Maris

Rising star Maris is flying around the world in support of a fellow queer pop girlie Maude Latour. The Missoula, Montana native has packed her bags and left her last name behind for The Sugar Water Tour.

She’s no stranger to life on Mars while living out of a suitcase by being a front woman for Postmodern Jukebox for 52 shows in Europe. Latour is not the only musician she’s opened for with past trips around the country with Anna of the North, Arizona, Melt and The Wrecks.

The talented musical maven released an EP titled Gravity (Stripped) and shines with a wide vocal range on her latest track “Give Me a Sign (Ft. Carolina Kingsbury).”

Maris talked about her career and music catalogue backstage at a sold out show at Metro in Chicago.

JN: (Jerry Nunn) You're from outer space?

M: (Maris) Yes and also from Missoula, Montana! [laughs]

JN: So do you like keeping the performance part

separate from your private life?

M: In some ways. Probably out of everything the writing part is the most intimate because it's a piece of myself.

I separate myself from the stage act because I don’t like a lot of attention in social settings. When I get on stage, I present a larger-than-life character similar to icons I love such as Prince, Freddie Mercury and Lady Gaga.

JN: I see similarities to David Bowie…

M: Yes, I admire David, but I love Queen!

JN: Maris is part of your real name?

M: Yes, it's my mother's name and rhymes with Paris.

JN: Did you always want to be a singer?

M: I wanted to be a soccer player for a little bit, also a veterinarian and an astronaut, then I found out you have to be good at math to do those things.

I have always had a co-dependent relationship with music. I would lean on it throughout my childhood.

JN: How did you get into the music business?

M: Well, I started posting videos online when I was really young with my iPod Touch. I had to post the videos on Facebook and later YouTube because I wasn’t allowed to have Myspace.

Montana was amazing, but I felt like an outsider there, especially when I started experimenting with my sexuality, and I moved to New York.

I spent three years there before COVID happened. Right before the pandemic I opened for Macy Gray at the Brooklyn Bowl on March 10. Everything was so terrifying that I moved back to Montana.

I started posting videos online again from my childhood bedroom. My former manager reached out and told me to move to LA where things picked up a bit.

JN: How did you get on the Latour tour?

M: I was opening for a band called Melt and Maude was a special guest for their LA show. She saw my opening performance and told me that she would like me to open for her. I love her music, so I was honored to be part of her opening act.

JN: I interviewed Maude when she opened for Fletcher here in Chicago. As a headliner, selling out Metro is a big deal.

M: It’s a big venue. I was walking around and there’s a water fountain in the bathroom sink!

JN: Metro celebrated its 40th anniversary a few years ago and has been home to the Smashing Pumpkins among many other bands. Tonight after your show the downstairs turns into Queen, a queer house party where DJs play house music.

M: I am so sad that I have to fly to Boston tomorrow and will miss it. My team is driving our van and I am going to fly because I am vocally shot.

JN: I appreciate you doing this interview when you are on vocal rest. Talk about stripping down your music for the EP Gravity.

M: Honestly, that was kind of out of necessity. I love like reimagining stuff, but I'm not a particularly excellent guitar player.

I decided to go into the Spotify Coke Studio in LA for a week. I had never been around so many expensive instruments and just had my little guitars with me. It was fun to strip back the music because when I lived in New York I did a lot of acoustic shows. I haven’t done much of that since I started playing pop music.

JN: Your latest pop song is “Give Me a Sign?”

M: Yes, it came out two days ago and it’s been the craziest song I ever put out. It's been getting a lot of ears on it, which is really cool.

I talked to my friend Caroline Kingsbury and asked her to be a feature on it.

JN: Playing off your song titles, what’s your favorite “Salt Water Taffy?”

M: Huckleberry. That’s a Montana specialty!

JN: Is saltwater taffy a big thing in Montana?

M: My family and I would go to this town called Philipsburg. They have a candy factory called The Sweet Palace there where they pull their saltwater taffy. I remember watching them make it and whenever I eat I am transported back to the summers of my youth.

I wrote that song about being young and the feeling of summers slipping away faster and faster as I got older. Every time I am in town I try to make a point to go back to The Sweet Palace.

JN: What a good story! Next, what is your favorite movie starring “Julia Roberts”?

M: I love Pretty Woman. I wrote that song about when I first moved to LA and was atrociously lonely. I would just spend most of my time in my bed, curled up in a ball with my laptop open watching Pretty Woman.

JN: You have a song called “The Fight.” Who did you have the biggest fight of your life with?

M: These days I don't get in a lot of fights and I articulate myself pretty well. When I was a teenager I fought with my mom about buzzing my hair and dying it purple.

That song was about an internal fight because I had to give back a cat I had been fostering for a few days. I had to bring her back to the owner and she pooped in my car as she got out. It was time for her to go! [laughs]

I would love to have an animal, but when I go on tour I would have to leave the pet with a stranger for months at a time. That doesn’t seem nice or fair.

JN: You have lyrics about falling asleep thanks to hypnosis in your song “Going Yet!” Have you tried hypnosis in the past?

M: I still do hypnosis and meditation a lot. Hypnosis to me is rewiring your subconscious to help get over the things that get in your way, maybe that you don't even realize.

I have some self-sabotaging tendencies sometimes and hypnosis has helped me let loose of the negative thoughts.

JN: What is coming up for you next?

M: This fall I am working on a show with a very special artist. We are creating a reimagined show together. It will be a pop music musical with our music. There will be something for everyone at this upcoming show!

JN: Does the other artist identify as queer?

M: Yes.

JN: Excellent! How does it feel to be an openly queer artist these days?

M: It feels special. I'm really grateful to be alive and be making pop music at this time.

It's been a difficult season thus far since November and even though there are many elements that are incredibly disappointing, frustrating and scary, I think it really presents itself as an opportunity for people to come together stronger than we ever have, to make sure that we're not defined by the structures that have been broken for a while.

I'm really grateful and it's a huge opportunity. I feel a responsibility to make sure that I'm sticking up for myself and other queer artists in this time. I want to facilitate joy because joy is resistance!