Stasney Mav is the monniker for Caroline Shumate, a Houston-bred and Nashville-based music producer, DJ, and artist. She started her music career in Nashville as a touring drummer and toured nationally with YouTube star Tyler Ward, but that wasn’t her only brush with virality. Her high school pal and her, Greg, are the minds behind musical goodness also known as Stasney Mav, Sleeptalkre, and The Queen & King.
More recently though, Stasney Mav has been taking on DJing and releasing music in the EDM world, including an uptempo remix of Jen Miller and Jake Vicious’ tune “God’s Gift”, as well as her latest release – a two song house project – with her pal Grawg.
Stasney Mav curated the first ever electronic / EDM playlist for Girl Gang Music, which we will be updating every first of the month moving forward. 🙂
Follow our EDM playlist here:
Check out Girl Gang Music’s exclusive Q&A with Stasney Mav below:
GGM: Who are you and how did you get here to this very moment?
“Haha girllllll…how much time do you have?”
GGM: How did you get into production & what’s your current (the basics) set up? If you have a pic you can share, rad, if not no worries.
“I got into production because I was tired of paying people to do something I felt I was capable of doing. I have a background as a touring drummer and guitarist, I understand basic piano/theory, so around a year ago I was just like – screw it – I’m going to start producing my own music and start producing for other people.
As for set up – I run Logic X for my DAW, I switch between an Apollo Twin Duo and Scarlett 2i4 for an interface, and I use M Audio Bx5a monitors – I live in an apartment so I have to keep it quiet haha. But I’m about to upgrade the monitors. For recording vocals, I use a Shure SM7B into a Cloudlift.”
GGM: How did you meet Grawg?
“Greg and I went to high school together, actually. We both kind of play everything, so we were always thrown into bands for recitals and performances in high school. We didn’t actually become friends until after we graduated, though. We both found ourselves back in Houston after living in Colorado (completely separate from each other) and we hit a point where we were like, “I feel like this is the universe telling us to be friends.” And so we bonded my sophomore year of college, and I dropped out of school to move to Nashville with him haha. We’ve lived together ever since. We’ve toured Europe, Canada, and the United States together, me as a drummer and Greg as a bassist. We’ve had projects together, including The Queen and King which somehow has 60+ million streams?? We stopped making music together at the end of 2017 and both have been pursuing our own projects since. But around the same time a couple months ago, I made “On Top” and he made “Attention” and I was like Greg…we should put these out together. Why the hell not? And so we did!”
GGM: What’s the Nashville scene been like for you?
“It’s been…interesting haha. It’s been fun watching it change and grow. I think so much of the pop scene and the electronic scene didn’t exist even two years ago. But there are some persistent people who truly believe in the scene and have been pushing for people outside of Nashville to take notice of what’s going on here. People like Tyler Martinez with Housequake, Liz Meade with Threebrand Media, Wes Davenport of No Country For New Nashville – these folks work so damn hard to make sure Nashville pop/electronic people are heard. As for me in particular, it’s been really inviting. I think there’s so much power in a DM honestly, and social media has made collaboration and networking so attainable.
GGM: Is EDM female driven?
“Mmm…I think it’s female driven in the sense of tastemaking. It’s a predominantly male driven genre – for instance if you look at the songs nominated in Best Electronic Dance Album and Best Electronic Recording from this past year, only 5/14 of the total nominees were women. Which is an improvement from the year before, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover in order to have equality within the genre. That being said, I think there are a LOT of incredible women in the genre that are doing the taste making – pushing the genre forward. Artists like SOPHIE, Peggy Gou, Honey Dijon, The Black Madonna, and Sophie from Sofi Tukker.”
GGM: Have you found a solid LGBT community in the arts or otherwise?
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be making music still if it wasn’t for the LGBTQ+ community constantly inspiring me and pushing me forward as an artist and also as a human. I have yet to meet a person that identifies as queer that doesn’t have a story that is inarguably profound and interesting. If there was one thing I could say to anyone reading this, it would be to go listen to queer voices. I can guarantee they will move you – whether it be emotionally and/or physically – there is an endless well of emotion, growth, resilience, heartache, kindness, and love in my community.”
GGM: What’s next for you? In 2019? Beyond?
“I’m releasing music soon! I’m hoping to release one single a month starting in May through August. I’m also going to be DJing a lot more in Nashville, and I’ll be playing other cities starting in the summer. And most importantly, I’m playing Nashville Pride in June! It’ll be my first official show of the year and I’m so damn excited to be sharing my music with my community.”
Stasney Mav’s Girl Gang Music Picks
“Peggy Gou – She just released an EP that is delicious. And she’s phenomenal. She’s also one of the first Electronic artists to really push the boundaries with brand sponsorships – for instance, she has a deal with Nike and Viktor & Rolf fragrances. And she’s a DJ…that’s unheard of. I think bringing more commercial attention to DJs/producers that aren’t massive like Diplo or Skrillex are only going to benefit the genre and normalize dance music.”
“Dorian Electra – Dorian is a flamboyant, trailblazing non-binary baby that literally has the most beautiful show that pushes the boundaries of gender and normalizes sex positivity. Their music is so much fun and they are one of the most driven, hard working collaborators in pop/electronic music.”
“Yaeji – Yaeji is the epitome of cool. Her music is so badass, and I think she really opened up a lot of doors for Asian/Asian-American artists in the United States. If you haven’t heard “Raingurl” you need to go do that right now, no question. I guarantee you’ll fall in love with her.”
