There was a summer when you couldn’t walk anywhere without hearing Ava Max’s voice, where the lilting riff on her debut single, “Sweet but Psycho,” became a commercial triumph, dominating charts globally. It was inescapable through drunken Ubers and college dive bars, carving its path through the annals of popular culture. It’s hard to imagine now that the song was released, as she’ll explain, as a wish and a prayer, but the invisible hand of public opinion swung in Ava Max’s favor that year, in a graceful pendulum that ceases to fall. There’s something to be said about karmic checks and balances in the universe, and relentlessly working towards a goal. No success is overnight—no matter how explosive. 

The Albanian-American pop singer was born to parents who were both musicians (her mother was an opera singer, her father a pianist), who had fled Albania at the turn of the century when the country was undergoing economic and social unrest at the fall of the Communist regime. Ava Max spent her childhood in Wisconsin and her high school years in Virginia, where her parents worked multiple jobs, instilling an unshakable drive into the artist. First signed to Atlantic Records in 2016, four years after arriving in Los Angeles, Ava had entire lifetimes within the industry before finally getting her break.

The last time we spoke to the singer, she was on the precipice of releasing her debut, soon-to-be platinum studio album, Heaven & Hell. Now, a few years down the road, she’s completed an international tour, attended the Met Gala, released another studio album, and recorded “Choose Your Fighter” for the soundtrack of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. She’s also worked with a veritable music festival’s worth of EDM titans like Kygo (“Whatever”), Tiësto (“The Motto”), R3HAB and Jonas Blue (“Sad Boy”), and Alan Walker (“Alone, Pt. II”). Despite holding a busy schedule, the singer-songwriter still finds time every week, (“Twice a week if I’m lucky,” Ava laughs) to visit her parents.

The key to Ava Max’s music lies in the way that it makes you feel. Her voice rises with the electronic beat adding a punchy note to the energetic bass, in a way that just feels good. Take her platinum album Heaven & Hell, for example. Dance-ready hits like “Kings & Queens” and “My Head & My Heart” bring an ecstatic jump to the dance floor in a jolt of synthetic dopamine. It’s pop music in its purest, most unadulterated form. Even to the most nihilistic audience, it’s impossible to not know at least some, if not all of the lyrics. At the time of writing this article, in fact, I found myself recognizing “Kings & Queens” while standing in line at a deli—Ava Max’s discography is quite literally for everyone.

What distinguishes Ava Max from the pop giants before her lies within her approach to the medium. She muses on pop potential, “I think it’s such a great genre, I feel like it can be so out there. You can do so many things—you can be crazy, and it can be popular in a way, right? So it’s like anything can be popular.”

Ava Max’s convivial energy isn’t mutually exclusive to her music. It’s an energy that radiates over our shaky internet call, with an unfeigned attitude towards positivity that most aim to replicate through mindful practices (and therapy) that just bubbles and crackles through my phone’s diaphragm. “I’ve always been positive,” Ava Max laughs. “It’s funny, a lot of my friends think I say the cheesiest of things and they just think I’m this theater kid who’s really loud.” 

A lot of life’s mysteries can be chalked up to the evanescent fabric of fate, woven and bound together by unexplainable coincidences—or so it seems on the surface. Ava Max holds her fair share of appreciation for supernatural ordinances. Lately, she’s been carrying around tourmaline (“Everyone should carry tourmaline,”) and blue topaz (her favorite color), and she’s a big believer in karma (“Karma comes back to you because you are not just what you do but, what you are as a human.”)

“I’m very superstitious,” the pop star shares. “I don’t think negative thoughts about people, I’m just a very positive person. It’s funny, I say this to my friends all the time—I think bad things happen to people sometimes because their subconscious is being bad, and they really aren’t good people on the inside,” Ava remarks. “You can do good deeds and then you can still wish ill subconsciously on people without even knowing and it comes back to you. I think that’s why good things happen to me, because I truly, truly want good for all.”

Despite her altruistic aphorisms—as happens with the most visible figures in pop culture—there tends to be a positive correlation in the amount of comments one receives with the amount of unjustified bigotry in the oft unpredictable and acrimonious court of internet opinion. “The haters have really fueled me,” Ava Max replies. “The more haters I have, the harder I’ll go. I’m really a rebel at heart. I feel like every time I see a mean tweet or someone says I can’t do something, I’m like, ‘Okay, alright, fine. I guess I’ll try to be number one again,’” she laughs and continues, “If they weren’t there, I probably wouldn’t try as hard to be honest. They fuel me so much.”

Her first single that lauded worldwide attention, “Sweet but Psycho,” might have been a breakup anthem, but the artist has found herself in a moment of healing through the crunchy stereo-driven hooks on her latest single “My Oh My,” which was featured in MLB’s 2024 Opening Day. Ava Max’s upcoming album goes beyond the subjects of heartbreak and leaves the world of men behind. It’s another genre-stretching project from the artist, bringing in the sound of the mid-aughts with her stadium-ringing voice that builds on her last album Diamonds & Dancefloors with standouts “Ghost,” “One of Us,” and “Million Dollar Baby.”

For someone who has already accomplished what most would only hope to dream of in a lifetime, including a global headline tour with a sold-out UK run, where can the gold standard be found? “I think about reaching my goals to the point where I feel content. I think a lot of people think, ‘Oh, but you’ll never be satisfied.’ I think you’ll never be satisfied if you want to be number one all the time. For me, if you have certain goals, and you’re accomplishing them—I feel like a gold standard for me is [still having] things I want to check off my list.” Ava Max pauses and concludes, “Every accomplishment makes a bigger accomplishment if that makes sense. The goal just becomes bigger and better, and I become a bigger, better version of myself.” 

Photographed by Easton Schirra at The Only Agency

Styled by Alexis Bergens

Written by Julia Smith 

Hair: Mashal Afzalzada at The Wall Group

Makeup: Shannon Pezzetta at A-Frame Agency using Anastasia Beverly Hills

Groomer: Michelle Harvey at Opus Beauty using Tom Ford and Biolage

Body Painter: Jeanne-Mare Raubenheimer at Opus Beauty

Models: SWAP at Nomad Management, Ben Crofchick and Miles Nightingale at Pretty Management, and Jackson Schönberg at His Laboratory Management

Producer: Alex Polcyn

Flaunt Film: Isaac Dektor and Wyatt Stromer

Casting Director: Alexander Torres

Production Designer: Aurelie Taillefer

Production: Alex Polcyn & Dopamine

Prop Stylist: Krystall Schott

Camera Asst/Lighting Tech: Mike Anderson

Lighting Designer/Gaffer: Graham Wilder Byers

Drone Operator/BTS Photographer: Connor Bahng

Stylist Assistant: Kassidy Taylor

Production Assistant: Ella Brignoni

Location: Vista del Lago, Bakersfield CA