"IT'S WHAT I WANT BECAUSE I LOVE IT," A Conversation with MAITA
10.9.2024
I loved reading in your bio that you’re a printmaker as well as a musician. I feel with printmaking especially, there’s a really interesting connection to make between the two mediums. Like, each print is different even if it’s of the same image in a way that maybe playing a song–even if you play the same song it’s different live. I was curious how being interdisciplinary has informed both your art and your songwriting?
That’s interesting, I never thought about that connection before. It’s funny because one of the things I don’t like about printmaking is how it’s the same every single time. You do so much planning to finally create this piece of work, then it becomes so rote and mechanical to reproduce them. I would like to think that playing music and performing songs can be different than that. But I can understand why when you do a lot of touring and play certain songs over and over again, it can start to feel a little mechanical when the goal is always to keep things feeling exciting and fresh. I think that can be challenging sometimes because it’s hard to change once you have something in your brain [saying] “this is how the song goes.” And then you also feel a little bit like the people who come to see the music want to get a version of a song that they love. It can be kind of like a balancing act.
How has it been trying to strike that balance between creating a sense of familiarity for the audience and keeping things fresh for the band? And have noticed the way you play the songs evolve while you’re on tour?
They always evolve a bit…when we go into the studio with songs, recording them is usually the first time we’ve had a chance to play those songs as a band. And so what you hear on the recording is our first instinct of how the song should be played. What I’ve found is that as we tour on those songs, we get more comfortable and tend to be higher energy and more intense because we feel this adrenaline. In the studio you’re trying to make everything perfect and on stage you’re just trying to push things harder. I think naturally, we end up giving the audience something different from what they hear [on the record] and I love it. I think that’s really cool.
We don’t like to play songs that we haven’t recorded yet because we don’t want to get sick of them [before they come out]. Because we know how long it takes to release them, so whenever I write new songs, I’m like “I don’t want to start gigging on them yet” because I don’t want us to be sick of them by the time they come out. I think it would be cool to meet up and rehearse for a few weeks before an album and then play it, but schedule-wise that’s just never how it’s worked out so far. So what ends up happening is we get to the studio, I give them my acoustic demo of the songs, and the guys just say “What’s your vibe for this song” and I say “I kinda hear this.” And they run with it too, with their own instincts as well. We’ve been playing together for long enough that they really understand my songwriting and I can really trust them.
What was different about writing and recording this record compared to your previous two?
The writing happened over a much shorter period of time and it was a lot more focused because I started to really get a feel for what the album was about. Versus the other two records, where I would write a song and then be like, “oh, I have another song, I like it.” And then I’d look back and be like “Oh, looks like I have twelve songs.” They kind of fit a theme because they were written in succession, but it would still jump around. This [record] feels a lot more cohesive.
Recording it was, in a way, more cohesive as well just because we had done it so many times that I think it was a really smooth process, and we really figured out what our sound was. Everyone who worked on it has played in the band. We all understood the assignment.
You mention this record is about having the boldness to go after what you want. How did you find and develop this aspect inside of yourself?
It’s something that I’m still working on. I’m learning a lot about that process as I continue to go through life. I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about everyone’s needs around me to an irrational extent. Like, I often won’t have a good time if I think someone else isn’t having a good time. And then later, find out that they’re fine. You know? I can really let things ruminate. I’ve spent so much time thinking about other people’s needs in a kind of a neurotic way that I can lose sight of what I want or need. And sometimes I wait too long to say what I want and need and that ends up causing more damage than if I had just been up front about it from the beginning. This record is just one piece [of it], it’s definitely not something I’ve figured out yet. It’s something I’m still working towards.
To me, ‘girl in a bar’ encapsulates the record’s whole ethos so well. It’s such a great opening track to set the stage. Can you tell us a little bit more about that song specifically?
That track is one of my favorites on the record. I love that it just goes on this journey and doesn’t ever come back to the beginning. It’s not like there’s a “verse” and a “chorus” and a “hook,” it just all is like this roller coaster. For me, it was going through old painful memories and a lot of times in relationships there’s older memories that don’t quite go away even though time has passed. That song tries to understand a time in the past that was hurtful.
I think at the same time, it explores this idea of wanting to be this source of fire and passion for your partner that exists in the realm of a stranger or someone who’s outside the relationship because that’s going to be the more exciting thing--or the more mysterious thing or the sexier thing--and wishing you could be that person for them and feeling inadequate because you aren’t. Because you’re the safer option. That’s the kind of baggage that gets created out of these painful memories, of this feeling of like “I’m not pretty enough,” or “I’m not alluring enough.” It really opens with this question of “how can I make you want me more?” Which is not where you want to be in this album; it’s just the beginning and it’s not a good thing. But I think that’s a good place to start.
What do you hope listeners take away from want?
I hope they feel like the journey of emotions I felt recording and writing these songs can resonate with their own highs and lows that they’ve been trying to sort out. And when I’m feeling intense feelings, I love to listen to music that is also going down that intense road because it makes me feel less alone, it makes me feel more in sync with the rest of the world. I hope this album can provide that and provide a little bit of company for people’s desperation.
My last question is: what do you want right now?
M: Oh, I don’t know [laughs]. See, you’re catching me at a weird time because again, it’s the same. I’m trying to figure out what I want next. What I want in life. I think because I spent so much time working on this record, I was able to push those questions a little farther down the road because I was too busy. To a certain extent, I still am too busy, I have so much to do still. We did a Kickstarter and I have so much work to do to make all the art and send it out and plan this tour that’s coming up and [have to] promote that and practice for the shows. I guess the funny thing about music is that it’s another thing that demands so much of your attention. I think it’s what I want because I love it. And it’s the thing that makes me feel most connected to the world, playing music and touring and meeting people and being out on the road. That’s what I want.