MARIS is the kind of artist that instantly commands your attention, regardless of your preferred musical genre. The Montana native has crafted out a musical world that feels both dreamy and deeply human. Since relocating to Los Angeles in 2021, she’s emerged as a rising pop artist whose glittery theatrics and honest lyrics have earned her a dedicated following.
Live performance has quickly become one of MARIS’ greatest creative strengths. The fusion of glitter, dance, and astronomical themes is captivating in a way that motivates even the more timid concertgoer to let loose and be themselves. That same bold, expressive energy pulses through her latest single, “IT’S HARD (To Be A Man),” which transforms a complicated personal chapter into a biting, humorous, and danceable anthem, inviting listeners to both laugh and reflect on cultural phenomena. Just like her shows, the song balances spectacle with sincerity, encouraging listeners to move and reflect all at once.
Juice Box Press had the opportunity to chat with MARIS at Brighton Music Hall just before she took the Boston stage alongside her co-headliner Caroline Kingsbury as part of their North American “Give Me A Tour.” In this exclusive interview, MARIS opened up about the collaboration process behind co-headlining, creating visuals with friend and photographer Smiles Meyer, feeling empowered through playing characters, and so much more!
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): Last time you were here in Boston, in March, you opened for Maude Latour, so we’re really excited to see you co-headline this time around! It’s great to have you back in the city.
MARIS: I love Boston! It’s honestly just amazing to be back on the East Coast. It’s my favorite place – East Coast, West Coast.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): You’re co-headlining this tour with Caroline Kingsbury, and I can imagine it must feel nice to have more creative control and craft a new experience for people. What was the process like in terms of merging your ideas with Caroline’s? I know you both have your own creative worlds, both musically and visually.
MARIS: Honestly, it was pretty serendipitous because we’re both very space-themed. I remember when we first sat down and started talking about our projects; she said, “I’m an alien.” And I was like, “I’m an astronaut.” My bit is that I’m an astronaut who does a striptease, so it worked out really well.
It’s also been such an exciting opportunity to try out ideas I’ve had for a long time. I always thought: “everybody’s a superstar, so why don’t shows have karaoke parties where everybody can sing?” I feel like that’s a great icebreaker for the crowd, too. You can sing a song by an artist, you go back into the crowd, and someone will be like, “That’s also my favorite artist!” And all of a sudden, you have new friends!
I think when you’re asking people in this economy to pay for a ticket, you should really consider their entire experience — from the moment they’re lined up outside the venue to the moment they’re inside. It’s been so fun to craft and curate that experience. We’re trying so many things that are atypical. We talked about audience karaoke being the opener, and so many venues were like, “We’ve never done that before, that’s crazy.” But it’s been such a delight seeing it come to fruition, and it’s been a hit every night. People are usually nervous at first, but once somebody breaks the ice, everybody wants to go sing.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): I totally agree that the best concerts — at least in my experience — have been those where I felt like I was part of a community. It’s more than just showing up and watching the show when it feels interactive. I think it’s awesome that you’ve created a flow of energy where fans can let some nerves out before the show.
MARIS: Totally! It’s a little icebreaker, too. Because as an opener, your job is to warm the crowd up. But if you come out as a headliner and everybody’s been on stage already, they’re warm. They wanna party now cause they have the adrenaline of being in front of people. It makes it so we go on stage and people are already, like, feral. It’s perfect!
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): Speaking of creative projects, I know you’ve collaborated many times with photographer Smiles Meyer (@strangeexposures on Instagram). They primarily shoot on Kodak and CineStill film, and they’ve shot a lot of your cover art and live shows these last few years. What’s that dynamic like working with them?
MARIS: I am kind of a serial friend collaborator. I collaborate with a lot of my friends. It’s obviously amazing and super fulfilling on every end, but it can also be complicated. You don’t want to squash the friendship in the collaboration aspect. At the same time, it is a business. Especially trying to make it a self-sustaining machine can make it complicated. But Smiles is one of the most emotionally intelligent people I’ve ever met in my life. They taught me a lot in the last two tours about addressing conflict in a way that makes everybody feel good, and how to check in with myself, like, “Is this something productive to say right now?” They’re just one of the most amazing, communicative people I’ve ever met.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): Do you have a favorite memory together?
MARIS: One of my favorite memories with them… God, that’s so hard, because we have so many. But we were in Ashland, Oregon, opening for Melt, the first tour we ever did together. We did edibles, and we sat in a hot tub with an older couple, but the hot tub was so small that all we could do was put our feet in there. It was me, Smiles, Tiger, and the couple. We just talked to these old people for literally hours. Both of us were just tripping balls off these gummies, and it was so perfect.
The thing about me and Smiles is that we love talking to strangers. So we’ll go up to anybody and just start a conversation. But yeah, that’s just one of many favorite memories I have with them. I miss them.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): I love what you shared about learning to have healthy conflict. A lot of us grow up feeling that conflict is always this scary thing, but sometimes it just takes that one friend to teach you that conflict is not inherently bad. That can help you grow together and become closer. Especially if you’re creating together, I’m sure that helps a ton.
MARIS: Totally, a hundred percent.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): I know Smiles shot the cover for your new single, “IT’S HARD (To Be A Man)” too! I’m obsessed with that shoot.
MARIS: Thank you! We were by the LA River. It was so gross.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): Oh my god, I can imagine. I also love the song itself. I believe a sign of a healthy artist is having the ability to harvest icky experiences and feelings, and being able to give them a new life. Or at the very least, be able to give them a space to live so you don’t have to walk around with them everywhere you go. What was the most rewarding part of writing that song and bringing it to life?
MARIS: Well, I really needed money, so I was working this OnlyFans job. It was so depressing to me because I have brothers, a dad, and I have men in my life that I care deeply about. So to be messaging and interfacing with men who, behind the guise of this website, are saying the most depraved shit, it all started to seep into my sex life. I’d be having sex with someone I love, and in the back of my head I’d be thinking about what had been sent to me that same day. Sex work is one of the oldest jobs in history, and it’s also legitimate f*cking work, but it’s not for the faint of heart. You have to be able to compartmentalize, and I wasn’t able to do that.
So I went into the studio, so depressed, and I was like, “This is literally eating me alive.” But I couldn’t make a sad song about it because it’s objectively funny. Like, the situation is just ridiculous. So I went in, and we started with a reference to “Soul Bossa Nova” by Quincy Jones, which is in Austin Powers. Dylan [Bauld Sheffield] is just an incredible producer. For the chorus, I thought, “What do I say to these guys all the time?” And 80 percent of my day was spent typing, “Oh, my god, it’s so hard.” That’s the whole ethos. They love to hear that, and it really rakes in the dough. So this song really came together out of a word-vomit and thinking about what these guys are googling.
As much as it’d be easy for me to say, “f*ck these men” and erase their humanity, at the end of the day, they’re still human beings. The reason they’re on these websites is that they’re seeking connection of some sort. But they don’t view women as people. They want the connection at their fingertips when they want it, without the emotional labor of actually connecting with a woman. I thought that was so interesting, and I wanted to make fun of them while also intro-ing the song at shows like, “Are we gonna do something about this? As a society, are we gonna do something about these men? Because it’s getting out of hand, and it’s really scary.”
But yeah, that was the process of writing “IT’S HARD (To Be A Man).”
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): I think it’s good to weave in some humor sometimes. Because you’re right, it’s absolutely absurd to find yourself in that situation. I’m glad you acknowledge that these are real men walking around us, too. They’re not just existing in their own worlds.
MARIS: Right! These men probably have sisters or friends who are girls. The sneaky thing about any systemic institution is that it hurts everybody. The patriarchy hurts men, too. Racism hurts white people. White nationalism hurts white people. It doesn’t just hurt the group that it’s targeting. It separates all of us and hurts everybody. These men don’t realize that by dehumanizing women, they’re in turn dehumanizing themselves.
And I think the song has to be funny because, yeah, incels online…
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): I think that sense of humor can also be a good stepping stone for having conversations with people. That makes for great comedy and art when it can lead to meaningful conversations.
The music video, also, was so sick!
MARIS: Yes! Thank you so much! Grace Stromatt directed that. She’s amazing, and everybody on that crew is amazing. It was mostly women and non-men, and it was basically just two dudes on set, besides my manager. We all wore fake mustaches all day, and it was so weird how putting on the fake mustaches brought us closer together in our girlhood, almost. I think you can tell from the video that we were giggling all day.
KAYA TONE (Director, writer, and friend of MARIS): Your 16 looks, also, had us cackling! Especially during the pre-production when I was seeing all these outfits. I was like, “Maris, what is happening!” I was so excited, it was so great.
MARIS: Aw, thanks, Kay!
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): That actually leads us to my next question! I think it’s so cool when artists can embody different characters or personalities. I know for me, at least, I find it very liberating to play different characters when I do conceptual self-portraits from time to time. It’s a great way to explore and heal parts of your identity. Putting on a character can be an exploration of a facet of yourself that maybe you weren’t aware was there. Did you feel a similar way shooting that music video and embodying different characters?
MARIS: Oh, yeah. I love dressing in dude drag! I love it, I feel so hot. I was like, “Why do I wanna f*ck myself?” looking at myself with literal Doritos on my tank top. It smelled so bad at the desk we set up for “the dude,” because we had Doritos, old cigarettes, a Big Gulp, and a bottle of lotion. The production designer [L.E. Herter] was amazing, and she wrote “man moist” on everything.
I mean, I love dressing up, clearly. But at this moment in my life, I don’t know if I would be the same person on stage if I didn’t take the aspect of my personality that’s glittery and colorful and totally amplify it. Maybe it’d feel too vulnerable right now to get out on stage without it all. Maybe someday that’ll be something exciting to explore.
But I totally agree with you. I’ve learned so much about my personality and myself from developing this makeup and persona I have when I step out on stage.
KAYA: It’s your alter ego. And I think there’s something safe and powerful in that because you’re able to say “maybe Maris wouldn’t do this, but MARIS ‘all caps’ would do this.”
MARIS: Yes!
KAYA: And you can push that with…
MARIS: With the garb!
KAYA: With the garb. I mean, I know people feel that on a smaller scale with Halloween. They’re like, “I would never dress like this, but I’m gonna go for it.” Give yourself that permission. I think that’s something that dressing up does in general. But it can also be for that little part of you that’s “just for you” or “just for your besties” that isn’t seen by the general public.
MARIS: I agree! Even seeing other people do the star [makeup] — they see me opening and they’re in totally plain clothes or a bit more reserved. Then, they come to a show wearing their merch shirt, asking if I can do a star on them, and I’ll see them during the show letting loose in a whole new way. That’s the point of the star. It says, “there’s something massive on my face, and I want you to look at me.”
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): That’s beautiful. Do you have artists you grew up with that inspired you in the way they put on different outfits and personas?
MARIS: Oh, yeah. Definitely Freddie Mercury. He’s my king.
KAYA: Bowie.
MARIS: Bowie, for sure! But I didn’t listen to a lot of Bowie’s music until later in my life. I also adore Elton John. And Cher, because I love a big outfit reveal, as you can probably tell from my sets. I have like four outfits throughout the show, so I love the theatrics of it all.
KAYA: Theater kids!
MARIS: Theater kids.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): It’s so exciting to see how much you’ve grown since the beginning of your career, and even in the last two years. It’s impressive to see how your projects have elevated visually and lyrically.
MARIS: Thank you! It takes time.
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): Oh yeah, a lot of time and effort. And love!
What do you feel most excited about for the next era? What can you tease, if anything?
MARIS: The next era… I was in the ’80s world for a minute, and there are some elements I’ll be keeping from that, but I want to move into a little more of a ’90s direction. A little grungy, maybe. I’m always pulling from a bunch of different places, so the sound will continue being me, but with little things from different places.
I have a song coming out in October that I’m really excited about, but I’m also doing a Christmas song for the first time in November. And it’s really sad!
ADRIANA (JUICE BOX PRESS): Hey, sometimes those are the best ones! The ones that make you yearn.
MARIS: Yeah! I went into the studio with one of my producers, Jeremy [Hatcher], and I wanted to write a Christmas song. He was like, “F*ck, no, dude.” But I was like, “Christmas is not fun for me. It wasn’t fun for me last year either.” There aren’t a lot of songs about how the holidays can be really f*cking hard, and about how families can be a little dysfunctional.
KAYA: Especially during the holidays! I feel like the full craziness comes out.
MARIS: Yeah, like I don’t even wanna go home during Thanksgiving anymore because I don’t wanna be stressed out. I wanted to write a song that expresses that feeling, and I’m excited to have a Christmas song in my catalog.
ADRIANA: That’ll resonate with a lot of people, for sure.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me! I can’t wait to watch the show and see all those glittery outfits!
MARIS: Thank you! I’m gonna put on my outfit now and start warming up. I’m excited to hear what you think!
