The Marías - No One Noticed

0:00You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Hirwe.

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2:04It's only available with TurboTax full service experts. The real-time updates are only in the iOS mobile app. The Marias is a band from Los Angeles made up of Maria Zardoya, Josh Conway, Jesse Perlman, and Edward James. They released their first EPs 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. Stereogum called it one of the best albums of the year, and the band was nominated for a Grammy for best new artist.

2:44But 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 Gianluca Pucciolati, and I spoke to Luca for this episode as well.

3:13Lost my mind No one noticed No one noticed My name is Maria and I'm in a band called The Marias.

3:32Do you remember what was happening on the first day that you started thinking about this song? Yeah, it was 2020, peak pandemic. So we 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 Marias. And so we'd 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, it was just a beautiful morning. I had all the windows open and I just grabbed my guitar.

4:14And there's a chord progression that I just always find myself gravitating towards. What's that chord progression? I'll play it for you. I can write a hundred songs with this chord progression. And I think I have. This is just kind of what I jam to, but...

4:40I 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

5:01just kind of came out and I was like, oh, there's something here. And so I just hit record on my phone.

5:22Had 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 like make my own demos. And so we had two workstations set up in my living room. So it was like his workstation with like 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.

6:04Will you help me kind of put some of the foundational pieces together.

6:13So that's the loop that Josh made when he was teaching me production.

6:23The genius of Josh is like finding the right groove and we call him like the heartbeat of the Marias 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'd kind of like it if you'd call me. Cause I'm so over being lonely. May have lost a need of virtual connection. I have lost a need of video obsession. I just want to go back to the fact that this was during COVID times. Do you think that what you were feeling around that was playing into what you were writing?

7:15Definitely. I think, I mean, 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 we're together feeling so connected and 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.

8:02I hear your 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 I 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 were 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.

8:56fast 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 shirt. My name is Gianluca Buccellati. And so I hit him up. I was like, hey, Luca, I'm really going through it right now, man. 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.

9:39Will you work on these songs with me? And he was like, yeah, come over. 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 be in the moment and hash it out together.

10:08Luca's superpower is that he's so gentle in his approach and so, 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.

10:34And 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 fairy-like.

10:45We had these layers.

10:50A lot of what I do with producing is these hidden kind of sounds that fill up the space, but you don't really know they're there, but they're doing something.

11:05And 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 soloed 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.

11:42I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Hirwe. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fen Lily, and the producer Phil Winerope.

12:23I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzoukas, Josh Molina, Min Jin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Kleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website.

12:59rishikesh.co or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks.

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15:42so 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 a 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. No one tried to read my eyes No one but you Wish it weren't true And then the bridge was written as like a more yearning relationship romantic part. I came up with it in a bathroom break. I went to the bathroom and then just started like, come on, don't leave me.

16:41It can't be that easy, babe. 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 Sue's like, let's just record it and then figure out where we want to put it later.

17:20And 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.

17:34If you believe me, I guess I'll get on a plane. Fly to your city, excited to see your face. Hold me, console me, and then I'll leave without a trace. 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 Arlo Parks, who has a very breathy voice, and Big Pig, who also has this really beautiful breathy voice. And so he, I think, vocally was able to bring out some really special things. Just stacking left, right, and center. No one tried to read my eyes. No one but you. It was very in the moment.

18:26like if the first take sounded great, he's like, that sounds great, let's move on. She's just an unbelievable vocalist, unbelievable voice. It's so pure and nostalgic sounding.

18:39It's like a one of a kind thing. So I think what resonated with me was just the excitement of working with a voice like that.

18:57That's Jesse, Jesse Broman.

19:08We 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 Marias 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 Luke and I just kind of let him do his thing we let him listen to the song and play whatever spoke to him

19:45that'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 this really dreamy kind of underwater quality to the chords and to what he's playing.

20:12And then I had this melody I came up with as a synth line when Luke and I were working.