The Marías - No One Noticed

I'm Rishi Kesh, here we go. The Maria's is a band from Los Angeles made up of Maria's Ardua, Josh Conway, Jesse Promen, and Edward James.

They released their first EP's in 2017 and 2018, and their first album in 2021.

But then, as you'll hear, there was a period of a lot of uncertainty around the band's future. Eventually, their second album, Submarine, came out in 2024, and it was incredibly successful. Staria Gum called it one of the best albums of the year, and the band was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. But all of that almost didn't happen. I talked to Maria about the making of their hit song, no one noticed. The stories beginning, middle, and end all took place during different eras of the band's existence.

In the middle section, when maybe they weren't going to even be a band anymore,

Maria enlisted the help of Grammy-nominated producer John Luca Puchelotti,

and I spoke to Luca for this episode as well. No, I know it. My name is Maria, and I'm an band called the Maria's.

“Do you remember what was happening on the first day that you started thinking about this song?”

Yeah, it was 2020, peak pandemic, so you were just in our apartment writing songs. And when you say we, who's that? Josh and I, Josh and I lived together at the time. Josh is also the drummer of the Maria's, and so you just wake up and write songs, go to bed, write songs. You know, we couldn't do much else except for write songs, and then just kind of spend time in nature and go on long walks. And so there was one morning I woke up, and I just

was just a beautiful morning. I had all the windows open, and I just grabbed my guitar,

and there's a court progression that I just always find myself gravitating towards.

What's that court progression? Hopefully for you. I can write 100 songs with this court

“progression, and I think I have. This is just kind of what I jam too, but”

I think the first complete song that I ever wrote on guitar was a similar progression. So I think it's just something about it that speaks to me. So yeah, that morning I was in my bed, and I was playing the chords, and then the melody just kind of came out and I was like, oh, there's something here, and so I just hit record on my phone. Had you and Josh been making music together for a long time before this moment?

Yeah, so we started making music together in like 2015, and we were working on our debut album at this point, and he was teaching me production at the time. I really wanted to learn how to make my own demos, and so we had two work stations set up in my living room. So it was like his work station with a giant desk, and that's where we would record most of our things. And then in the corner of the room was like my little desk and like a little keyboard and my little laptop,

and so after kind of jamming on the guitar and having kind of a structure for the song, I was like,

“okay, like I think I'm ready to like make my demo. Will you help me kind of put some of the”

foundational pieces together? So that's the loop that Josh made when he was teaching me production. The genius of Josh is like finding the right groove, and we call him like the heartbeat of the Maria's because he's the drummer, but he's the producer as well, and he put that together so quickly in like 20 minutes. I had a lot of the words written, and then when he passed me this

track, then more started coming out. And so I came up with the pre-chorus. I just want to go back to the fact that this was during COVID times. Do you think that what you

you can hear it in the lyrics. Please be my virtual connection, you know, because we were connecting

“virtually with everyone. I'm so over being lonely. I kind of like it if you'd call me,”

it's like we're together feeling so connected in like the virtual ways that we can connect. Everybody was zooming, everybody was doing their Instagram lives, you know, ways of connecting, but still feeling separate and still feeling alone. And that same day, I was just kind of feeling like, well, I just made this little demo that I really like. I'm just going to put it out. So I just like put it to a scene of Paris, Texas. I had just seen that movie like the night before,

and there was a scene of like the woman crying like behind the booth. I hear you voice all the time.

Every man has your voice. It was like she was feeling lonely, but still together, because there was a wall between them. And that's kind of how I felt during the pandemic. So yeah, so we put the demo to that scene, and then I put it out on Instagram, and that was it until it wasn't. With no one noticed, it was kind of a more melancholic kind of sleeper song. And at the time, we were getting a lot of pressure from our label to write more up tempo. They're

“like tempo tempo tempo. We want to hear Maria's bangers. So I think that's why this demo was kind”

of ignored for so long. Fast forward, a year later, Josh and I separated romantically.

And I was kind of at a crossroads of, okay, well, what do I do now with my life and what do I do? You know, with music, I thought like the band was over. So I was just kind of trying to figure out how I wanted to go about, you know, music. And I remembered this song, and I had a friend in the neighborhood who was a producer. My name is John Lookupuchilati. And so I hit him up. I was like, hey, Luca, I'm really going through it right now, man. Like, I have this song that I kind of want

to work on right now. I need an outlet. I don't know what's going to happen with the band, but I still want to make music. Well, you work on these songs with me. And he was like, yeah, come over. Like, come over right now. So she just came over. And we made a few songs and then one day she brought in the beginning stages of what became no one noticed. So we took the track that Josh had created with the drum loop and the guitars. And I was like, look, I kind of have a vision

for this song, but let's like be in the moment and hash it out together. Luca's superpower is that he's so gentle and his approach. And so, like, you can just spill to him. And like, he's just open ears, open arms, open heart. It was very free flowing. In terms of, hey, Luca, I have this idea. Oh, let's try it. Yeah, so that was an idea that I had. And I was just throwing it out. I was like, Luca,

what if we did this line on piano? Just like, it feels very kind of like, very like. We had these layers. A lot of what I do like with producing is these like hidden kind of sounds that like fill up the space, but then you don't really know they're there, but they're doing something. And so that's Luca playing that acoustic guitar. He really wanted me to record that acoustic guitar

“part. And I think we tried it. And I think I like fought him on it. And I was like, please, you just do it.”

I'm good enough to write music on instruments, but when it comes to like recording them, I'm like, let me leave it to the pros. And then you hear the acoustic guitar sort of like solo at the end. And it kind of brings you back to the inception of the song, which is really nice. The story of no one noticed continues after this. So how did things change? Lyrically, between the original 2020 version. And then was it

you said it was a year later when you went to... Yeah, year later. So did you feel like it was changing at that moment because of where you were in your life from this sort of like COVID loneliness song to like a breakup loneliness song? Definitely. No one tried to read my eyes, no one but you wish it weren't true. That was new.

I came up with an bathroom break and I went to the bathroom and then just started like,

“come, tell me, it can't be that easy pain. And then I walked out of the bathroom and I was like,”

Luca, what about this? I don't know where we should put it, but I kind of like it. And I really like the lyrics that I'm singing and so it's like let's just record it and then figure out where we want to put it later. And so we recorded it and it ended up being kind of its own little part. That worked so seamlessly with the rest of the song.

What was your process for recording your vocals? I just sang into like an SM7B with like Luca's special sauce in terms of vocal production. He's worked with Arla Parks who has a very

“breathy voice and big pig who also has this like really beautiful breathy voice. And so I think”

vocally was able to like bring out some really special things. Just stacking left-right and center.

No one but you. It was very in the moment like if the first take sounded great, he's like,

that sounds great let's move on. She's just unbelievable vocalist, unbelievable voice. It's so pure and nostalgic sounding. He's not right. It's like a one-of-a-kind thing. So I think what resonated with me was just the excitement of working with the voice like that. [Music] That's just the Jesse Roman.

We all Jesse Josh, Eddie and I all in the band during this time didn't know if the band was going to exist. So when I asked Jesse to come play on this song, Kudos to him for being brave enough to be like, well, I don't know what's happening with the Maria's. I don't know what this song is going to be used for, but Maria really wants me to play guitar on this song so I'm going to do it. So yeah, he came over and Luca and I just kind of let him do his thing. We let him listen to the song and

play whatever spoke to him. That's a pedal that he has. I love that sound so much and that's very quintessential Maria's. He uses that pedal a lot in our songs and in the live performances as well. It just gives like this really dreamy kind of underwater quality to the chords and to what he's playing.

And then I had this melody. I came up with as a synth line when Luca and I were working. And then when Jesse came in, we were like, let's see what this line would sound like on guitar instead of synth. And the tone was just so beautiful that we looked at each other really, yes, this line has to be on this guitar. It like jumped out at you and really tugged at your

heartstrings. I feel like the emotion that it gives is longing.

“And then I was like, okay, well, what do we do now with this song?”

But then the Maria's did not break up.

Can we pause for one second? Yeah.

So how did you go from not knowing what the future of the band was going to be to deciding that you are in fact going to keep going? The label sent us to band therapy. I'm giving you so much information. The four of us went to band therapy and then Josh and I

And yeah, I think that honestly is what helped us the most and then coming to the conclusion that

we all love each other and respect each other and have such a strong foundation and such a strong friendship. But also this music that we've created together is really special and we're not going to let something come in the way of the music which is so much bigger

“than a relationship or a romance or a breakup. I think we have something special like let's keep it.”

Let's work to keep it and we worked really, really hard to get to that place. You know, Josh and I came back together and started working past the romantic relationship and into a really beautiful friendship and we were working through some songs and we were working through this song in particular. Josh still had ideas like post-Luca and I session in terms of like a arrangement. He said let's cut this part out here. It's a little bit too long.

Let's go straight into this part. So he had his producer hat on at the beginning and then at the end as well. And then after Josh made his final touches on the production, I had shared it with the label along with a couple of other slower songs that we were working on and they kind of were like these are nice but let's see what else you got. That's a little bit more tempo. And I remember kind of just having like a sour feeling about it because I'm like this song,

like I like this song. I love this song and I'm also very impatient when it comes to writing and releasing. I mean the day that I wrote the demo I put it out on Instagram. So I was like okay, well if the label is not going to let us put it out, I'm just going to leak it on my own and so I put it up on our website, letter fans to the site and they downloaded it, put it up on YouTube, and then it started sort of circulating on TikTok and it started really making its rounds and

“people were really gravitating towards the song and then that's why we decided to put it on”

submarine. You kind of forced the label's hand? We did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's kind of

amazing how this is our biggest song on submarine and it's not your typical uptempo sort of

singer and so that made me really happy because we know the vision of our band and we know the vision of our music and what we want to put out and what music we want to represent us. And so at the end of the day let's just try to do our thing even if we have to fight for it. I just remember them telling me, oh we are thinking of putting this song on the album. So yeah, great. Awesome. And then yeah, we think we're going to make it a single. Oh yeah, cool. Yeah, that's exciting.

And then I just periodically get texts from Maria being like, look, it's streaming, you know,

a million times a day. Oh, and then they started playing it live and I just occasionally

just be getting videos from her of thousands of people screaming the lyrics to the song. I'm wondering how the four of you feel about this song given how it kind of went through these different stages of your relationship, really, different kinds of relationships, you know, wave music making way of living together and then so all that stuff. This song kind of has existed through all those stages. Yeah, yeah, it did go through the process of Maria's

and then not Maria's and then Maria's, which was the process that we went through as a band. It wasn't an easy time for them and any record that I've made that actually means something, the person that I've been working with is usually going through something tremendous. I mean, it kind of warms my heart and like thinking about that because we did break up as a band and as romantic partners, but then we came back together as a band

“stronger than ever and you know, so I think this song is an honest reflection of that process”

and so it being the biggest song. I'm like, "Wait, that's really beautiful and kind of poetic." And now here's no one noticed by the Maria's and its entirety.

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“To learn more, visit songexplotor.net. You'll find links to buy or stream no one noticed.”

And you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan,

and Kathleen Smith, with production assistance from Tiger Biscope. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma and I made the show's theme music and logo. Songexplotor is a proud member of Radio Tobias from PRX and network of independent listener supported artist tone podcasts. You can learn more about

our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, I write a newsletter where I write about

the making of some of these episodes and I write about music and film and creative process in general. You can find a link to the newsletter on the Songexplotor website. You can also get a Songexplotor short at songexplotor.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Kaseherway. Thanks for listening.

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