"At 16, the budding singer-songwriter was convinced that unless she wrote and produced an album on her own, she'd never be a real artist. So she recorded a handful of songs, bought 150 jewel cases and started spending lunch periods in graphic design class, where she had access to Photoshop. Serving as her own manufacturing plant, she packaged the discs, self-designed slips and handwritten notes while watching movies."
"Maris rounded the back pool table at Highland Park Bowl, her NASCAR cutoff tank and low-slung jeans rendering her unrecognizable as the high-femme pop star who took the Echoplex stage weeks earlier to close her first headline tour. Billed as "the intergalactic sapphic pop show of your dreams," the monthlong Give Me a Tour run was a joint effort with L.A. transplant Caroline Kingsbury, who featured on Maris' retrowave track "Give Me a Sign.""
Maris began making and packaging her own CDs at 16, recording songs, buying 150 jewel cases and using graphic design class Photoshop to design slips and handwritten notes. Local retailers initially declined to stock her music, but a Missoula record store made her 12-track Of the Sea the No. 1 CD for two weeks. She later distanced herself from those early recordings but still buys the store's T-shirt in thanks. As a grown artist she headlined tours, collaborated with Caroline Kingsbury, released "Give Me a Sign" which reached one million streams in a month, and received industry recognition including an Elton John co-sign.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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