Leah Mason Changed Her Name, Her Music — and the Way She Thought About Her Future (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

The drastic evolution of Leah Mason may seem somewhat jarring to some — but not to her.

“When I first started making music, I didn’t even know who I was yet,” Mason, 25, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. “I mean, I was 18. I was too young to pick something and stick with it for the rest of my life. It’s just not realistic.”

Not too long ago, the North Carolina native burst out of the country music gate as Leah Marie Mason, looking like so many artists before her, with the long blonde hair and the sweet smile frolicking in a field of flowers. But that persona began to line up with the woman she was becoming.

“My personal style was very different from what I was portraying as an artist,” says Mason, whoreleased her debut EPHoneydew & Hennessyback in April of 2023 following the viral success of her first single “Far Boy.” “I don’t think I’m the only artist that’s ever done that. But you also want your branding to be cohesive. So even as I was changing and growing and leaning into different styles, my branding wasn’t changing.”

But eventually, Mason found her personal and professional footing. And in doing so, she found her pop edge. “I still love lyrics and I still love visual words, and that is still my bread and butter,” she says. “And I feel like that sticks with the new music I’m making, just in an obviously different way.”

Leah Mason.Preemo

Preemo

On Mason’s debut albumHEXED, a somewhat darker side of the sweet girl is revealed, much to the delight of her loyal fandom who seems to devour just about anything she puts out.

“There was a time when I just hadn’t been exposed to all of the possibilities for my music,” Mason explains. “I knew what was in front of me, and so I was using what I could with the paints that I had and the paintbrushes that were available to me. And then once I met my producer, a whole new palette, was right in front of me.”

That producer was Simon Jonasson.

“I felt very free in the way I was making music with him that I hadn’t felt before,” says Mason of the Sweden-based producer that she met during a pop music camp in Nashville. “I didn’t even know that I could do it genuinely. I just didn’t even know it was possible.”

“I didn’t even go expecting to make an album, but that’s exactly what we did,” Mason says. “That obviously spoke volumes at how we work together, but it was a crazy shift.”

What didn’t shift was the strength and brevity of the lyrics that Mason has long been known for. “I feel like I’m blessed to have the knowledge of writing music in the way they have always done it in Nashville, but now I am also stylistically doing what I want to do,” Mason says. “I feel like I can have my cake and eat it too. I love writing and I don’t feel like I should have to give that up just because I’m doing a new genre of music.”

Nevertheless, the beautiful way in which Mason finds a way to put the sheerest of vulnerability in her songs still shines on songs such as “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.”

“I cried in a grocery store — and that’s how the song came to be,” Mason says of the song she wrote alongside Jonasson and Sara Bares. “I’ve always had horrible anxiety and panic attacks my whole life. It always seems to come to the surface at a time that you really don’t want it to, and normally in a public setting. And that’s what happened to me. So, I was like, we have to write a song about this.”

Love also sneaks its way intoHEXED,not surprising considering Mason is currently celebrating five years together with her boyfriend. He even inspired track five onHEXEDcalled “Insomnia.”

“I actually have had insomnia my whole life,” Mason says of the condition serving as original backbone of the song she wrote alongside Bares, Jonasson and Oliver Frid.“But when we started living together, I had never had such deep REM sleep in my life as I did alongside of him. I feel very safe when we’re together. He’s definitely my Xanax in human form.”

source: people.com