On the Rise
Maruja

“They were literally shit,” guitarist Harry Wilkinson proclaims of his previous institution. After being told that “shining” during a performance (his words) was a major issue, he promptly withdrew himself from the musical course. Instead, he kept heading down the self-laid path he and his bandmates had already started on: “They marked me down because I was the leader of the band, and the drummer shouldn’t be the leader.”

Maruja formed after Wilkinson and bassist Matt Buonaccorsi were introduced at said college (Buonaccorsi would go on to complete the course) when a mutual friend suggested that Wilkinson’s musical ideas would suit a band. On what brought the pair together, Wilkinson puts it down to “a deep appreciation for the same music; as soon as we met, we instantly connected on our love for music, and he was such an insanely talented bass player.” Recalling Buonaccorsi’s ability to conjure a bass line before Wilkinson had even finished the song he would be working on, he knew the pair had the seeds of something special brewing. “The chemistry was mad,” Wilkinson shares.

As with all promising potions, time is an important factor. Maruja has been gestating for the best part of ten years now. Even for all the ‘buzzy new band’ tags stamped upon them, theirs is a story of trial, tribulation, and knuckling down. “It’s that whole 10,000 hours thing,” saxophonist Joe Carroll reckons. “We’ve definitely done that by now.”

Maruja was initially founded with two since-departed members. But with the onboarding of Carroll and drummer Jacob Hayes, after their own dalliances with a constricting, by-the-book education system (Carroll making his way to music from philosophy, and Hayes giving up on a theory-obsessed teacher), the foursome’s sonic flavours really began to flourish.

Now in their mid-twenties, the band members craft a brutalist compendium of agitated rock swarming with jazz, a USP that has engendered a sold-out headline run this month. The day I interview the band, they’re in Newcastle, huddled around a glitching iPhone before the screen turns black and they become a similar swarm of voices, each offering their take on Maruja’s outlook and camaraderie. Except for Buonaccorsi: he is sorting out the group’s books for the year, “because we’re getting so much money,” Carroll drolls.

Believing in themselves has helped them bide their time. It’s also given them the edge over other artists around them. They’ve had time to diligently figure out their craft, secure their ranks, build their bond, and establish what they want to achieve. Carroll explains, “It hasn’t got to the point where we’ve got disillusioned with the experience or whatever. We’ve kept on getting more and more passionate and more down this weird little hole of what we’re doing and what we want to achieve with the music we make.”

Their songs are intense fireballs of ideas and aggression aimed at a forbidding world: “Reflection of the culture, really, and reflection of the frustrations that our generation feels,” Wilkinson explains. The group have tackled the tough subjects that plague the world across their two EPs: 2023’s Knocknarea, and this year’s Connla’s Well. A track from the latter release, “Zeitgeist,” much like its title, reckons with the idea of a monoculture, but in this instance, “The reason why we called that song ‘Zeitgeist’ is because the instrumentation is so anxious, so gruelling, and so full of tension, just like everybody’s lives.” With a 24/7 news cycle of wars and attrition of good in the wake of evil, according to Wilkinson, “This sound is a reflection of our frustrations and how we feel. Our country [is] being run – or not being run, like the song ‘Kakistocracy,’ which means being led by people who are unfit to lead.”

The attention Maruja are deservedly drawing hasn’t appeared overnight. They suppose it’s been caused by the visceral emotion from their songs and how it comes to life onstage. But with such intense feelings elicited in an increasingly fervent live show, is it getting to a point where there’s a need to check in with themselves? “That’s something we’re battling more than ever now it’s starting to get really busy,” Carroll muses. “We’ve brought on teams of people, and there’s a lot of expectation about what we should be doing; we find ourselves constantly fighting, trying to do what’s right for us.”

Divulging further, he explains the group’s fearlessness in being vulnerable: “It’s very emotional when we play, so trying to recover from that, and then do a show the next day, and the next day, and the next day – it is hard not to get a bit lost, because you’re bearing your soul constantly, and that isn’t a normal thing to do. But in this game, we’ve always turned to being as emotional as possible and letting our frustrations out with the music. That’s a blessing as well. When we are on stage, we can completely let ourselves go with whatever we’ve been dealing with that day. But it is a lot.”

Newly signed to legendary metal label Music For Nations, the band are setting their sights on a debut album. With work to start in earnest early doors next year, they’re already picking through multitudes of jams uploaded to Soundcloud. It’s this process that will allow them to dissect and truly discover what effect the past year has had on them. “We’re about to get back in the studio at the end of this fucking massive tour in January and February, and I think that’s going to be very telling,” Carroll deadpans. “It’s coming at a good time because we’ve got so much… it’s been a very emotional year, so getting all that out at the start of the new year is going to be wonderful,” he smiles.

The creative process involves entering what they refer to as a “flow state.” “We don’t think about what we’re doing,” Wilkinson explains. “We go past the ideology of thoughts, and it’s like a meditation. It’s a thoughtlessness. Which is beautiful because that’s when you can channel creation, because you’re not putting any ego in it; you’re not overthinking it.”

While Maruja’s sound can be affronting and disparate, raging with an internal ire, there’s a solid throughline of free-form flow that is akin to jazz. Their pieces have no obvious beginning, middle, or end – there is just an outpouring of emotion and improvisational musicianship. Given that they’ve refuted most of their musical education, they’re well ensconced in the self-taught pocket. “There was definitely a point where we were going to pursue that,” they say of a more conventional conservatory education, but “the way that the education system treats music and the study of that felt to each of us like it was the wrong thing to do. So we learned music how people back in the day did, which is from playing it for years and understanding your instrument through legends.”

Touchstones for Maruja include such legends – Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper et al. – but around five years ago, when the new-wave of British jazz appreciators began to blossom, their interest was well and truly piqued. “Having British artists like Shabaka Hutchings coming out of nowhere was a real influence for us,” Hayes explains. “Nubya Garcia, Ezra Collective, Jarman Jones, Moses, Boyd… When we started the jamming process, we realised, ‘why don't we give this a go?’ It wasn’t anything we did intentionally. It’s just having that influence of something happening in your own country, for once, felt like it was something new.”

With all of these creative threads connecting, it makes sense why Maruja are rising now. Theirs is a story of patience being rewarded. As the world grows darker, exorcising turmoil is an essential outlet. “There’s no anxiety about what you’re doing at all,” Carroll offers to their sermons. “It’s latching onto the truth of the matter; people love it.”