Q&A: Ava Maybee Thrives in Chaotic Vulnerability in Debut EP “Orange Drive”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photography Credit: Whitney Otte
UNTANGLING THE WIRES OF CONNECTION — On her debut EP Orange Drive, Ava Maybee dives headfirst into the electric chaos of connection—how it thrills, scars, and ultimately transforms us. With raw lyricism and experimental pop production, she threads together a coming-of-age narrative that embraces discomfort, heartbreak and hope.
Maybee, who has steadily emerged as a distinct voice in alt-pop, isn’t afraid to get messy. On Orange Drive, she thrives in emotional turbulence, unearthing the pain and poetry of unraveling relationships. The EP’s opener and lead single, “Gold Star Sticker,” is Maybee at her most unfiltered—screaming, aching, and clawing through the fallout of a fractured friendship. “It’s about a friendship I was desperate for their validation, and when we had to go out separate ways it was incredibly difficult,” she says. “It perfectly encapsulates how I was feeling: hysterical, anxious, excited and furious.” The track is a futuristic pop stunner that swells with her full vocal range, as if the wreckage of that connection is being exorcised in real time.
The EP was born in 2024 during a period of creative freefall. Collaborating closely with producers Jake Nuffer and Alex Agresti, Maybee entered the studio weekly without expectations. Most of Orange Drive came to life during warmups, when there was no pressure to write something profound—just honest. That looseness gave Maybee space to tap into something deeper.
Much of the record is informed by the disorienting passage into young adulthood—particularly the sharp, often overlooked grief of losing friendships. “A romantic relationship not working out is not very rare. But with friendships, it’s like, oh, we are different as human beings,” she says. “That’s so hard and so sad.”
Maybee turns those ruptures into sonic snapshots: bittersweet, cathartic and deeply human. Her voice is the throughline—clear and commanding, yet always aching. Whether whispering intimate confessions or howling at emotional dead ends, she invites listeners into the interior storm of her early twenties.
“I’m always drawn to songs about connections between human beings. That’s really what drives me,” she says. “My biggest hope is for people to feel like they are reading my journal, because I think vulnerability is my strongest asset.”
Orange Drive doesn’t tie up its emotions neatly—it unspools them, lets them tangle and shimmer in the light. Maybee doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. Instead, she offers something more powerful: a fearless portrait of a young artist owning her chaos, and inviting us into the mess with her.
Photography Credit: Whitney Otte
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what kind of atmosphere or sonic world do you aim to create for your listeners? What do you like that listening experience to be like?
AVA: That's such a great question. I just want everyone to feel safe and I want everyone to feel excited, free and authentic. Sonically, I would say my influences would be Remi Wolf, Porches and Carol King.
LUNA: You just released your debut EP Orange Drive and huge congratulations! The idea of “thriving in chaotic vulnerability” really defines the heart of this project. What inspired you to lean into this and what themes and emotions do you explore?
AVA: I leaned into it because I did not have a choice. It's my first project ever, so I was excited to make a story with it and take the listener through a journey. I really wrote it about most platonic and romantic breakups.
LUNA: You’ve spoken about the pain of losing friendships versus romantic partners in “Gold Star Sticker.” Why was it important for you to make that distinction so central in Orange Drive?
AVA: When people are listening to my music, if I write a song that's about a friendship breakup, but they take it as a romantic breakup, then I'm all for that, because that's the point of music. Whatever you need to get out of it is what you get out of it, which I think is super important. I think that it was an important distinction to make, just because they're so different, and I feel like their grief processes are different.
LUNA: I would love to touch more on the creative process behind the Orange Drive. The EP was written with Jake Nuffer and Alex Agresti, can you share more about your creative partnership and how it influenced the overall sound and direction of the EP?
AVA: I first discovered Jake through his girlfriend, who’s also an amazing artist. I reached out to him on Instagram, just saying, “I love your music—I don’t know if you ever write with other people, but I’d love to do a session.” Which is wild, because I never do that. Thank God I did, though. He responded right away, like, “Yeah, 100%.” From there, he introduced me to his producer, Alex, and honestly, from day one, we all just clicked. It felt like we totally got each other.
When you're in that session grind, it can feel like a series of creative blind dates—walking into a room like, “Hi, nice to meet you! Here’s all my trauma, let’s write a hip-hop song about it!” It’s absurd. But this felt completely different. Jake and Alex made me feel so safe and at ease right away—they’re hilarious, super down-to-earth, and the kind of people who make it easy to talk about deep stuff without it becoming emotionally exhausting. Before we knew it, we’d be in the studio until 10 p.m., just talking and making music for hours.
They’ve honestly become my favorite collaborators ever. When I started putting out music with them, I just knew I wanted to make the whole project with them. It’s really shaped the sound of the project—not just because of their influences, but because we genuinely share the same taste in music. There’s this unspoken creative language between us. I’ll be thinking, “This part needs a tambourine,” and Alex has already added it. It’s that kind of synergy. They just get me.
LUNA: What is your favorite song from Orange Drive and why do you love it? Is there a certain lyric or message that stands out to you the most?
AVA: I feel like a lot of people say they can't choose. They're all my children. No, I can choose. I definitely have favorites for sure. For right now, it would be “Mean.” I like “Mean” because we made it very quickly. We made the first half of it very quickly and made it to mastering. I had a really gnarly sinus infection and we just kept it in and everything felt very natural with it. It's the most vulnerable I've ever been on a song, and I like it very much.
LUNA: What do you hope listeners walk away with after experiencing Orange Drive from start to finish?
AVA: I hope that it's cathartic for people in that they find their own healing through every song, whether or not that song is written about their very specific situation or not. I think the main thing is that it's okay to really mourn and go through platonic breakups and romantic breakups as well, because they're a part of life. I think growing is and changing is difficult enough, so it's cool to have a helpful soundtrack to it.
LUNA: Since bringing this project to life, how do you feel you’ve evolved—either personally, artistically, or both?
AVA: I really selfishly wrote it for healing purposes. Therapy was just simply not enough, so that's really why I wrote it with also, of course, in mind that it would help other people. I think that it was really beautiful towards the end to write songs that didn't feel vengeful or full of revenge for the other person. It was really just made to help me instead of getting back at whoever it was about or whatever it was about. That was really beautiful. I think that when I was younger, I had a lot of anger, and the older I get, I've let it go. For me, putting this out is finally letting everything go.
LUNA: What is the best environment to listen to Orange Drive in? Is there a certain setting or mood that really enhances your sonic world and listening experience?
AVA: I would say in the car driving. I live in LA. If it was LA specific, I would say in the car driving down, looking at the beach, windows down. I think that's the best way to listen to any song. Truly, like sad, happy, angry. I'm all about it. Any type of song I think can be experienced really beautifully in the car.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Luna?
AVA: I'm very excited for this point of my career, because there's just so much potential I never know what's going to hit. I'm very interested to see how people respond to the project, but I think most importantly, I'm just very proud to be putting out a project in general. I've put out 10 singles, and so this will be my fifth year of putting out music, and I finally made an EP. It's just a miracle, so it's more of I'm just very excited about that. I'm going on my first ever headline tour at the end of May, so that's also very exciting because I've only opened for other people, so I'm just really excited to see everyone.
