Everything felt rare about the day; the Blacknose sheep imported from the Swiss Alps, two giant white boar-hunting hounds, their unbelievably generous owner, and Macy Todd singing from the windowsill of a perfectly unfinished office.

We planned the shoot around the heat of the sun and arrived early enough to hear the rooster’s morning crows. Farm-fresh eggs sat in a basket on the kitchen counter, while multiple large bags of sheared wool filled the glam room. In a setting that could have easily felt bizarre, Macy seemed to fit in effortlessly.

Grassroots is where things begin, where they take hold and grow outward. We are all at the beginning of something, and as the day progressed, it became abundantly clear how beautifully Macy’s story encapsulated the theme of the first issue of The Pick Up.

Macy has spent the last 10 years learning how to navigate her sound and the music industry while staying true to herself. Since moving to Nashville, she’s entered a new chapter in her career. Drawing from her natural well of creativity and life experience, she’s learning not to let the worry of “getting it right” slow her momentum.

As Macy ripped around on a 4-wheeler through the rolling hills of the farm, she wore a permanent smile across her face. She has embraced the present, welcoming new opportunities with open arms and trusting her voice and songwriting to take her where they need to go.

There was a peaceful energy in the room as she bottle-fed a baby sheep on the kitchen floor. The Valais Blacknose is a breed that typically lives at extreme altitudes. It felt as if Macy was nurturing a spirit guide who might ultimately accompany her to the top of the mountain she’s about to climb.

It must be a revelation for an artist to discover who their people are, the ones who’ve internalized the lyrics and loudly sing the melodies in their cars as if the songs were their own. Macy is ready to find her people, which made it only natural to set up this interview with the person who helped convince her to move to Tennessee.

“I wish I would’ve been kinder to myself and not taken on someone else’s projection of who they wanted me to be.”

-Macy Todd

Macy Todd: I love that you're interviewing me, you always get to hear my demos before they’re released haha.

Dara: Yes.

MT: Did you tell David that?

D: (Laughs) I kind of did, but not really. Well, I think that's the part they were excited about — that we have a bond already, an established bond, and that an interview like that is going to feel like two besties talking, while learning about each other, but let's be more intentional about our questions.

MT: Yeah, it's easier for me to talk to you like this and answer your questions, and just be casual about it.

D: Yeah, and not have to be — “and so on this day I decided that…” [brief pause — coffee sip]

Okay, well, there's no way to introduce this part, but alas my first question — there's a homegrown aura that welcomes anyone when they turn on a Macy song. For me, when I came across your stuff on TikTok, I think there's a raw, cutting-edge honesty to your music that's really disarming. You feel like you're talking to a bestie, like you're listening to a girl riff off something she's actually feeling. So — where did that Macy Todd voice come from? Where did that all start?

MT: Interesting. I feel like when I first started singing, I was always kind of afraid of being a singer. When people would say "she's a good singer," I'd get super offended. Not because I didn't want to be a good singer, but because I wanted to be a good songwriter too. I think for so long I was very insecure that my singing was better than my writing, and I'd kind of step away from singing because I was like, "no, I write and produce stuff, I do my own thing." Eventually I got tired of that and just wanted to say the things in a more unfiltered way with guts. When I leaned into that instead of trying to be good at writing and good at music, that's when I started to say things that were honest to myself.

D: That makes sense. It sounds like the water overflowing the cup — like, "okay, I have something to say now."

MT: Exactly. Or just — when you stop, it's exhausting to try so hard. Trying is really tiring. Instead of just being myself, I was trying to do something cool, or good, or whatever. When I let go of that and started just being myself, being unafraid — maybe that's what you hear in the lyricism.

D: Yeah, there's this boldness — this is who I am, and I'm never going to shy away from this person either. "You did me wrong and I'm holding you to it" — there's just this fearlessness in your lyrics that hits deep, on top of you having insane range and being a great vocalist.

MT: Thanks (smiles and laughs)

D: So when was all that? How old were you?

MT: I feel like I've been making music for like 10 years now. Did you know I used to go by a different name in music?

D: No!

MT: Haha yes. I have had many phases of music and I’ve played with so many sounds, but when I was 17, I got into the studio for the first time with an actual producer. The first song I ever recorded in a studio — I'd been writing songs since I was 13, but the first one I actually recorded was super soulful. It did well, and it let me go on tour when I was younger — my first show was in Miami. It's still on the internet, but a couple years ago it went viral online, and I made a little money off of it that actually allowed me to make the music I'm making now.

D: I feel like I might have known this — is there a picture on the cover, or...?

MT: Yeah, yeah! Haha

D: That makes no sense hahaha, anyways

MT: It went off on SoundCloud, then did really well in streaming, and this company in Miami found me. They'd heard my song and wanted to put on a show around me and fly my whole band to Miami. I lived in Atlanta and had never traveled with a band before. We drove down, and it was at Ace Prop Studios — like the prop studios for movies. 600 people were there — my first show ever. It was disorienting; I didn't even understand what "headlining" meant and to be honest it wasn't a realistic way to start.

Anyway, all that put me on a trajectory of really soulful, pre-genre-blending music. I knew from age 14/15 I was writing songs like I write now, but at 17 that song did well and it was confusing, because I didn't necessarily want to keep making that and the industry didn’t really have a box for me. I loved Brandi Carlile and Patty Griffin — that's the land I wanted to live in while still keeping it pop, but I didn't know how to blend it all, especially once a different song was already doing well. For years I tried to bridge the gap, but people kept commenting, "I liked when Macy Todd was doing soul music." I felt like I couldn't break out of that. So I changed my artist name for a few years — I think there was more to everything that I was carrying during that time and it was a relief to step away from it for a while. Plus I just wanted to experiment and it gave me the freedom to do that.

D: Like a rebirth.

MT: Yeah, a clean slate. It was actually a healing time. I got to play with genre and ignore that reckoning for a while! It was very experimental — didn't necessarily feel like where I wanted to land, but it was healing. I don't know exactly what the bridge was back to wanting to be Macy Todd again — it might have been when I released "Pocket Change." That was the first time I made something that felt like the artist I always wanted to be but didn't know how to be. There's something youthful and pure about that song.

D: It sounds like an Aha moment.

MT: Yeah. That's when I think I decided to change my name back. It also opened up something in me about wanting to age and mature with my music. I felt like Macy Todd again.

D: There's authenticity there! I think Macy Todd wouldn't exist if your other project didn't happen. If that song hadn't happened, maybe you wouldn’t be making the music you’re making now. There's something beautiful about seeing an artist grow like that — people always say "it's not like their old stuff," but it's honest to whatever they felt was true at that time. Who am I to say it should be a certain way? I want whoever I listen to — especially you — to be honest about what they're putting out. If it meant something to them then, that's a time capsule, a reflection.

MT: You have to think about drafts too! It’s so rare for an artist to put their actual first draft out and have it go viral. Nowadays we're used to someone's first draft going out at 18 and doing well, and because of the internet it's easier to get from point A to point B than it was 10 years ago. That's kind of where I find a lot of gratitude — I'm the luckiest girl alive, but there are so many people where I think, what if they’d only had success now, but at 18, I can’t imagine —

Imagine I got success while still in the first drafts of where I wanted to be. I think I'd be pretty miserable. You see people's lifespans in this industry cut down significantly because it's so intense, connected to that pressure, especially in the first drafts — you don't have conviction behind what you're saying because you haven't lived it yet, you're still figuring out what you stand for, but when people do get it right at a young age, I'm very impressed.

D: Is there any influence you feel got it right early on?

MT: It's funny, all my influences got it right older, not younger. Haley Williams got it right really young, but she also went through kind of hell to get there. Then you have the Brandi Carliles, Patty Griffins, Sheryl Crowes — Sheryl Crowe's debut album came out in her 30s, she didn't get success young. When I realized that everyone I look up to, who I want a career that mirrors, got their success later in life — even Hayley, who did get success young, is still innovating in her late 30s.

D: I think there's an air to that kind of artistry that's less "I have this much time" and more "what do I want to do next?" When that's the question, everything changes because you're not rushing — it's like you have all the time in the world. When you move intuitively you get the best stuff, because it's close to you, and whoever's going to align with it will align with it. That's something so honest, and all your music is like that — makes sense you resonate with Hayley.

MT: Yes! It’s exciting but also given the state of the internet, I feel like I can’t be too precious about what I do and don’t put out while still building a language with my listeners. Each song isn’t the end all be all, because there will always be more and each song gets me to the next song. That makes me less nervous about getting it “right” and more exciting about just creating.

D: No, I agree — when you hold things you love with a closed fist, they try that much harder to squeeze out. You want whatever's going to work and stay because it wants to, work because it does. There's a scary free will in holding it with an open hand, making yourself vulnerable, hoping whatever you're choosing is also going to stay because it's supposed to.

MT: I said this to a younger artist recently — everybody has something in their life they hold onto really tight, and it's not that you give it up once and then it's free. You constantly have to open your hands, almost weekly. It's a practice, a way of life — like forgiveness, like love. It's not deciding once, "I love this person, that's it" — the love is waking up every day and choosing it. With your passions, your people, anything — the free will is that today you chose it. There's something beautiful about having a realistic perspective that it's not always going to look how you want.

D: The flip side is — do you even want it to always look exactly how you envisioned it?

MT: I feel that a lot actually. As much as I feel in my gut what's the right decision, I sometimes need space from my own perspective. Sometimes I have to take myself out of it and be like, “okay Macy, this isn't exactly how you imagined it, but maybe it needs to happen this way.”

D: That's a good point — not a lot of artists can do that. It's tasteful relinquishment, understanding your humanity. That trails back to your honesty with yourself and your work — you want what works.

I know I kind of already asked something similar but — were there any significant artists that influenced you, someone you can recall from an early age as your north star?

MT: Brandi Carlile. I heard "The Story" for the first time when I was 14 — I remember exactly where I was, at a lake house cabin up north in Wisconsin, and my cousin Kaia put it on. She was 4 years older than me, so I always thought she had the coolest music. I was like, "oh my gosh." When I got home I told my parents I wanted guitar lessons, specifically because I wanted to learn how to play that song. I loved her songwriting, but I also wanted to learn to sing like her — she taught me how to sing, taught me what my range was, and taught me how to play guitar, because I was learning her songs.

D: And you're seeing her tonight — isn’t that crazy?

MT: Divine timing haha.

D: I love that. The fact that you're seeing her the same day we're doing this interview — that's insane. We're putting out some manifestation energy right there.

MT: We sure are!

D: Do you draw more inspiration from your people or experiences, or is it a mix of both?

MT: It's people and experience, and processing through things. I don't write a lot of imaginary stories.

D: I've seen you do that, and it's been gold. Are there aha moments you've had with the beginnings of a song — a moment or conversation that turned into, say, "Pocket Change" or "Luckiest Girl Alive"?

MT: Oh, 100% — with "Luckiest Girl Alive," the night before I had a session with a bunch of writers I was really intimidated to work with. I was journaling and had a moment of brief gratitude wash over me. I got my journal out and wrote, "I'm the luckiest girl alive, I got nothing that I wanted" . I went into the session and said, "I don't really have anything, but I have this thought," and read it to them. Everybody collectively let out a breath, which seemed like a good sign laughs so we ran with it.

"Pocket Change" was more thought-through — I was thinking about Marilyn Monroe, and pop stars right now, the price you pay for being a woman and leaning into your sexual power. For women it's really empowering to be able to do that, but we live in a world that doesn't know how to hold it — good things flip on themselves and get used as weapons against you. When you lead with your sexuality at a younger age, it ends up not giving you what you think it will, because people don't know what to do with something of such high value, they'll turn it into literal pocket change.

D: That's such a striking song — that was the first song of yours I ever heard you sing, other than the subway cover.

MT: Gives me wide eyes and a big smile That one's great too.

D: Did you grow up in a musical family? Was it through church? Both your parents?

MT: My mom, not really. My parents met working on cruise ships — have I told you this?

D: You briefly mentioned them!

MT: My dad was a cruise ship singer and dancer — he can dance his ass off, and sing incredibly.

D: So this was basically fate.

MT: Totally. My mom was an athletic director on cruise ships. They met, started dating, and two months later my mom got pregnant while my dad was still on the ship. He got off and moved to New York to try to make it on Broadway, and then my mom called him from the ship — "I'm pregnant, you have to come back down to Miami." That's when they had my older brother and sister, lived in Miami, worked on and off ships. Then my dad got a job as a teller at a bank in Atlanta, and that's when they moved and had me. All my siblings are musical, but none of them play instruments — my parents made us do music as an extracurricular. My sister did theater and chorus; I think my brothers had to play trumpet or something. All my siblings can sing. My little brother writes and produces music sometimes, and he has such a good ear — he introduces me to all my music.

D: What number sibling are you?

MT: Third. My older brother Trey is really into musicals, rips vocally, but he's more into rock, not much else. My older sister Carly is into country — Kelsea Ballerini all the way. Then me, and then Casey, my little brother, is more soul/R&B.

D: Have you guys ever sang altogether?

MT: Yes and no — me and Carly were in an acappella group together in high school. Me and Casey put out a song together forever ago — might still be online, or maybe we took it down. We'll make music sometimes when I'm home; I'll say "let's write a song."

D: I love that. Do you think you'll write with him again, on a project?

MT: Maybe — that's kind of my dream to work with him one day in music, have him be part of my team.

D: You hear that, Casey? Buck up!

So you grew up playing music with your family — when did you start playing guitar?

MT: Around 14. The worship pastor at our church taught me — he taught me guitar, then taught me how to write songs. I wrote my first songs with him. He didn't really teach guitar lessons as a full-time thing, since he was a pastor — my dad sang worship at church sometimes and asked him if he did lessons, and he said "not really, but I could try." The first song I learned was "Gravity" by John Mayer, or something — two, maybe three chords the whole time. He said, "if you're going to play songs, eventually you'll want to sing them, so why don't you try singing this one" — he'd never heard me sing before. I started singing, and he stopped me mid-song and said, essentially, "this has just changed significantly." He called my dad after and said, "I don't know what to say, but I think she needs to do this as a thing."

D: So he was your first fan, and he pushed you.

MT: He was my first believer — he also introduced me to my first producer, though he probably regrets that now. But everyone’s gotta have a bad producer experience at some point, right? I think it’s a rite of passage haha.

D: Would you say you're someone who has a lot of regrets and dwells on them, or someone who's like "that led me to this"?

MT: I used to let things bother me for such a long time. I was actually thinking about this while I was driving here. Out of all my regrets, that’s probably my biggest one — I wish I would’ve been kinder to myself and not taken on someone else’s projection of who they wanted me to be.

D: You villainized yourself.

MT: Oh my gosh, yes — taking on things that weren't mine to own. But I'd much rather have gone through what I went through in that environment than moved to LA or Nashville and gone through it there. I think at some point in everybody's career you have to learn some hard truths about the world, and I'm glad I did it somewhere with lower stakes.

D: You got to process it as a human without a spotlight or pressure — somewhere close to you.

MT: Yeah, but with that came small-town church gossip, which was its own kind of awful — the kind that affects your view of God. Growing up in the church, there's a lot of black-and-white value placed on things — "if we're not this, we're that" —

D: But at that time it's your first time here on earth, you're trying to figure it out, and you're around people who are supposed to be your community, building you up. Being under that kind of scrutiny from your own community can be debilitating.

MT: I think about that — hoping I can be for someone else what that person couldn't be for me.

D: If you could go back and give 15 to 17-year-old Macy some advice, what would it be?

MT: Oh my gosh — I'd say go live in Europe, go do something fun. Music should never turn into something that hurtful — go record music, but also go live a life. I think I let it consume me. I wish I'd experienced more of the world and let music be a byproduct of my experiences, instead of becoming this other thing. I don't carry a lot of regret anymore, but if there's one thing I'd do differently, it's not focusing so much on music — putting way less pressure on myself.

D: Do you think that advice translates to younger artists listening to you who also want to pursue authenticity like yours?

MT: That's such a good question — I don't totally know how to communicate it since I didn't do it right myself.

D: If you were talking to a younger person.. someone who wants this so badly. You know their drive and determination — without breaking their stride or their heart, there's a truth, an honesty.

I'd rather it be honest and authentic — "you are so capable of doing this, here's the reality of the situation" — there's something empowering about that versus just "you can do it."

MT: It's such a hard thing to say, though — "stay true to yourself?" — what does that even mean at 17, when you don't know who you are yet? Maybe it's more like: don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun — if you're not having fun, take a break. I used to be so afraid to take breaks, because I thought it meant giving something up — which was a lie someone told me, that you have to have extreme behavior. That's also a lie. There are pockets of the creative world that act like you have to be insane to be successful, that balance can't coexist with success, and I think that's a burnout mentality that isn't true. You can be a hard worker and still have balance — a balance between taking time for yourself and having discipline. That's hard at a young age when you're still figuring out what structure means to you, and artists especially can get really floaty, "I'm just feeding the art" — which is also true, but...

D: No, I agree — it's all under the vein of not taking yourself too seriously, not overcomplicating it

D: So I've known you and have been watching you for a couple years now, seeing you on TikTok while living in Austin, all the way through moving here — I remember telling you that you should move here.

MT: Yeah, literally.

D: None of the moments you've grown into have surprised me — the minute I saw you I thought, this girl's going places. What would you say has been your pivotal stepping-stone moment in your career — maybe even just in the past year?

MT: One crazy moment was the Lana Del Rey moment.

*Lana Del Rey shouted out Macy’s song, “Someone To You” on social media.

D: Oh yeah! — how was it getting that seal of approval?

MT: It was a really cool compass moment, like i’m not that delusional

D: Yeah, like a sign that things are aligning for you.

MT: But I think the biggest changes have actually just been the little instances of learning to trust my gut. Going back to Macy Todd was a gut follow. So was releasing "Pocket Change," so was making an album when my bank account was looking grim, so was moving to Nashville. That's the most significant pattern for me.

D: You're not crazy — you have these guides ushering you onto your next stone.

MT: 100%.

D: How has touring been — have you been on many tours before?

MT: Not many! I’ll be hopping on a few in the fall that I’m really excited for.

D: How has it been growing into that?

MT: I loved it, it was so fun. I'm going on a run with Willow (Avalon) in a couple of weeks, I’m really looking forward to that. It’s cool to open for another artist and see people singing along with my set unexpectedly or meet people who haven't heard my stuff before.

D: You’re connecting with people!

MT: That’s always the hope!

D: Haha! How do you feel about your listeners?

MT: I was thinking about this morning — I'm getting to know their voices a little more, but I'd really need to meet them in person to know the vibe.

D: I feel like you have a lot of sappy, gentle listeners.

MT: Yeah, the gentle ones.

D: But the gentle ones also have the loudest voice — you're spitting heavy truths.

MT: I guess we'll really see when I have a headline show — I’m excited to get to know my people.

D: I think that's the fun part — you know your voice most, and people resonate with that. Whoever you're drawing in, if they like you, they clearly have such a big heart.

ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE

Macy Todd performs “someone to you” live from a farm in Nashville, TN.

issue 01. in print

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