At just seventeen, Australian rising star and Triple J Unearthed High winner Mariae Cassandra is already shaping a world entirely of her own. Just over a month ago, she released her debut EP, ‘Everything In My Backpocket’ – the project is meant to feel like reaching into an old pair of jeans and finding fragments of past selves tucked inside, as all six songs were written between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. With roots in the Philippines and a growing artistic voice shaped in part by the dreamy grit of Beabadoobee, Mariae is ready to let the world rummage through the back pocket of her life, unfiltered, vulnerable, and remarkably compelling.
Growing up, music wasn’t so much an expectation as it was an inheritance. Before Mariae was born, her dad spent years in bands back in the Philippines, touring and gigging around the country. “He didn’t really make a career out of it,”, she clarifies, “but he grew up playing drums and guitar.” One of her cousins once fronted the rock band Bad Seed Rising, who had a moment in the mid-2010s. “So I’m not the first,”, she adds, “but maybe in this genre.” Mariae was a huge Disney Channel kid; she was mesmerised by the performances, the choreography, the singing, and the dancing. “I did want to do acting for a little bit,” she grins. But the moment that truly stuck came courtesy of her dad: “He showed me a live performance of Foo Fighters when I was about six. I just remember sitting on the floor thinking, “That is the coolest thing ever”. That’s definitely a core memory.”
Songwriting came early, Mariae laughs as she tries to remember the very first song she has ever written. “I think it was about a mocktail.” She explains how, at twelve or thirteen, she became fascinated with the way young people perform adulthood, ordering mocktails to feel older and more equal. “But in reality, you’re not letting yourself be a kid.” She has no memory of how the melody went, but she remembers the concept as clearly as if she wrote it yesterday.
Her songwriting process these days is based on emotion. “I like to journal how I’m feeling,” she explains, “but sometimes I write these more sophisticated journal entries, just so I have a deeper idea of how I’m really feeling.” She reads back the words, grabs her guitar, and lets the melody arrive naturally. “It kind of comes along,” she says. And while many of her songs are rooted in her own experiences, some aren’t. “‘Love Vomit’ isn’t even about me,” she tells us her cinematic fan-favourite was inspired by the movie ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’. “And ‘Seventeen’ is about one of my old friends and her relationship. I always ask permission first,” she adds earnestly. “I don’t want to write about something if they’re not consenting.” When it comes to artists she admires, she smiles and sighs, “Too many!”. “Spacey Jane, Lizzy McAlpine, The 1975, Beabadoobee, Joshua Bassett… I think he’s really good!”
For a moment, we discuss her school life and the fact that she didn’t follow the traditional formula. After leaving in-person classes in Year 11 for homeschooling, Mariae originally thought she’d move into marketing, psychology, or even tourism. “I was getting really good stuff for a certificate in tourism,” she recalls proudly. But then the music opportunities kept coming. “So I was like… maybe try it out?”, she shrugs lightly and smiles. “Right now music is my main focus, and I’m fortunate to have the flexibility to go for it.”
Her debut EP, ‘Everything in My Back Pocket’, stems from years of scattered songwriting. “These songs were written at very different times,”, she explains. The oldest track, ‘Better’, was written at fifteen after watching her peers slip into addiction patterns she couldn’t understand. ‘Theodore’ came during a lonely season when she desperately wanted “just one person” she could confide in. ‘The Pasta Song’ became her first attempt at a love song, written live with fans over Instagram. Others, like ‘The City’, captured the emotional flood of her first relationship. “It’s just random things you don’t expect to work together, but they do,”, she says. “It’s like if I let you borrow a pair of my jeans and you’re like, “Why is there so much stuff in here?” And I can tell you exactly why each thing is there.” Her favourite on the EP? “‘Theodore’ will always have my heart,”, she admits. “But the underdog is actually ‘Better’. Those two are my favourites. They’re heavier, I love a heavy song.” When we ask about which song seemed the hardest to write, she tells us that she doesn’t like to dwell on a song. “If I can’t write it within max three days, it’s not worth it.” Most of her songs were written in a single night.
Mariae lights up talking about her visual inspirations and informs us that she has synesthesia – a neurological trait where sounds form colours in her mind. “When I hear a song, I can clearly see colours,”, she explains. “With ‘Cassie’, I saw yellow and pink and green. With ‘Theodore’, I saw blue and these really dark colours.” Sometimes she uses crayons to sketch out what she sees, almost like translating sound into something physical. “My friends think I’m crazy,”, she laughs, “But it helps so much.” Her aesthetic has evolved with her sound. “A few months ago, it would’ve been poppy, pastel, running through a field, holding hands.” She giggles at the image: “Now it’s more mature, indie rock, grungy. Like you’re in a girl’s bathroom in a pub, not dirty, just messy. And here’s writing on the walls, that kind of vibe.”
Her cultural background plays a part in her artistry, too, both growing up in Australia and being Filipina. “If I lived in the US, I feel like I’d write completely differently,”, she says. “Here, there’s this scarcity in genre, especially for a young teenage girl of Asian descent in the indie rock scene. I want to be accessible, vulnerable, comforting, someone people here can see themselves in.” She smiles softly before adding, “And also, Filipinos… we’re all very musically inclined. I want to keep that.”
This year and last, she played more shows than she ever expected. And for a moment, we glimpse the nerves beneath the confidence. Before every show, she drinks a cold Coke – “Really bad for your throat, but I do it anyway” – prays, breathes deeply, and either calls or hugs her parents. “I get really anxious before I go on stage,”, she admits, “but apparently I hide it really well.”
What becomes obvious by the end of our conversation is that Mariae’s identity as an artist exists somewhere between softness and intensity, synesthetic colour and guitar-heavy grit, girlhood vulnerability and growing-up clarity. Her music, much like the EP title suggests, is a spill of everything a girl carries in her adolescence: memories, questions, characters, anxieties, and flashes of bravery. Mariae is already becoming an artist impossible to ignore, and we can’t wait to see what spills out of her back pocket next.
Written by Vicky Mazda
GEM Magazine 