Ever since the Say Now girls graced our phone screens, we haven't been able to get enough. Are they sisters? Besties? Or just a girl group? Here, we get the inside scoop.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find many other girl groups as down-to-earth as Say Now. Maddie Haynes, Ysabelle Angeli, and Amelia Onuorah are fiercely sweet – but not sickly – and infectiously warm. And despite having the lives that many girls dream of, living with their besties and pursuing their life-long passion, they remain humble.

 

Formerly known as ‘needanamebro’, Yssy and Amelia released a single under their old moniker in 2023. Even though it showed their self-awareness and provided some comic relief, the fact remained true: they did need a proper name. However, ‘needanamebro’ added to their DIY allure, where fans could follow their journey and watch them become a fully-formed girl group; Yssy and Amelia embarked on a quest to find their third member,  Maddie, and finally, their upward trajectory and creative vision deciding on the name Say Now. 

 

Although the trio is a members-only club, the girls strive to make everyone feel part of their bubble. Like the Spice Girls, who they count as their biggest inspirations, they are determined to champion girl power and the importance of female friendships in their songs. Among viral TikToks, where they claim to be blood sisters, that have accrued almost 13 million views and 2.5 thousand (very confused and sceptical) comments, Say Now project a bestiehood that many of us can relate to. 

 

In a fit of giggles and compliments that are deliriously comforting, the Say Now trio appear on my laptop screen ready for a chat. Thirty minutes is all they have time for, squeezing me into their burgeoning schedule of studio sessions, style-outs, and photoshoots. 

 

Fresh from winning GLAMOUR’s Women of the Year Rising Star Award and releasing their new single, ‘Makeup Sex’, the girls are fizzing with promise and excitement. And as those career-affirming moments continue, the trio are building the empowering musical empire they once dreamt of. 

Congratulations on the Glamour Rising Stars Award. Has the win affirmed to you that you’re doing the right track? 

Amelia: Yeah, it was our first ever award! We’ll remember it for the rest of our lives. It was the best type of award we could have won because it’s about rising stars and women. We were in the room with all these women we were so starstruck by. Like, we were sat at a table with two of Girls Aloud.

Who else do you look up to in your career?

Maddie: I’d say, as a group, we mainly look up to the Spice Girls, because they were so empowering for women. They were the first girl group to do what they did. We’ll always look up to them because of their sound, their friendship, and what they stood for as women. It was just really inspiring.

Is that something that you want to champion? The whole idea of girlhood and female friendships?

Maddie: Yeah, sisterhood. Girls our age supporting each other and being truthful about what that experience is like.

 

Yssy: We’re all in our early 20s and navigating that era with our audience, who are around our age too.

You guys met through Say Now, doing the girl group. Yssy and Amelia, what was it like trying to find Maddie? And how did you know that Maddie was the right person for the group?

Yssy: I think we just knew. We met each other in Creams for the first time, and it was supposed to be an hour meet-up, but it turned into three or four hours. We didn’t even realise! We just got on so well and laughed so much. 

 

Amelia: It felt right straight away. It had been a long process looking for someone because we were being really picky. It wasn’t like we just met Maddie and were like, ‘Yeah that’s fine, whatever’, we’d been super picky with who we wanted and Mads was the first time where it felt right!

 

Maddie: We sat down and had ice cream, cookies, waffles; we felt like best friends from the day we met. I literally saw them again the next day and from then on, I was basically in the band.

What was the first thing that you guys bonded over? When was the moment you realised that you’d clicked?

Amelia: After we met at Creams, we were like, ‘Okay, we should probably sing together’. Obviously we could be best friends, but we could have been a terrible band. We went to Maddie’s house and taught Maddie this arrangement that Yssy and I knew. I just remember the relief when Maddie naturally sang the harmony and wasn’t struggling to hold it. That’s when we knew, as a band, we worked well together; we’d already figured out that we’d be great best friends. I feel like that’s when it clicked and we were like, ‘Oh my God, this is like actually going to work’, and her mum heard us from the other room and she was like, ‘Guys, this is amazing!’

What was the process behind ‘Makeup Sex’? How did you come up with the concept and write the song?

Maddie: Because there are three of us, at least one of us always has some juicy gossip. At the time, Yssy was going through a breakup, but also kind of through a makeup: breakup sex and makeup sex. As we were writing it, Yssy was like, ‘I’m gonna go home’, she was ill to be fair, but she went back to her exes and we were like, ‘We know what you’re doing’.

 

Amelia: And then we started thinking about how everyone can relate to getting back to thir ex, even if it’s not for a relationship, but just to see them and remind yourself of a time before the present.

How do you think writing the song has helped you approach relationships and the toxicity around makeup sex?

Amelia: The first step of recovery is acceptance. Everyone has had an experience where they’re like, ‘Should I be doing this? I don’t know if it’s the best decision.’ There’s no one out there who hasn’t, even if it’s just texted an ex, or gone back to an ex once for one night and been like, ‘I should not have done that’. Saying it out loud, it makes you more aware. It makes you conscious. It’s worse to do it subconsciously. 

 

Maddie: And you do talk about it with your friends. That’s what we’ve been doing in sessions. We all have – I mean, Amelia hasn’t, she’s been strong – got back with an ex.

Are there any lyrics in the song that have been taken directly from your conversations and put in as lyrics?

Maddie: Oh, definitely all of them.

 

Yssy: I have to sing the song in my head, “kind of toxic that I want it, but I’m just bored”, that’s definitely been said out loud. It’s literally like do it for the plot. It’s like, maybe this will be a fun story to tell.

 

Maddie: Also when you get to your ex’s house, like, ‘How did I even get here?’

You worked with some producers who have worked with really big names. What was it like working with Maestro and Billen Ted?

Yssy: I mean, we love Maestro. He’s like our uncle. We literally call him uncle. It’s so funny. And Billen Ted are just so funny. They’re proper lads, proper geezers.

 

Maddie: They’re jokesters. 

 

Amelia: That’s probably why it was quite a playful and goofy song; they’re so silly and fun. 

The song is quite female-centric and talks about the experience of woman in a relationship. What was it like relaying that to them and getting the vibe across? 

Maddie: They were just going with it. 

 

Amelia: Yeah, I feel like the male producers and writers that we work with are always like, ‘You guys fully get what it’s like to be young girls right now, so tell me about it and then I can maybe try to help with some fun lyrics.’ But ultimately, they’re very good at allowing us to say our experience and understand that they might not fully get it in the same way that we do.

So, did you lead on the process then?

Amelia: Yeah, because we wrote it with another woman. We wrote it with Sarah Blanchard, who gets it. She was telling us all her ex stories too. And we were like, ‘Yes, we all get it’.

If ‘Makeup Sex’ were to be the soundtrack for a movie scene, what would it be?

Maddie: Who goes back to their ex like a million times? I’m currently watching Gossip Girl, so everything I say right now will be Gossip Girl. I was watching Friends, you know when Ross and Rachel always get back together, they’re like, ‘I fucking hate you, you cheated!’ They’re kind of toxic, you know when they got back for one night? 

 

Amelia: Yeah, I remember. 

 

Maddie: That was bad. I would say that, Ross and Rachel from Friends. 

That was so crazy to watch for the first time…

Maddie: I know.

‘Makeup Sex’ talks about similar situations. What’s the most chaotic decision that you guys have made?

Amelia: Maddie…

 

Yssy: Maddie’s the most impulsive person ever. If we weren’t here, the amount of crazy, crazy things you would do that we’d disapprove of.

 

Amelia: We left Maddie alone for one weekend-

 

Maddie: At Christmas-

 

Amelia: She drove to her ex’s house and the rest is history. 

 

Maddie: It was once! 

 

Yssy: And she purposely didn’t say anything. 

 

Maddie: I only told them after it happened because the girls went away for Christmas; they were in different cities! There was no stopping me. 

 

Yssy: It had been two weeks since we returned until she told us. She was like, ‘Guys, something happened.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And then she told us that she went back to her ex’s house and did some questionable things. 

 

Amelia: Questionable things. That was a moment of chaos.

If you created a playlist for that moment, Maddie, and for ‘Makeup Sex’ to go alongside it, what three songs would you put on it?

Maddie: I feel like I need to go through my Spotify. 

 

Amelia: ‘Wild Thoughts’ by Rihanna. 

 

Maddie: I would put in one of our unreleased songs.

 

Amelia: Oh yeah, the song that goes, “Don’t talk to me. We’re done.” That would go on the playlist. 

 

Maddie: What’s a song about going back to them? [Singing] “Back to you, back to you,” by Ariana Grande?

 

Altogether: [Singing] “I get drunk, pretend that I’m over it. Self-destruct, show up like an idiot. Why, oh why, does God keep bring me back to you?”

 

Maddie: It’s called ‘Everytime’. 

I love that song. If you could choose a historical figure to join you in a performance, who would you choose?

Amelia: Um, what about Cleopatra? Because she’s a girl boss. 

 

Maddie: Isn’t that controversial?

 

Amelia: Isn’t she an Egyptian queen? The men were serving her. She can stand in the middle and we’ll sing around her, with Egyptian cats.

And tell me how you would describe ‘Makeup Sex’ as a song in three words. How would you describe it to someone?

Maddie: Okay, let’s all say a word.

 

Amelia: I’ll say real. 

 

Maddie: I’d say cheeky.

 

Yssy: I would say… naughty.

 

Amelia: It’s naughty and it’s cheeky and it’s real and it’s toxic. 

Listen to 'Makeup Sex' now