so rad.”
As Maq says this, I realise she’s stayed on the call for about 20 minutes longer than the allocated time. She’s been generous with not only her candour, but her time. Some of the things mentioned on the call but not detailed in this article: the Jersey Shore blanket she’s knitting, a Las Vegas trip, a Sims save she made where all the men are locked in her basement (“normal girl hobbies”), and vaping.
Still, what I come back to long after our call’s ended is something Maq said right before pausing to wipe away tears. I ask her whether, despite the conflicted feelings about her musical career in Australia, she could also see the good she’d achieved alongside Camp Cope.
“I hope so. I hope I did something,” Maq says. “I’ve always just wanted to do good in the world.”
Maq has already well and truly achieved that goal. She was a nurse in Melbourne during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was one-third of an all-time great Australian band. She was instrumental in the introduction of anti-harassment hotlines at festivals and calling out gender imbalances on lineups.
She spoke about her own traumatic experiences to help others feel less alone with theirs, and she’s had an indelible impact on helping many young women in music feel seen in ways most of her male peers did not. Georgia Maq is already a legend of Australian music, even if she may think otherwise.
God’s Favourite feels like the definitive close of one chapter and an exciting start to another. Maq is — as she says elsewhere in our call — staying put, keeping her head down, and working on her shit. It’s giving her the time and space to begin seeing more of the good in herself. We’re all the better for getting to hear the results.
Lead photo credit: Supplied, twnty three.
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