Up-and-coming star Ava Maybee possesses an addictive vulnerability largely missing in today’s pop music scene. Bringing forward a hard-hitting sonic sensibility to her artistry, Maybee walks the line between infectious pop and alternative rock. With the release of her debut EP Orange Drive, Maybee shows a new side of herself to listeners as she explores both romantic and platonic relationships.
Growing up in an inherently musical household, Maybee didn’t start songwriting until she was 16 years old. Combining her singing and theater talents with her journaling, Maybee soon graduated from high school and began studying at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music in New York. When quarantine began in 2020, Maybee moved back to her home city of Los Angeles and decided to hone in on her songwriting.
That year, Maybee released her debut single “Lay Low” and continued to steadily release songs in the years that followed, including fan favorites like “Colors” and “Self Doubt.” In 2022, Maybee took on one of entertainment’s biggest stages when she appeared on the twentieth season of American Idol. Earning herself a spot in the top 10, Maybee continued to stand out through her unique song choices and vocal talents. Soon, Maybee’s single releases and American Idol run landed her a spot in Lollapalooza’s 2024 lineup.
Now, Maybee is in the midst of an exciting year — perhaps the most important of her career. On May 16, she released Orange Drive, her debut EP, on which she passionately explores her life and experiences collected between 2020 to 2023. After navigating friendship breakups, exes and dealing with the struggle of figuring out your early twenties, Maybee now shares her charming and emotive debut project Orange Drive, which is just as cathartic and personal as a diary entry.
The singer is also currently on her debut headlining tour to coincide with her EP release. The Gold Star Sticker Tour will find Maybee playing her way across the U.S. and include a number of festival dates, including Bottlerock, Summerfest and Warped Tour.
“I’m super excited because I’ve never played these festivals before,” Maybee says over a Zoom call ahead of the Orange Drive release. “I think I’m most excited to play Warped Tour because, as a pop artist, I think that it’s going to be a challenge to win over this audience — and I love a challenge.”
This year marks the epic return of the famous rock festival, and Maybee is looking forward to experiencing Warped Tour for the first time.
“Obviously, there are people that are going to be there on the lineup that you know and love,” Maybee says. “But I think that the heart of [Warped Tour] is discovering new artists and building the community even more and making it even stronger. So I’m really excited. I have a lot of my friends who are also playing it, so we’re just going to have one big party.”
Maybee’s upcoming festival dates fall within her inaugural headlining tour, and the “Gold Star Sticker” singer is infectiously optimistic about the tour. Between her debut EP and a debut headline tour, Maybee recognizes that 2025 is a huge year of firsts.
“I feel very grateful and very honored that my team felt I was ready to do my own thing,” she says. “I haven’t toured too much of the West Coast, so I’m stoked for that. I’ve played L.A., San Francisco, Portland and stuff like that, but I haven’t [played anywhere else]. I’m playing like three shows in Colorado, so I’m excited to see a lot of Colorado fans. New Mexico [too]. We’ll see, it’s very exciting. I’m stoked.”
On tour to promote Orange Drive, Maybee says the EP tells more of the singer’s story, and she hopes listeners will find relatability and catharsis within the project.
“I think that I was stuck in this mentality of feeling like, based off of the amount of traction I was getting, that I would only put out singles,” Maybee reflects. “And then I kind of just said, ‘fuck it,’ because I wanted to tell a story and I couldn’t get that across in one song. It’s really hard to even tell a small story in one song. So I really am excited to put out the project, for people to understand a part of my story as a whole.”
“I wrote a lot of it about relationships, both platonic and romantic breakups, which I think a lot of people in their twenties are struggling with, so I hope it’s relatable,” she says. “I hope that people can cry to it and dance to it and laugh with it and not take anything too seriously.”
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