Guitar music is dead in the North. Like the washed up entertainers forced to play Bubbles in December, a reflex to pantomime the music scene of old has seen today’s become utter, mind-numbing, cliche. Hopeful indie rockers get on stage, play their naff tunes, and if they tick enough boxes, we’ll play our part. We’ll give our applause and approval as thoughtless as a “He’s behind you!” At this point, we don’t need new actors, the whole damn stage needs pulling down.
And yet here’s comes Maruja, a band that has emerged – seemingly – from nowhere. The founders hail from Stockport, and all members of the four-piece are currently scattered across Greater Manchester. The internet says they’re jazz-punk, art-rock, post-hardcore, and a host of other colourful genres, but most importantly they’re something different.
These lads have never had more eyes on them. Anthony Fantano recommended their debut EP Knocknarea back in May, and the four-song powerhouse is currently #1 of 2023 on Rate Your Music – a frankly insane feat. Equally insane are their live performances. They’re loud events, delivered with a frightful amount of musical proficiency you’d expect from a band late into their career, not one in its fledgling beginnings.
Maruja is seemingly on the cusp of making music a full-time gig. Yet, sitting across from them – sans their saxophonist, Joe Carroll – in Wilson’s Social, I’m struck by how unassuming they are. You wouldn’t guess they’ve got an upcoming BBC Introducing… gig. Decked in North Face and Dickies, they blend in as well as any other lads in town. They have a laugh. They have coffees. But unlike your average guys on the street, they also make music that’s mad.
From left: Jacob, Joe, Matt, and Harry
“It was definitely an instant connection between me and Harry when we met each other,” says bassist Matt Buonaccorsi when I ask about Maruja’s origins. “We were in very different bands back then, very stoner rock.”
“There was a lot of weed consumed back then,” vocalist and guitar player Harry Wilkinson adds.
Harry is a tall, aloof guy decked out in a red hoodie and gilet. He’s got the dry affect of a poet with the build of a rugby player. He’s also got a layperson’s love for language. At age 16 he found the band’s name above a shuttered shop in Spain. The word “maruja” plastered in plain sight like a mundane epiphany. It stuck.
“What sort of music were you making?” I ask.
“The music was a lot more straightforward, but it was always about the energy and passion that we brought. Our live shows have always been sick.”
Harry’s not wrong. Videos of their live shows have the sort of collective intensity that you feel Maruja would be doing even if nobody showed up – and that’s happened plenty of times for them.
“We’d get put on bills and be expected to sell tickets at the same rate as indie bands or we’d get marketed that way by lazy promoters. There are just a lot of lazy, lazy people trying to cash in.” says drummer Jacob Hayes in a Hampshire accent that stands out from his bandmates’.
“Did that ever backfire?” I ask.
“Bro, we played gigs where there was nobody there,” Harry says, “In Gullivers just over there,” he points behind himself down the street, “We played a gig and not one person showed up… apart from our dads.”
“Apart from our dads,” Matt echoes in support.
“Yeah, they just happened to be there,” Harry laughs.
“So, which gig was the turning point, then?” I wonder aloud.
“Around 100 people came to the show we played when our first single ‘Tau’ came out at midnight,” says Jacob. “Then COVID hit. After that it’s mostly been in the last year that people have been coming to us seriously.”
“I thought it was when we did that Trouser Project event. Big up Trouser Project,” says Harry. “That was fucking sick cos people were there singing lyrics and shit. That was one of the first times that had happened. When you see people who you haven’t asked to come down and they just wanna go fucking mad seeing music, or wanna sing along, or just wanna express themselves, that’s when it feels different.”
This artistic success has come during a rise of sax-infused bands coming out of the UK, and so I sheepishly ask whether that was a conscious choice of instrument.
“We had a sax in a band before it came popular to have a sax in a band,” Harry says proudly, “We’ve had Joe for fucking years. It’s a beautiful thing to see music of a similar ilk coming through. I don’t personally think it’s similar at all really, but it’s great to see it coming through. It’s not us jumping on a hype train.”
I ask if they think jazz-punk is a good descriptor.
“I would definitely agree with jazz-punk as a label,” Matt says, “but it wouldn’t really get to the core of it. It is a very indescribable mixture of genres. I’m glad it was a conscious decision to bring in a saxophonist before we heard any others doing it. Seeing other bands has probably rubbed off on us as inspiration, but we’ve never been totally floored by one of those bands. We’ll always do us. We improvise together, practise all the time, that’s how we honed in on a specific sound. Fantano himself said we’re doing our own thing.”
“Yeah, how did the Fantano thing come about?” I ask.
“We were in Brighton for an alternate Great Escape Festival,” Jacob answers. “We had a really horrible amount of routing on our tour. We did Preston on the Thursday supporting a band called Talk Show, then on Friday we went all the way down to Brighton to play at 1:10 in the morning. So, technically it was Saturday. We had another show that same Saturday at 3:00 p.m. in Leeds.”
“That’s a brutal triangle,” I comment.
“Yeah,” Jacob answers back, “We were busy and we weren’t planning anything. The EP had been out for a minute and it was picked up on Rate Your Music and Album of the Year. It was stupid, cos we couldn’t even get into the gig. The queue was so big and the bouncer was having fucking none of it.”
Harry jumps in with some of the details. “The bouncer was like, ‘When are you on?’ and we told him in half an hour. Then he was like: ‘Well you’re not on now are you?’”
“So, we had him going on and then we got a DM from someone on Instagram saying big-ups for the Fantano shoutout,” Jacob explains. “We had no idea and just immediately started freaking out. Then we had to go play a show.”
“I bet you were hyped up,” I say.
“We didn’t need it, the bouncer was doing enough already,” Harry responds.
Jacob tells me how someone left a comment after the Fantano review. Apparently the commenter saw the review as an unauthentic, inorganic way for a band of their size to start gaining traction. But the attention was accidental, unplanned. Maruja has experienced first-hand that success on music forums is double-edged – while you might get rave, snowballing reviews, obsessively-online opinion-havers are often paranoid in their search for ‘inauthenticity’.
While on the topic of the EP, I ask about the imagery for Knocknarea, and why they chose an Irish theme. The story, they tell me, stems from saxophonist Joe – who couldn’t be there for the chat. Joe’s great-grandad took photos between 1920 and 1960 during the period when electrical infrastructure was first being brought to County Sligo. Around the time of recording, Joe’s father passed away and his ashes were scattered on Knocknarea – a prominent hill that can be seen on the EP’s album art.
Knocknarea album art – Maruja
“We’re fucking trending number one on Rate Your Music for the year,” Harry says, with an attempt to hide his excitement. “The EP is like the highest rated EP of, like, the last six years. On Album of the Year we’re like third, and it’s not even an album! We were in [Saint-Médard-en-Jalles] the other week, and people were coming up to us afterwards from Rate Your Music or the Fantano review. It’s pretty crazy when you’ve never been somewhere and someone’s singing your lyrics.”
I ask which song gets the crowd going the most.
“In a live scenario, for ones like ‘Thunder,’ people build a pit,” Harry says. “It’s nice to do that but also then take it proper smooth and chilled and take things back down with the dynamics. Dynamics are so important.”
The focus on dynamics seems appropriate. On my first listen to songs like “Zeitgeist,” “Rage,” and “Kakistocracy,” I was immediately reminded of the best parts of bands like Slint and This Heat.
For Matt, the post rock link runs deep. “My favourite band ever is Swans,” he says with a sudden interest. “They’ve been a huge influence in how I play and how I view music. I’ve never seen rock done in such a dynamic way. It’s extremely loud but also very fine, delicate. It’s building worlds. I didn’t know rock could be done that way.”
“We don’t really listen to that much punk at all really,” Jacob admits. “Watching the rise of bands like Idles a few years ago was inspirational, but outside of that post rock is a pretty big genre for us. And we listen to a lot of jazz and electronically produced music, be that hip hop beats or rap music. Shpongle is quite a big band for us. Floating Points is an enormous one. Kamasi Washington…”
“All the spiritual jazz guys as well, like Alice Coltrane” Harry adds.
“Pharoah Sanders…” Jacob continues listing.
“Even the guys doing it right now like Matthew Halsall in Manchester are really fucking keeping the spiritual jazz element alive,” Harry says. “But yeah, we listen to a hell of a lot of EDM. I’m fucking obssessed with hip hop.”
I ask Harry if his love for hip hop is why he shows a bit of swagger on stage.
“For sure, man,” he says. “You gotta bring it. That’s why I’m a performer, I’m there to perform. I’m not there to take no half measures. I’m there to be vulnerable. That’s the most fucking confident thing you can do. Tupac has massively influenced me, Kendrick, UK guys like Lee Scott, Jehst, big guys coming through like Little Simz. They’ve also influenced a lot of sounds in the band. A lot of sounds in our recent stuff are like an electronic dance track. That’s what excites us. Making sounds that we’ve never heard before.”
I ask if those experimental sounds come out in jam sessions, but Harry gets excited about a specific jam recording they’ve been working on.
“What’s exciting is that next year we’ve got a full improvised piece coming out that we did purely on the spot in the studio,” Harry says, with nonchalant pride. “Very excited to get that out because that’s us with no filter. When you hear our songs, they’ve come from a jam and then we’ve built around an idea and we’ve made a song. Whereas the jams are just us losing ourselves in the music, the purest versions of ourselves. It’s the most—”
“Representative,” Jacob says, succinctly.
“Yeah, for sure,” Harry says, “It’s fucking well cool, man. We’ve been listening back to it like: Jeeeeeeez!”
I ask how far away a record label and a full album might be, and they tell me how they’re doing most of the band management thing themselves: merch, emails, scheduling. But when the right label comes around, they’ve got 10 hours of jams at the ready.
“They’re mammoth pieces,” says Jacob, “Some are like 30, 40, up to 72 minutes long recordings. And there’s a lot going on in each one.”
“And it’s all sick as well!” Harry laughs.
I ask how they remember what to play when listening back to jam sessions.
“We don’t,” Harry says firmly. “We literally don’t remember. You’re not even thinking in the moment. There’s no thought. It’s just playing through pure feeling; it becomes a blur. An hour-long jam might feel like 20 minutes. After it we listen to the phone recordings and we’re like: ‘Oh shit, nah!’”
“It’s like speaking an old language. It’s weird. It’s like some ancient shit. You know what I’m saying? It’s some pyramid shit.”
Matt points to my phone on the table. “It’s exactly like you’re doing now, phone in the centre of all of us. We do the same thing in rehearsals. But we remember absolutely nothing of these jams, only if they got excruciatingly heavy at one point.”
“Do you speak to each other, during?” I ask.
“No. Non-verbal communication,” Jacob answers.
The reviews online seem to miss this naturalistic approach to their music. Songs aren’t so much born but conjured into the world from marathon jam sessions where the band communicates solely in mood and gesture, an effortless rollercoaster rolling on a track of vibe and instinct.
“It’s like speaking an old language. It’s weird. It’s like some ancient shit. You know what I’m saying? It’s some pyramid shit,” Harry says.
I was surprised to hear that this lackadaisical approach to songwriting extends to practising their instruments – something they rarely do when they’re not together.
“I don’t practise physically outside of the band,” Jacob admits. “It’s all mental. Listening to new songs, new influences. As Matt was saying, we’ll listen back to jams – whether at a gaff or just getting about. It’s a way of practising that means you don’t have to be physically sat behind an instrument. Are you guys different?”
“I’ve got the ability to practise bass, but it takes too much fucking setting up,” Matt says. “My bedroom’s over-crammed, the conservatory is being used up by me dad, so it’s hard to practise with the sounds we create.”
“It’s very funny, cos although he plays bass, he has guitar lessons,” Harry says, and they all laugh.
“Are you a YouTube tutorial, guitar tab sort of guy?” I ask Harry.
“Mate, he’s too good for guitar lessons,” Jacob says jokingly.
“Ah, I never even looked at tabs bro,” Harry says, waving his hand.
I ask, “Not a music theory guy?”
“Oh, no theory,” Matt says, like I’m bringing up a naughty relative.
“There’s been no theory,” Harry repeats, before a friend of the band walks past the window. “Yeah man, don’t practise.”
“Never practise, ever,” says Matt.
“I practise rap,” Harry concedes, “I’ve not been rapping for as long as most people who do it, so I’ve got to catch up. I only understood its power later.”
As my phone’s timer shows a number not far off the length of a Maruja jam session, I ask them about their infamous connection to a One Direction alumnus. They’ve told this story before, but I make them tell it again.
“We had all the sessions booked out to record the EP,” says Jacob, “We did the sessions then I went to work. I was in a rush so I left the gear in the back of the van. Next morning, I woke up to go use the van and could instantly tell it’d been fucked with. The back door had been jimmied open. Someone clearly knew there was stuff in there. I was just fucking running around screaming. We were due to go in the studio in five days time with a guy called Joe Reiser, who’s the producer for Go Go Penguin. Shoutout Joe. So it was meant to be a big opportunity. I called 999 straightaway. Not meant to do that apparently.”
“What are you meant to do?” Harry asks, in place of me.
“111? Non-emergency line,” I answer.
“What? That was an emergency, that’s our livelihood, our everything, bro,” Harry says, exasperated at the memory.
Jacob continues the story. “We put up a GoFundMe, as the authorities were no fucking help at all.”
Harry peers down to speak into my phone. “No shoutout to the Greater Manchester police, man,” he says, “Fuck the Greater Manchester police.”
“Yeah fuck ‘em, they’re twats,” Jacob cheers, “They gave me and Harry a chat for three hours on why we weren’t gonna see our stuff again.”
“We literally had to become investigators,” Matt explains, “We searched on Facebook Marketplace and we managed to find it. It was on this really godforsaken road in Salford. One of the policemen suggested that we go there and knock on. Five minutes later he called and said: “Actually, don’t do that.”
“I called up loads of cash converters around Manchester,” Harry says, “And I found three of my pedals there. Got the details of the person who sold ‘em and gave it to the police. They never did anything with it.”
“Matt was looking him up like: ‘Nah, it’s just coming up with this guy from One Direction. Let’s keep searching’”
“We were gracious enough to get a good amount of donations on GoFundMe,” Jacob says, getting the story back on track. “Me and Matt were mixing in his room and we got a notification on my phone that Louis Tomlinson gave us four grand. We were like who is this guy? We didn’t even recognize who he was. I was asking family members if there was any long lost family we didn’t know about. Matt was looking him up like: ‘Nah, it’s just coming up with this guy from One Direction. Let’s keep searching.’ Then we got a Twitter follow and we chatted to him over DM.”
“He was very mysterious about it,” Matt adds, “Just on his Robin Hood vibe. Here’s money – go now.”
Somehow, everything worked out for the best, Harry tells me. “After everything we got all our gear back, loads of social media hype from Louis Tomlinson, and then it meant we got a different producer, who is now our full-time producer. So it ended up that something that was very sad—”
“One of the best things that happened to us man was getting robbed,” Jacob says.
I laugh. “So your advice is: don’t practise…”
“Don’t practise, get robbed, fuck the feds.”
We end the conversation there and wander over to the band’s van, cutely named Eric Stevens. We take a few snaps and I depart. After, as I head down a soggy Postal Street with new sun glistening in, I have the feeling that Maruja is approaching something exciting and strange. Like the erection of those electricity poles in rural Ireland, the world is turning bright, and the possibilities turning endless.
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