After fans were highly anticipating the next installment of the series, Life is Strange: True Colors has arrived, and players now can experience the story of Alex Chen and her powers of empathy and strong emotion. The game sees Alex deal with her fair share of troubles, having moved to a new town, being haunted by the weight of her brother's death, and learning how to trust in her superpower, or curse, on top of it all. With so much on her shoulders, Alex has her own outlets to deal with what she's going through, seeking comfort in music and songwriting, with Maia AKA mxmtoon providing her singing voice.
Maia worked with Deck Nine, singing a fair number of songs within Life is Strange: True Colors during Alex's more personal moments. Her involvement with the game was announced with the release of mxmtoon's "Creep" cover for the game, complete with a special music video featuring her and Alex. Game Rant got to chat with mxmtoon about her performances in the game, along with what the experience taught her along the way.
Q. Did you have any experience with the Life is Strange series before you got the role of Alex Chen's singing voice?
mxmtoon: Yeah, I did. I streamed it back in 2017, actually, when I first played Life is Strange. And then I played Life is Strange: Before the Storm after that, as well. It was really fun, I liked it immediately from the get-go. I think it was the first time [I] kind of played a sort of choose your own adventure storytelling narrative game. It was so cool, so I had a really great time playing it and I became like a super fan after that! So when I got the opportunity to be involved with Life is Strange: True Colors it was a no-brainer opportunity.
Q. What lead to your involvement with True Colors? Was it an audition or were you sought after for the role?
mxmtoon: I was asked personally if I would be willing to try it out and that is such a crazy opportunity to be asked. I was like, "okay, yeah, absolutely. I'd love to try it out," and it's my first time doing any sort of voice acting. And being able to be the singing voice for the protagonist, Alex Chen, was nerve-wracking. They basically explained to me they didn't want me to do anything other than just try it out and see what my voice sounded like. They ended up really liking it - the team that was in charge of the development of the game. And I basically get to be myself playing Alex Chen.
Q. Did the developers ever say why they chose you as Alex's singing voice?
mxmtoon: I think it ended up feeling like a sonic fit in the way that Erika [Mori] talks and trying to really bring Alex Chen to life in terms of finding a voice that felt like it could embody the kind of vulnerability that Alex Chen experiences throughout the course of the game and with my own music under mxmtoon. I think that's what I feel I do already is really try to figure out how I can write songs about my experiences and be vulnerable about the emotions I'm experiencing as well. In ways, I feel like they probably thought of me as a real-life version of Alex Chen in certain aspects. So asking me to do the singing voice for Alex felt very natural to a lot of the development team. And I'm really thankful that they thought of me and my name was brought up in the conversation, and I got to collaborate with Erika on creating Alex's character and bringing her to life.
Q. To influence your direction with your performance, were you allowed to listen to Erika Mori's lines for Alex's non-singing voice? And if you were, how did that influence your singing?
mxmtoon: I got to listen to snippets of Erika talking in order to figure out what Alex's presence would be like in portions of the game, but I don't know a whole lot beyond the context of the moments where Alex is singing. So, that's kind of my only understanding of what's going on in the story. And so I'll be playing it for the first time when it releases along with everyone else. I'm super excited!
I did get to lean on Erika a little bit in her preference on what Alex is like. It didn't really change too much of what I ended up doing in terms of the way that I sang. I'm pretty lucky to have a pretty similar voice to the way Erika talks in the game as well, so I didn't need to do a whole lot of different stuff. I think I was really lucky I got to just sing the way I would sing and it ended up matching up pretty well.
Q. Game development is a really lengthy process. Was the way you handled Alex's singing voice changed over time as the game was revised or was the direction of the songs decided from the start?
mxmtoon: It was pretty much decided from the start of my involvement. I think it was at the point where they were filling in the last few gaps of "what do we want" in the game and the sound of Alex's voice and so my job was just to come in and try out different renditions of the singing portions and see what they liked. Yes, they had been working on the game for ages at that point, but my own involvement came in later on in the game development I believe and it was really exciting. I think everyone on the team at that point "we are so close to the end of this finish line" and I got to help push it a little bit further.
Q. Did the knowledge of Alex's powers and her ability to empathize with people to a very supernatural degree influence or change your direction when performing the songs?
mxmtoon: I think a little bit! I think I tried to be a bit slightly more dramatic in a sense. I think when you have a psychic power of empathy in the way that Alex does that is so intense, and so a lot of the emotions that you're feeling must be so emphasized, and so big. So I think when trying to think about her performances, it's really expanding upon those emotions and drawing them out a bit more so that way they would feel more prominent in a way that maybe my music is a bit more subdued in its nature. But with the songs that Alex is singing, really punching that up a bit with the emotions that she's feeling.
Q. For the game, you covered "Creep" and "Blister in the Sun," two iconic songs that have seen many different iterations over time. What was your direction to make those songs unique for Life is Strange: True Colors specifically?
mxmtoon: I think with songs like "Creep," where the original version by Radiohead is like an angsty anthem for feeling like a weirdo and feeling left out of society, it's relatable. And when thinking of the way Alex sings it's so personal and so vulnerable and it's emblematic of her finding her voice and finding her confidence, really.
So, I think with the covers it's been about embodying what her emotional journey has been so far. And with something like "Creep" you want to make it feel emotionally raw and vulnerable like she's really just finding her footing, and maybe later in the game she gets more confident with the way that she's singing. And she's able to lean into it a little bit more. With any of the covers, it was really just about figuring out what she was [feeling] at any emotional state in the game.
Q. On your True Colors single, "In the Darkness" and "Every Wave" stand out against the rest. Were those your own compositions, or were they made by the development team?
mxmtoon: "In the Darkness" is my own composition and "Every Wave" was written by the development team and given to me to try to figure out what it would sound like in a different format. So I had the pleasure of getting to re-imagine it and getting to also create something of my own, as well, so those two were really fun to work on. I think there were a lot of creative liberties that I could take with figuring out, "what does this sound like in the world of Life is Strange and the score for it?" So, it was a lot of fun as a creative person. Just try my best and figure it out, yeah.
Q. You said that "In the Darkness" was your own song. What did you keep in mind when it came to the lyrics for that song?
mxmtoon: I think I really wrote it from the perspective of Alex's friend, actually. I think the lyrics are very much things she could be singing in terms of what sort of stuff she's going through, but I tried my best to think, "what would I do if I was sitting across from Alex Chen?" And try to understand her experience and write something that feels like it would not only be comforting for her to sing, but also for her to hear, and I think "In the Darkness" was really built off of that idea of empathizing with the empath. And trying to think about, if I had Alex's powers and I wasn't her, what would I wanna say? So yes, I think that I tried to be a friend for her, and I think that's what that song is really about. It's just about trying to find some hope in the darkness.
Q. Has your work on Life is Strange: True Colors left a mark on your own music going forward?
mxmtoon: Definitely. I think that this experience has really helped me understand storytelling on a broader perspective, and being able to involve myself in such an incredible game and especially [with the] the Life is Strange series being such a prominent tool for storytelling in the gaming industry. I think that's really cool and my job as a songwriter is to tell those stories, and my own story, and thinking about how can I interplay others' experiences and my knowledge of emotions from other people's perspectives into my own work.
Alex's person is probably going to influence the way I write my own music going forward, just with the understanding that I have of her. So that's really cool! I get to carry this little piece of her forward into the work that I'm doing in my actual life, and [into] my own projects. I think that happens with every person that I meet, and now, with a video game character I've gotten to kind of put myself into the shoes of. It's really exciting, I'm really excited to see how it'll manifest, yeah.
Q. If you were in Alex's shoes for a day, the aura powers and empathy powers included, what decisions would you make? Without going into spoilers.
mxmtoon: I don't even know if I could give you any because I'm not aware of any! I think if I was in her shoes, I think I'd really... I dunno if this is weird...maybe this is a weird choice, but I don't think I would interact with my family. I think that would be too hard to do, if I were surrounded by my loved ones and feeling all of their emotions in that intensity. But I almost wonder if I could go to a coffee shop and just see how people were doing. Go have a conversation with a stranger, and see if maybe... not necessarily fix their feelings or anything like that, but emphasize with them and get to know them and, you know, expand my community and understanding of people through the lens of kind of understanding the emotional state they may be in.
I'd also be curious to see if Alex's powers could apply to animals? I could go to a dog and see how they're feeling, I think I'd be curious about that. Influencing [the dog's] mood by just placing random objects in front of them and how they'd interact with it.
Q. Can fans expect to hear more singing from you in the game beyond the four full songs that you've performed?
mxmtoon: Oh, you're gonna have to figure it out on Life is Strange's [social media accounts] as information comes out! But I really am just focused on being Alex Chen's singing voice, so, you'll hear her sing in the game, and you'll hear snippets of the different songs we've made along the way in the background of things, possibly. I got to be as involved as I could be, which is very cool.
Life is Strange: True Colors is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, with the Nintendo Switch version releasing later this year.