MAPLE GLIDER
- Apr 28
- 6 min read
Writer/Interviewer: Aysha Swanson
Photographer: Bridgette Winten
There’s a quiet intensity to Maple Glider’s music that lingers long after a song ends. Across her work, and especially on I Get Into Trouble, Tori Zietsch AKA Maple Glider traces the aftershocks of growing up, of belief systems unraveling and of relationships that linger long after they end. I was drawn into her world of songwriting, one that that doesn’t rush to resolve itself, instead sitting in discomfort, turning it over, and letting meaning arrive slowly.
What makes Maple Glider’s writing so affecting is that it resists neat narratives. Her songs feel diaristic but never closed, open to reinterpretation, to contradiction, to the listener’s own projections. Themes of religion, shame and identity surface not as declarations, but as questions she’s still actively working through. There’s a sense of real-time processing to it all, as if each track is less a conclusion and more a point along the way.
I sat down with Tori to speak ahead of her upcoming Australian tour, she reflects on what it means to give songs time and space to breathe, the vulnerability of releasing less-guarded work, and the delicate balance between confronting heaviness and offering something softer in return. What emerges is a portrait of an artist deeply attuned to both the weight of her material and the care required to carry it, someone still “solving the riddle,” but willing to let others in on the process.
AYSHA: Your songwriting has this almost confessional quality, when you look back at your earlier material versus I Get Into Trouble, do you hear a shift in how you process and present your own story?
MAPLE GLIDER: Definitely. I think I Get Into Trouble, for me, is a much less guarded approach to songwriting. I think with my 1st album, there was still an element of protecting some things, which is important, and something to keep in mind, but everything needs space and time. The beautiful thing about I Get Into Trouble was that I'd had songs that I'd written at the time of my 1st album, but I allowed them the time and space to breathe, and myself the time and space to process before I decided to release them.
The songs were very intense thematically, and honouring that, taking the time to honour that and to allow myself to be ready, was so vital. Also having a bit more experience with touring before I decided to allow those things to be seen, even with a small audience. It's important to recognise the impact that sharing sensitive material has on the nervous system. So I think the songs are a lot less guarded, and that was a choice I made with time, care, and a lot of support from my team and close friends.
AYSHA: A lot of your work draws parallels between organised religion and ideas of control, shame, and identity. Was there a particular moment where you realised those themes would become central to your music?
MAPLE GLIDER: I probably hadn't really identified it until after I was releasing music, because everything becomes more formatted, where you're presenting these songs and thinking about the journey of an album and what that might feel like to listen to. In that process of sitting with the music, listening to it and adjusting things to deliver the messages in the way you’d like them to be, I began to grasp more what my music is really about.
That’s an interesting process because we’re always trying to interpret. I'm always trying to decode things, always trying to decode songs. If it's not super clear, I want to know the answers, I’m creating my own stories around it. I’m so aware that other people are doing that too, and I love that people take their own ideas of what is happening. Sometimes the way someone interprets a song is so different to what it is for me, but I love that they’re attaching their own experience to it.
Even though I might say what my music is about, I’m aware it’s a totally different thing for each person because everyone is projecting their own experience onto the world. I want to deliver the hard stuff because it’s in there and that’s what I’ve written, but I also want people to feel uplifted and soothed. I don’t want to just give all the heavy parts and nothing else, so I’m conscious of bringing softness and lightness into the album so it’s not too intense all the time.
AYSHA: There’s a sense that your songs don’t just revisit the past, they actively reshape it. Do you feel like writing allows you to rewrite those experiences, or just understand them more clearly?
MAPLE GLIDER: I think it’s all of the above because I’m trying to process the experience. I’m looking at it, analysing it, trying to understand what happened. When it comes to relationships, whether that’s family, friends or people I’ve loved, I’m trying to understand my role in it and other people’s roles in it. It’s tricky because I’m asking questions about how it could have been different, whether what happened was intentional, if I’m responsible, if there are other possibilities.
It’s hard to have a black and white experience of things when you’re still living with them. So mostly it’s about understanding. Sometimes it’s about reframing with new perspectives, with growth, with age, with therapy. And sometimes it’s just playing with the stories, trying to accept and live with them and work out how they fit into my being now.
AYSHA: You’ve described music as a kind of escape from different pressures, religion, relationships, even your own mind. Does it still feel like an escape now, or has that relationship shifted?
MAPLE GLIDER: I think it still feels like an escape because life is so intense. The world is so chaotic, and there are lots of things that are difficult to live with and accept. Songwriting becomes this precious escape, this nourishing place where you can exist and put dedication and care into creating something that feels true and beautiful.
I just think that art is so important. It’s such a beautiful thing that needs to be protected, and it’s an escape because it means being so present with yourself and doing something you love. It’s also given me space to feel connected with people, whether I’m playing or watching others play. It’s wild being in a room where everyone has chosen to be there and share that space and connect through art. It’s just so healing. So I think it’s definitely an escape from all of the yucky stuff, the capitalism, all of the things that make it hard to be.
AYSHA: There’s a strong sense of self-interrogation in your lyrics, almost like you’re questioning your own perspective in real time. Do you ever find answers through songwriting, or reveal yourself to yourself?
MAPLE GLIDER: I think it’s happening in real time a lot of the time. I haven’t always made that space for myself yet, so the song becomes the place where I investigate. It’s like a riddle, trying to figure out what it is and why it is. I don’t feel like I have control over it. It feels like an intuitive process where things keep appearing and you’re trying to trace where they’re coming from. It’s like gathering buckets to collect water, finding all the little sources, and eventually you have enough to be able to move on and use it. It’s this strange process, but it’s quite fun. It’s easy to get absorbed into, even though sometimes it’s painful because it takes repetition and energy to find the source. That’s what I love about it.
AYSHA: When you’re writing, are you thinking about an audience at all, or is it purely internal?
MAPLE GLIDER: It begins in the initial phases for myself because I need to connect with what I’m creating. It goes back to solving the riddle. Once I’ve solved it, then I start thinking about whether I’m being clear enough for other people to emotionally identify. I want there to be enough there for someone else to connect with it as well. I don’t want to be so obscure that nothing makes sense. I like the process of making things make sense, even if they can’t fully make sense.I want to let people in on what it is I’m trying to find.
AYSHA: How does collaboration with your band shape the songs, especially instrumentally and in a live setting?
MAPLE GLIDER: I recorded the albums with Tommy Iansek and Jim Rindfleish, so it was really just the three of us for those two albums. Some songs took a bit of work because they started in a very simple way and needed the help of other people to really become songs and move into a new space.
Live, it’s different because we can play around more, and all the musicians in my band are so talented. They bring little bits of glimmer into live moments and create special moments that aren’t on the album. It makes everything feel more alive and keeps the material moving into a new space depending on where we’re at and what we’re feeling. It makes everything feel more playful. I definitely have a lot of help from talented people, and my next albums will also have lots of collaboration because I welcome that.
FIND MAPLE GLIDER HERE
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