Review Fix Exclusive: Fanni Mayer Talks Goals in Music And More

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Fanni Mayer, who discusses her origin in music, inspirations and future.

Review Fix: How did the project start?

Fanni Mayer: I grew up listening to Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Leonard Cohen… my mom’s faves. 

I remember listening those classic, effortless divas and Cohen. I was mesmerized by them. They delivered emotions in different ways but I can connect both. 

Upon discovering records like Christina Aguilera’s Stripped and Pink’s Missundaztood –  I knew I found my calling. Those albums allowed me to see how vulnerability, passion, and being a woman in a ’’man’s world’’ could fuse into a pop record. I was addicted, I felt like I wasn’t alone and I found it so brave and powerful to talk openly about sexuality, family issues, being misunderstood, feminism and domestic violance through pop music – I fell in love completely.

I studied music for 3 years and, with my acoustic duos, paid my dues trawling through the clubs and pubs of Budapest. Of my biggest influences at the time were Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, Sting, Lorde, Lykke Li, Dido, Florence Welch, Sia and Amy Winehouse.

Features on Hungary’s top hip-hop band Follow the Flow’s live performances in 2017-2018 brought me to the attention of Universal Hungary who released my debut single ‘Horizon’ in March of 2018. Its success earned a spot for me at HOTS – Hungarian Oncoming Tunes, a workshop for emerging European talent, where we connected with Ville Leppanen (The Animal Farm UK) then I started to send him demos and ideas and in January 2019 I went to London to record new music. 

These songs are so raw, much more outspoken and braver than I ever thought I could write. 

I feel like I found my voice and I’m so excited about it.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Mayer: When I write a song I always start with a word, a mood, a feeling and I try to unfold it through the story.

Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?

Mayer: My standout track to me is called “Misuse” (unreleased yet). It’s a real breakup anthem with like ‘I can’t take this bullshit no more’ attitude. It feels so empowering to sing, it’s a really empowering tune!

It was written with my guitarist friend, raw acoustic sounds and with a quite angry statement ‘No more misuse baby’ I’d like to play the words and expressions -misuse and miss you(s)- you know when someone keeps repeating ‘I miss you’ but do nothing at all to make things work out, only.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Mayer: With my music I want to make people feel less alone, make them feel connected.

This is what music gave to me and I wanna give it back!

I wanna make them embrace their weirdness (I’d like to say uniqueness instead of weirdness) and make them feel comfortable in their own skin, make them feel empowered, I want to make them let go all the things that weights them down, make them feel free, make them cry, make them laugh maybe at the same time (you know it’s a Hungarian thing). I just wanna make them feel something…

Review Fix: What’s next?

Mayer: My goals for the future are staying as creative as possible, put out more music and visuals then conquer the world.