Pop superstar MARIS sits down with Atwood Magazine ahead of her electric and emotionally charged third EP ‘MOSH★PIT’ to discuss her upcoming music and tour, a viral statement, and her signature star (literally).
Stream: “Losing People” – MARIS
MARIS is a star – there’s no pun intended.
From viral videos to sold-out live shows, the Montana-born musician seems to be everywhere. Although her EP MOSH★PIT isn’t out until September 18, MARIS is releasing new music and playing shows around the world.
Her artistry has been synonymous with a star on her face. Although the star’s design has evolved over the past few years, it dates back to her adolescence.
“I had a really hard time becoming a teenager,” she tells Atwood Magazine. When MARIS first came out as queer, she was a high school student in Missoula, Montana. She struggled with depression and found music as a means of self-expression, and began self-producing projects, with soft piano ballads making up her earliest work.
The original star design on her face began as little silver five-pointed stars she would stick on. “It’s like these [stars] are my tears. Like my tears are this universe or whatever,” she jokes dramatically. “I was on Tumblr, thank you for asking,” she adds.
MARIS moved from Montana to New York City to pursue her music career, playing her first live shows at small clubs for “15 people,” backed by a full band with no backing tracks. “It was very rock n’ roll,” she recalls. “That’s when the star switched to eyeliner, because I wouldn’t have to worry about it falling off. When I was really sweaty at the end of my set, I could take it and smear it up my face, and that felt very punk at the time.”
A few years later, MARIS relocated to Los Angeles. “I stopped doing the stars for a little bit because I had somebody in my life that really wanted me to tone down my eccentricities.” When she began ramping up touring and making her own music, MARIS felt no separation between her life as MARIS, the popstar who asks hundreds of people to “get low,” and Maris, the down-to-earth, reserved woman who enjoys “getting a little stoned and painting.”
In Los Angeles, she started drawing little stars on her face as a subtle effort to return to her roots.
“It looked like my makeup got f***ed up,” she says of those first shows with the tiny stars, “so then I was like, ‘Okay, I have to go big.’ Luckily, I was given a very large forehead from the universe, so I have the real estate.”
Currently, MARIS uses a stencil she made herself and fills it in using a Danessa Myriks eyeshadow palette. “So you know that shit is pigmented,” MARIS jokes after getting some on her face mid-interview.
At festivals or larger, multi-headline shows, the star enables MARIS to find a sense of empathy and immediate community in the audience. When she can spot others in the crowd with the star on their face, she doesn’t “even have to explain” herself. MARIS spent the month of June performing at Pride festivals around the world, spotting fans in places like the United Kingdom and Ohio with stars painted on their faces.
“There was a time in our lives when Pride wasn’t really a thing,” she notes. As an openly queer woman, playing Pride shows feels like full circle. Her first Pride festival was in 2024 in her hometown. In 2026, MARIS headlined London Pride in Trafalgar Square.
“It’s really an honor, especially being a queer kid from Montana, to get to be part of these celebrations of queerness,” she adds. “Queerness to me is so much more than just sexuality. Obviously, there’s the sexuality component of it, but it’s also a space and a community where you are encouraged and celebrated when you express yourself authentically, and when you allow others to express themselves authentically too.”
MARIS’ true star power comes from how much she cares about people.
Longtime fans of hers know she lets her followers select the music she releases. Most recently, MARIS let fans decide the next single from MOSH★PIT based on snippets of two songs: “Losing People” and “KMS.”
Ultimately, “Losing People” earned a spot on her upcoming EP. “Yes, poor girl,” MARIS jokes of “KMS” losing a spot on the EP. “But you know, she [the song] will be on.”
“When I feel something little, it eventually ends up becoming a big catharsis moment for me,” MARIS explains of her creative process. “Whether it’s joy or pain or betrayal or horniness or whatever, it always starts as a seed, and then before I know it, I have an Amazon Rainforest of emotions about it.” While both “KMS” and “Losing People” are sonically different, they share similar themes and emotions, which made it difficult to decide which parts to share with her fans for voting.
“KMS” explores the current political climate in tandem with socializing in a “normal” sense, a topic many 20-somethings have vocalized online and in person. “As I’m starting to tour more and talk to more people around the world, I want to make sure I’m walking into these spaces informed,” she emphasizes. At 26, MARIS has devoted much of her career to supporting causes she believes in and educating herself. She’s held fundraisers, expressed her thoughts in public spaces, and encouraged others to educate themselves while balancing a successful career as a musician.
After reading through some of the Epstein Files, MARIS found herself shocked by “the fact that these are the people leading the free world.” She immediately began writing “KMS,” utilizing a voice memo she had saved.
“How do I say I want to kill myself, but then I look into my friend’s eyes, and I think, actually, maybe I’ll stick around because I like hanging out with these fools,” MARIS says. “So I think that ‘KMS’ became this, like, ‘I’m suicidal unless we can have a movie night.’” She laughs after the sentiment.
A fairly common colloquialism in Gen Z is this sentiment of “killing yourself” over slight inconveniences. There’s brevity in the despair, and growing up alongside the rise of conservatism and censorship in America has taught Gen Z that part of rebellion is finding meaningful relationships that bring you back to the light.
“They’re really opinionated, and they know what they like,” MARIS notes of the fans voting for songs. “When it’s in a situation where I’m like A or B, I feel very comfortable being like, I love both of these songs.” If it were up to her, she’d release them all at once, “but because we have to have a rollout plan and blah blah blah,” the fans get to choose.
MARIS is part of the record label Black House Music, where she makes up a third of the company. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, this label signed me, and they take care of everything,’” she explains. “It’s like we’re in a partnership to build this project and put music out.” While it puts more post-production duties onto artists, it also grants MARIS more autonomy over her artistry.
The next single from MOSH★PIT is “Nothing To Do (nananananana).” It’ll be the first track on the project, discussing the joyous notions of having a crush while cautioning the trials and tribulations of needing romance in your life.
The single is no surprise to fans, as MARIS notes she’s “been yapping about this.” “My fans know I cannot keep a secret, so there’s going to be a deluxe version [of MOSH★PIT], and I’m also putting out a vinyl.” It’ll be her first vinyl, checking something off her career bucket list.
“I was super horny and super bored, and I was trying to process this element of my personality that’s like, ‘If I don’t have a crush or somebody to yearn for, my life is unbearably boring,’” MARIS says of inspiration for the upcoming single. Like much of MARIS’ discography, it focuses on guitar chord progression and dynamic lyrics.
MARIS’ music often feels like the end of a romantic comedy, when the protagonist is running to the love of their life to confess their feelings.
The urgency in the chord progression is thrilling, emotional, and attractive.
MOSH★PIT ebbs and flows like a genuine relationship, or the fleeting senses of urgency and comfortable lulls one feels when crushing on someone new. Similar to the juxtaposition between the depth of vulnerability compounded with the weight of desire, MARIS’ favorite tracks from the project are mood-dependent.
The “Losing People” cover photo was taken by MARIS’ Tour Manager and frequent collaborator, Kylie Rebecca. “Kylie [Rebecca] took [it] in a random ass green room when I first dyed my hair black,” she explains. MARIS is screaming into the lens, but it’s clear the extreme reaction comes from a place of joy.
The title track, “MOSH★PIT,” is one MARIS easily pictured playing live. She worked with producer Dylan Bald on the single, as well as a majority of the EP, elevating the lyrics she’d written with Dubray through production. “‘Mosh Pit’ kind of feels like when I need to go to the club, and I need to feel touched,” she explains. “I need to feel connected. I want to dance around my room.”
At the beginning of the track, MARIS layers the lyric: “Touch my body” with the instrumentals. It’s an incredible introduction to the song, building anticipation as listeners hype themselves up for the chorus.
Sharing these tracks on her festival run in late spring/early summer 2026 “has already been so exciting and fulfilling.”
“Festivals can be an interesting extreme,” MARIS reflects. “You’re getting to be in front of a lot of new people, but also if you’re in a place where you’re starting to get the ‘genuine drugs’ of people knowing your songs and singing them back at you.”
MARIS has a group of fans that follow her on tour, from large-scale festival venues to small bar shows. At Summerfest 2026, the group stood in the VIP section and sang to every song, inviting audience members listening to MARIS for the first time to join in.
In the age of social media, it’s not uncommon for people to want to “gatekeep” musicians in an effort to capitalize on a close relationship with someone they idolize. The personable, honest relationship MARIS cultivates with her fans at live shows encourages them to invite more audiences into her songs, personality, and artistry, showcasing the community MARIS has effortlessly curated throughout her career thus far.
The last unreleased track on MOSH★PIT is titled “That’s My Girl” (stylized “that’s my girl”). MARIS wrote the song with Taylor Dubray, an accomplished writer and producer. He began with the guitar chords, inspiring MARIS to begin exploring unresolved feelings from a summer fling through lyrics.
“I knew what I was doing was hurting me, but I was willing to do it for the short-term dopamine gain, and I saw the pattern happening,” MARIS says. The chorus goes: “Call me baby, that’s my girl. / I won’t take you at your word. / I don’t give a f***. / Kiss me again.”
The introspective perspective in relationships is new territory for MARIS’ songwriting, but it’s something audiences have expressed continued interest in, especially in the pop genre.
Olivia Rodrigo’s latest album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, discusses the end of a long-term relationship, but Rodrigo takes accountability for her faults in love. Similarly, Charli xcx explores topics of accountability in a close professional relationship in “Sympathy is a Knife,” and Maggie Rogers explores accountability in the midst of a breakup in “The Kill.” These projects were met with mass acclaim, both from critics and fans alike.
MARIS’ last tour was in 2025, which she co-headlined with Caroline Kingsbury. The tour came about after MARIS’ song “Give Me A Sign,” which features Kingsbury.
Similar to the single selection process, MARIS let fans decide which song would become a collaborative piece based on SoundCloud streams. “My agreement with my fans was whichever song on this [SoundCloud] link gets the most streams in the next however many months, that will be the song that I know I should put out,” she recalls. “Give Me A Sign” beat the other demos by a landslide.
MARIS was already collaborating with Kingsbury as a writer, but it was in those sessions that she proposed having her feature on “Give Me A Sign.” MARIS and Kingsbury are both openly queer artists, and MARIS prioritized finding a collaborator on “Give Me A Sign” who found empathy for the lyrics, not sympathy.
“I wrote it about this really complicated place and position to be in when you’re a queer girl with other girls, where you want to articulate to them that you have a desire for them, but you don’t want to make them feel the way that boys have made you feel before,” MARIS says. “I think a lot of queer girls have a timidness around making the first move because they don’t want to make a girl feel uncomfortable because they’re also a girl and they know how that feels.”
The first time MARIS showed it to Kingsbury, she told her it would be “a hit.”
While MARIS only has a few collaborative tracks under her belt, she’s excited to expand this sector of her discography. On Friday, August 21, MARIS will feature on Post Sex Nachos’ new single “Pop Tarts” alongside Annelise Gonzalez.
“They [Post Sex Nachos] sent me that song, and I wrote my little verse,” she shares. “It’s going to be amazing. I’m very excited to see how it’s going to be received. I was excited and honored to be asked to sing on it.”
MARIS’ discography has grown since her debut in 2022, leading her to establish an identifiable sound that lends itself to true pop stardom.
She’s managed to create a broad discography, eventually leading her to develop a full-length album.
“We’ll see if this is controversial in any way, but I think you have to earn your debut album,” MARIS says. “To make a body of work that is 10 to 12 songs and expect an audience to listen to it top to bottom, I kind of feel like you have to earn that as an artist.”
She’s “planned a million albums,” noting that she’s “a Virgo” so she “loves a PowerPoint.” After working for the last few years, MARIS has had the privilege of seeing what it takes to create a longer, consecutive body of work beyond the literal act of making music.
Currently, the deluxe version of “MOSH★PIT” will feature around 18 songs. “To be able to do that is obviously a massive privilege, and it’s basically an album,” she explains. “But the single model allows you to introduce yourself over and over and over and over again until people have a rapport with you.”
In June 2026, a video of MARIS speaking out against AI and encouraging concertgoers and music fans to see local, rising musicians on tour at smaller venues went viral. It’s simple, honest, and direct – she’s sitting in her car, phone propped up on the steering wheel.
“I was actually on my way to rehearsal,” she reflects. She stumbled on a video of a guitarist showing how an Artificial Intelligence (AI) page – which she clarifies is “run by a person, so it’s being weaponized by human beings” – had taken the original video of the guitarist and reposted it, but used AI to replace the guitarist’s face and background, but left her body and music.
“In that moment, I was reading the comments, and I was like, ‘So many of these f***ers are freaking out about the fact that this happened, but I know that they’re not paying like $15, $20, $25 to see a local musician,’” MARIS shares. With the increase in high ticket prices, as well as scalpers and scams, over the last few years, art accessibility has become increasingly important.
As of August 2026, MARIS’ video has just over four million views. “If you are actually true to this,” MARIS urges, “and you actually give a f*** about artists, and actually give a f*** about anything to prevent and preserve real art, put your money where your mouth is and go support the local musician that is paying $8 per gallon for gas to get to your town and play a bar where they don’t have a green room or a rider, and they’re running on four hours of sleep and they have a sinus infection.”
In the digital age, more musicians are rising to unimaginable levels of recognition and stardom.
While social media is a great asset to build a following and reach new audiences, it often normalizes parasocial relationships between fans and celebrities. MARIS has managed to utilize social media to create a meaningful message and community without encouraging people to develop a false sense of herself and themselves – she’s an artist the music world needs now more than ever.
So, if you actually give a f*** about art? Go see live shows. Support the artist who’s “paying $8 per gallon for gas to get to your town.”
MOSH★PIT is out September 18, 2026.
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