*Published by Milk Crate on Feb. 23, 2022
Let’s face it: we all get a little lonely sometimes.
But there is no reason to ruminate on our loneliness in silence— MAITA’s (pronounced mi-ta) newest record, I Just Want To Be Wild For You, provides the perfect soundtrack for moments of existential worry and poignant solitude.
The album, released Feb. 18, 2022, confronts intense feelings of emptiness and melancholy head on and without trepidation. The record is bursting with sounds of isolation and confusion that appeal to the ear of any listener.
MAITA is spearheaded by the songs of frontwoman and principal songwriter Maria Maita-Keppeler (she/her), who began her career as a solo artist. Her time working solo allowed her to quickly become savvy to the world of professional music. According to Maita-Keppeler, independence as an artist was key in picking up “how to be on the road and how to play show after show and set up and tear down and just play music.”
While working solo was not always easy, it did not come without valuable lessons. Self-booked tours playing in breweries and wineries toughened Maita-Keppeler’s skin to crowds who would pay little attention to her music. She was always kept on her toes, recognizing the fact that “[the music industry is] such a hard industry and you just never know where it's gonna go next.” Though it might have felt unrewarding at times, Maita-Keppeler expresses gratitude for her early days and for all of the opportunities she was given to grow into the artist that she is now: “It hardens you and it makes you stronger. It makes you more able to take things in stride and handle rejection— which you have at every step of any career."
Maita-Keppeler was not a solo act for long, with MAITA coming to fruition as a collaborative effort behind her deeply personal writing. MAITA became complete when Maita-Keppeler joined forces with guitarist Matthew Zeltzer (he/him) after meeting at an open-mic in San Francisco, met bassist Nevada Sowle (he/him) during the recording process of her first album, Best Wishes, and picked drummer Elly Swope (she/her) up from a well-placed FaceBook ad. The band currently tours as a four-piece group based out of indie rock mecca Portland, Oregon.
The four tirelessly worked together to create MAITA’s sophomore album, I Just Want To Be Wild For You. The record features some of the band’s most complex sounds yet, finding the perfect balance between boisterous indie rock and dreamy folk. Honoring both styles in 11 fully fleshed out tracks, the album takes listeners on a dynamic emotional journey, starting off with the elegant, soul-searching track “Loneliness,” reaching an energetic high in the middle of “Ex-Wife” and effortlessly bringing things back down with the wistful “Wild For You.”
Maita-Keppeler adeptly explores themes of dissociation, loneliness and feeling completely and utterly lost — concepts that every human being experiences at one point or another. While the thematic elements of the album perfectly capture the uncertainty and anxiety characteristic to the pandemic, the band has been sitting on the songs for much longer, with much of them being written and tracked pre-COVID. Maita-Keppeler confesses, “I feel like a lot of these songs fit in with themes that I lived through during COVID. So it's kind of strange to me that they were written beforehand.” She expresses great relief and excitement at the songs finally being out in the world for listeners to enjoy.
Maita-Keppeler likens the overall feel of the record to “that stage where you're starting to feel jaded but you're also still inspired. You're in this middle zone where you don't quite have everything figured out, but you know that you want to, and you're ready to try to examine it all.” Writing about these periods of uncertainty has been especially therapeutic for Maita-Keppeler.
She notes, “Writing to me feels like therapy a lot of times. A lot of my songwriting might come from a low moment, but the song is trying to dissect why I'm feeling that way. It's never just ‘Oh, I'm sad, I'm just sad.’ It's always ‘Why, where does this come from? What are the factors and what is this very specific kind of sadness?’ By identifying that in the song, I feel like I can sometimes understand things a little bit better for myself. In that way it becomes more of a healing process, rather than feeding that ‘tortured artist’ feeling in myself.”
Maita-Keppeler’s emotional connection to her music is apparent in the way the sound of her compositions have progressed throughout the years. MAITA’s sound has come far from the contemplative, folky sound of her early EP, Waterbearer, to the powerful and assertive rock melodies that the group currently touts.
She attests that the change in her sound came about naturally. “The indie folk sound was just because I was playing by myself so much that that was what I wrote songs for.” Having collaborators to bounce ideas off of has always been a gateway for the expansion of musical stylings, and this rings true for MAITA, as much of I Just Want To Be Wild For You’s sound evolved through the band’s recording sessions together. Maita-Keppeler recalls, “When we met up with the band for the first time to record, we had no idea what the record was going to sound like, or what the project really was going to sound like at the end. It just pretty naturally went in that rock direction. We all just listened to the songs and the first instinct was to play certain songs really heavy.” Maita-Keppeler has accepted the stylistic change with glee, “Oh, alright, I guess we're a rock band,” she remembers thinking during an early recording session.
As the mastermind behind MAITA’s simultaneously bold and vulnerable discography, the songwriting process is something Maita-Keppeler keeps especially close to her heart. She states, “an idea will spontaneously come to me, and it'll come at a time when I'm feeling that feeling really hard. And I'll be like, ‘this needs to be written.’” Meanings cannot be forced when it comes to Maita-Keppeler. There will always be time for a message within a song to present itself naturally. She explains that “once I find this hook where the song has the thing that makes it an important song for me, then I try to step away from it as quickly as possible to not overwrite or add too much to it that will overshadow things.” Her songwriting is an extremely delicate procedure, and she realizes that one can easily fall victim to overthinking and going overboard if they let themselves get carried away by judgment and self-critique.
Of course, this is definitely easier said than done, as Maita-Kepper identifies as somewhat of a perfectionist. She only shares her work with the rest of the band when her gut tells her that the songs are fully ready. “I always worry about sharing something before it's ready and then having it be discounted by somebody” she says, “I trust that by the end, I'm going to reach something that I feel good about. I worry that if I show someone [a song] partway through or [a song that is] not finished and fully realized, that I'll think, ‘Oh, this is a bad idea,’ and throw it away.”
It is safe to say that I Just Want To Be Wild For You is just about as polished as an album can get. Satisfied with their hard work, MAITA embarked on a tour of the west coast the very same day the record was released, eager to play for a live audience after touring had been put on hold by the pandemic for over two years.
The touring life comes easy to Maita-Keppeler, who cites her busy childhood as a main factor. Moving between the houses of her divorced parents allowed Maita-Keppler to easily adapt to a life full of traveling and living in places with vastly different cultures. Her parents’ respective cultures — Japanese and American — are integral parts of her life. Maita-Keppeler’s strong connection to her identity as a Japanese-American woman has helped her become extremely adaptable to different situations that might arise. She recounts, “things get left at mom's house or dad's house. You adapt to different styles. I go to my mom's house and she makes incredible food just out of the fridge all the time, and I go to my dad's house and it's literally Hamburger Helper out of a box. You learn both things.”
She recognizes that the touring lifestyle might not be for everyone; “It might not be your style of life, it could be completely different from what you're used to or what you would choose, but it makes me more appreciative.” Being able to take the album on tour has been cathartic for the band; Maita-Keppeler exclaims, “We really don't want to take it for granted. We want to make every tour feel really good and really count because we don't know when we're going to be able to do another one.” The band takes every opportunity to express gratitude, as Maita-Keppeler relays memories of pre-show stretching sessions and group hugs.
Not only is Maita-Keppeler grateful for the chance to tour again, but also for the immense support she receives from her fans. As both an artist and a regular consumer of music herself, she has witnessed the dramatic shift in the ways people discover music, and is thankful to have an ever-growing audience.
Maita-Keppeler urges listeners to consider finding better ways to support the artists that they love. While streaming is a great way to refine one’s music taste, she advises listeners to not “just hang out on the [automated] playlists, because they play the same 10% of songs all the time. I would try to venture out and click on an artist you really like and go down to ‘similar artists’ and then click on the one you know the least and then click on their similar artists and try to work the system.” In addition to providing a streaming pro-tip, Maita-Keppeler mentions the ever-growing platform Bandcamp. “Bandcamp is a really great platform” she says, not forgetting to mention that the platform “is super artist friendly” and gives back an average of 82% revenue from fan purchase to the artist. Besides supporting artists through purchasing their work, Maita-Keppeler alludes to the re-emerging live music scene: “as things open up, going to your local venues and just hearing music there is really cool. There's so much good local music out there if you can find it. It takes a little bit more work, but it's really good.”
Ultimately, the listener has full jurisdiction over how much they want to contribute to an artist’s life, but Maita-Keppeler says “If you really do love an artist and believe in them and want them to succeed, figure out one other way to support them. It could be [going to] a show, it could be [buying] a CD or a t-shirt — whatever that you want to buy from them.”
Fans can directly support MAITA by buying I Just Want To Be Wild For You on Bandcamp and purchasing the band’s merch — all of which is designed by Maita-Keppeler herself!
However self-exploratory her songs may be, Maita-Keppeler does not claim to have it all figured out. While she has plenty of nostalgia for her past self and the emotions captured in her songs, she hesitates in giving her younger self any advice. She instead finds herself looking toward the future for guidance. “I feel like I need my older self right now to tell me what to do now. I feel like I haven't figured out any answers yet.”
Maita-Keppeler confidently exclaims, “I'm still a little lost, but it's in a different place that I'm lost.”
We might all be a little lost in this world, but with MAITA on our side, we are in the best of company.
