Video: Meija, ‘How You Like’

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Meija (Photo by Maya Fuhr)

After starting his career in the sibling pop band Echosmith, Jamie Sierota spread his indie-pop wings under the name Meija, releasing three EPs and handful of singles since 2019. The singer-songwriter-producer has also worked with a host of other artists, including Adam Lambert, Aly & AJ, Jawny, Quinn XCII and, yes, recently, his old bandmates.

Last week, he announced that the debut Meija album, “Do Ya?,” would be out March 3 via Nettwerk. It follows his third EP, “Side A,” released in October, and was introduced by the new single, “How You Like,” a gently fuzzy indie-rocker speaking to an unquestioning degree of devotion. “You could tell what you like … And I’ll never ask why,” he confesses in the chorus.

It’s a slight shift in sonics for the 29-year-old artist, who says that, inspired by watching the Beatles documentary and spending some time with his vinyl collection, he set out to work in analog fashion. “I set up a little cassette recorder in the middle of the room were we played live, and just hit ‘record,’” Sierota says. “I was trying to see how far I could get without using a synthesizer, so I put guitars through weird tape machines or through, like, loops. Vocals were put through a guitar amp. I’ve never done something like this before. I usually don’t work this way at all.” 

The “How You Like” video, directed by Redamo Rosa, finds Sierota hitting the store to buy some potentially “embarrassing” things. “It is a song about intimacy and how our culture talks (or doesn’t!) about it,” he says. “Nobody sees you at your worst quite like the clerk who works at the store down the street. You run out, last minute, barely dressed, to go make some embarrassing purchase. I mean, what’s more intimate than that? They might even know more about you than your closest friend.”

||| Watch: The video for “How You Like”

||| Also: Stream the “Side A” EP

||| Previously: “No Excuses”