Maisie Peters Brings The Good Witch to the Ogden Theatre

Maisie Peters's sophomore album, The Good Witch, is laced with magic.

No, her songs don't contain incantations, spells or manifestations, and listening to her album won't help you get the attention of your crush. But every track is embedded with Peters's personal brand of magic, which captures raw, intimate moments of the young singer's life and, through sincere, airy vocals and playful melodies, transforms them into universally understood experiences.

That magic is even present in her older work. By age twelve, the British singer was writing her own songs, music inspired by literary characters and such lyrical writers as Taylor Swift, whom Peters cites as one of her major influences. At age fifteen, Peters began uploading her own music on YouTube and quickly amassed a large following. A Justin Bieber-esque story of rising stardom, she independently released her debut single, "Place We Were Made," in 2017 and signed with Atlantic Records in 2018.

Since that inspirational self-start, Peters's multitude of fans — and equally impressive discography — has only grown. In 2021 she released nine original songs for the second-season soundtrack of the British comedy series Trying. That same year, the young singer was snapped up by Ed Sheeran's Gingerbread Man Records and unveiled her debut album, You Signed Up for This.

"Myself and Ed Sheeran had a lot of mutual friends," Peters says, explaining how she connected with the acclaimed ginger. "And they told him I was pretty good, and he invited me to come up to where he lived and work with him. We wrote a few songs and just really got on as friends and collaborators. Once we'd done that, he asked if I wanted to work with him in a more professional capacity, and I obviously said yes."

Her reverence for Sheeran, both as a friend and a boss, is obvious in their every interaction. She was even a special guest artist for most of the shows on Sheeran's tour titled +–=÷x, aka Mathematics, which ran from April to early September of this year. Peters's Instagram and TikTok reveal a host of adrenaline-fueled post-show shenanigans, including a reel of the rising pop star clinging to the back of a mechanical bull as a grinning Sheeran pounds on the side of the inflatable pit, cheering her on. She says she broke Sheeran's riding record, a fun fact that Peters is very proud of.

But despite the chaos of opening stadium shows and working with a mega pop star, Peters hasn't shirked the duties of her blossoming career. In 2022 she released a scattering of poignant hits — "Not Another Rockstar," "Good Enough" and "Blonde" — singles with an edgier, more mature flair that hinted at a slight change in sound for The Good Witch, which released in June. She even dyed her hair a bleached blond (and despite what she chronicled in her single "Blonde," it wasn't because of her breakup), losing a bit of the girl-next-door look from her You Signed Up for This era.

While You Signed Up for This was a coming-of-age lament, The Good Witch is, at its core, a breakup album. With lyrics such as "I'm the best thing that almost happened to you," the album is sassy and a little biting, but it still maintains Peters's unique sound and drippy, nostalgic style.

"I think [this album] is more cohesive than the first," Peters says. "It's simultaneously bigger, and I think it has a wider range. But I think in many ways it's the older sister — two years — and it definitely follows in [the first album's] footsteps. I didn't want to redesign what I do and how I do it...so it really is just a continuation of that and who that person was."

Like her older work, the new album is a time capsule, displaying the tumultuous emotions Peters experienced in 2022. Her songwriting process is flowing and unrestrained, allowing her to embed raw sincerity in every lyric. Even she is drawn into the powerful narrative of her own writing:  The music transports her back in time as she performs.

"There are definitely some songs more than others where I feel like I'm reliving a moment in time," Peters says. "My new album definitely has that. It really strongly takes me back to where I was when I wrote it or where I was when the situation was happening." But for Peters, the memories her music evokes aren't tied to negative emotions — they just represent who she was and what she was feeling at the time.

But what makes performing magical for Peters isn't her music's ability to catapult her to a different time; it's her audience. She loves watching fans absorb her lyrics and "seeing them have their own memories for a song," she says.

"I'm just the vessel for those memories. I think it's so cool that people have all their own experiences and lives held up against this music and we sort of soundtrack that, and that's such an honor."

Maisie Peters plays the Ogden Theatre, 935 East Colfax Avenue, 8 p.m. Thursday, September 7. Tickets are $35.