MOTEL VOID: I’ll start with a rather down-to-earth question – but since you’re completely new to me – could you introduce yourselves and tell me how you got together as a band?
MAYA: i’m maya. i met reoh and mat at a party in berkeley end of 2017. we clicked and reoh wrote his number on my arm. we didn’t really talk again for a few months until i reached out to reoh because i stupidly agreed to play a show at the hemlock in san francisco to showcase my solo project that didn’t exist with a backing band i didn’t have. they helped me bring some sketches of songs to life in a few weeks time and we’ve been a band ever since.
REOH: I think a down-to-earth question is truly the best kind of question in the world. My name is Reoh. Typically Maya lies, but the story she tells is true. But her story still has something approaching a lie. While it’s true we’ve been a band ever since, there were moments where even Fleetwood Mac would have blushed. Now, though, I think we showcase the power of friendship, the power of music, & the power of friendship thru music better than any band alive. As for Mat, we met in a class: Mat wore a beanie so I presumed they made chill lofi beats to study to. I think they thought i was from Finland? from these falsehoods began one of world history’s greatest friendships.
MAT: Hello, I’m Matthew–‘Mat,’ for short. The origin goes all of us drunk at a Halloween party on a front porch saying nonsense to each other and Reoh asking me to play bass for Maya’s musical project after I had expressed to him wanting to play bass instead of my primary instrument, which was the six-string guitar, to finally actualize my childhood dream of playing bass after seeing Mikey Way in the ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ music video. I first met Reoh at a party because we recognized each other from class and I thought he was a Swedish exchange student. Maya I first saw at another Halloween party where she was dressed in all white I think as a Mean Girl or something, trying to manage her party, but I would not meet her until at the aforementioned front porch.
MOTEL VOID: You’re from California – where exactly? Could you describe some of your favorite places – music venues you like to play, or places you enjoy going to shows?
MAYA: we all met in berkeley but within our first year as a band we all moved all over for varying reasons: san jose, san diego, sacramento, oakland, los angeles. so we just say california. its cleaner. I like the chapel and thrillhouse records in SF.
REOH: I’m gonna add some more places to California here that we’re also from: lakeside, el cajon, sunnyvale. The thing that unites all these places is that they’re part of the chaparral biome, which was once called “the elfin forest”– it’s among the most diverse biomes in the world. It is intensely aromatic. We can have cactus & prickly shrubs & we can have massive sprawling oak trees & sycamores within yards of each other, on account of countless microclimates & vast differences of water availability. Finally– I think we all see ourselves as “Californians” first & foremost. Maybe by saying that’s where we’re from, we’ll be one step closer to gaining independence.
As for shows: in San Diego we have two DIY venues that are really dear to my heart- the Brown Building & the 61st House Ever Built. 2/3rds of Madrone (reoh & maya) played the 61st House Ever Built last year– we covered “glycerine” by Bush, but we didn’t take off our shirts.
MAYA: it was kinda like when sturgill simpson covered in bloom. Someone after that show asked if all the songs we played were original and i said ‘yeah’
MAT: I was born and raised in San Jose for the first half of my life, then moved to Sunnyvale to Berkeley and back to Sunnyvale. In San Jose, I like to play at Jade Cathay, which is a dim sum restaurant moonlighting as a DIY venue. In San Diego, 61st House Ever Built is the spot to play. A place I enjoyed going to shows was the San Jose Rock Shop in Downtown San Jose where I had many formative DIY music experiences seeing bands such as Leer and Alex G, who was still relatively unknown to me and the mainstream public at the time, fresh outta DSU handing Chinese cigarettes to everyone. Unfortunately, the San Jose Rock Shop is gone and now a local gym.
MOTEL VOID: You uploaded your first track to Bandcamp in 2022, and now you’re releasing your debut – Eponymous Debut Masterpiece. The record is fantastic, and I feel like it’s going to stay with me all summer, one of the biggest surprises of the year for me! Could you talk a bit about how the album came together – from writing to recording?
MAYA: thank you. i love summer. we came together in the summer of 2022 at reoh’s house in el cajon to record an EP and didn’t reunite all together again until the following summer in 2024. And then the rest sort of piecemeal with the last song recorded in May 2025.
REOH: California is Car Country (to quote California’s #1 greatest rock band Kan Kan) & basically the album came together by driving a lot. Me & Maya drove back and forth from her place in WeHo & my place in El Cajon a lot. Maya would have words & I’d find chords & melodies, or she’d have chords & we’d find a melody together. Or she’d have something perfect already fully formed. Then we’d piece it together. A lot of the guitar sounds are from having this busted little green amp from the 1940s that I bought from my friend Ali that just twangs insane. & then a Peavey Bandit for the growling guitar. Not one guitar note on this album used a pedal. Many of the songs use a live recording as its base, either of me & Mat or all three of us together. We did a lot of that recording work in Daly City, in a motel above the Cow Palace.
MAT: Initially, like in 2018, we had a set of songs that were primarily written by Maya, just chord progression and melody, that we would then work out instrumentally as a band. Then we would have sporadic practices because I moved away. The songs marinated overtime with some not surviving the process, and it wasn’t till 2022 where we finally came together at Via Helena, a longtime El Cajon residence, to rework the songs completely as a full band, or if Maya and Reoh had work–I was on summer vacation as a teacher–as a 2-piece figuring out guitar parts or rhythm sections. As much as possible we wanted to make the foundation of the songs to be mic’d up full band takes to capture how we actually sounded. After that, it became a matter of Maya and Reoh finishing up vocals and other instrumentation and sending it over to me to overdub basslines, mix, and master. Those songs became our ‘Side Two’ EP. The rest of the songs were done in a similarly piecemeal fashion with a majority of the newest songs recorded at my practice spot in Bayview-Hunters Point.
MOTEL VOID: The first song I heard from you was the single Monitors. Its melancholic atmosphere reminded me of early Soccer Mommy or Cat Power. Opening tracks like Hanna and Mikey, on the other hand, bring to mind early Alex G or Frankie Cosmos. At the same time, it all sounds very distinctive and original. Could you share who your musical inspirations are at the moment?
MAYA: Moon pix was a huge influence on me when we first started the band. I made playlists for each song, most consistently on them were Helen, Sparklehorse, Bedhead, Wilco, The Microphones, Quasi. Reoh got me into the band Versus and Mat got me into Swirlies which were really big for me as well. Writing Mikey and Something Honest, I really pulled from a lot of Neil Young and Aimee Mann, they’re dope.
REOH: A big one to add to Maya’s list is Beat Happening’s “you turn me on”. I remember listening to that for the 1st time while driving up alone to maya’s mom’s former place in Sacramento to attend her family’s passover. I arrived late, Mat was already there. & there’s countless other small moments throughout the album w/ momentary particular influences. Like in “Mikey”– I wanted to have that Oasis guitar riff swag in the verses, or the intro in Something Honest to feel like from pure darkness you can see a fire flickering to life. But mostly the songs were their own inspirations. Specifically, Maya was the biggest inspiration for any music I wrote or played on the album. To channel what I could from her, as if she dared me to prove I know her better than she does. Mat was a very close second biggest: to try to impress them, because they’re the greatest musician I will ever know (unless I meet Bonehead).
MAT: At the moment, I’m really into the new Los Thuthanaka record. Chuquimamani-Condori’s ‘DJ E’ was the best 2023 album for me, I’ve just always loved their work as their previous monikers. Their approach to recording/mixing is so subversive and deconstructs Western notions of “proper” listening, leveling, and just the way sound should “supposedly” sound like. So there’s a lot of that sentiment in our album from when I was mixing it. Pat Flegel, since Women, will always inspire me. A lot of the basslines I did were inspired by Les Rallizes Dénudés. For bass and mixing, Brian Wilson was huge, Reoh dealt me that pill way back when. Recording with Jack Shirley at the Atomic Garden in Oakland whipped me into shape to feel confident enough to mix the record. I learned a lot working with him. Steve Albini’s approaches to recording/mixing were also influential. I like to think of the album’s mixing as a bootleg hybrid of all these approaches, so much so that its imperfections transfigure into the best sonic experience it could possibly be.
MOTEL VOID: Will there be a physical release of the album too? Right now, I see it’s only up digitally on Bandcamp.
MAYA: merhaps!
REOH: We’re waiting to hear back from, ummmm, Interscope right? Whoever Ed Sheeran & Benson Boone are signed to. It’s a bidding war between all the major labels right now. Creation Records actually resurrected to enter the fray. Liam Gallagher just has to come through and front a couple hundred thousand, & then it’s a done deal. I really hope we can at least have some tapes & CDs to supply people with as soon as possible.
MAT: I would love to have the album exist in the physical world, but we’re currently still looking for a vessel.
REOH: some might say we are waiting for a guide to come and take us by the hand 🤣🤪🤣🤪
MOTEL VOID: I also love asking about music made by friends or local favorites – are there any bands or artists you’d like to recommend?
MAYA: i’ve been really into semi trucks (one of the few good LA bands) the bay and san diego have some killer bands like polkadot and reoh dail dirt. really worth checking out. I hear mat estolano is coming out with a new solo album mid august 2025… also i dig limping april magazine, kan kan and pet. Lk dermer in brooklyn has an album coming out soon, they make ambient slowcore that’s like what if you could actually hear what grouper was singing. Theyre also my life partner and best friend.
REOH: Local Music = Life. Kan Kan & Limping are San Diego (or adjacent) bands that are two of the best in the world. Mat’s in polkadot & they are biblical. I have a singer-songwriter project Reoh Dail Dirt– it’s kinda like “what would happen if the world’s greatest folk songwriter since Bob Dylan was from San Diego’s Lakeside, California”. I’m also in a band (playing drums) called Pet that’s good– it’s kinda like “what would happen if the world’s greatest rock drummer after the death of Keith Moon was in the world’s greatest C86 style indie-pop band”. San Diego’s Matraca Tapes & MakebelieveDIY both put out and put on really cool bands. Other SD CA & Tijuana MX: storm clouds (perfect slowcore), Neutral Shirt, Surcaralita, Crush 23, Store Closed.
MAT: All of the above bands I also plug. From San Jose, Star 99 are the local torchbearers, Superworld rose from the dead last year and are back bigger than ever. Cheeky Things are the best band in the Philippines. I make drone under my own name and will have songs out under ‘Glen Ferguson’ by mid-August 2025. From San Francisco, the Cherub Dream Records’ roster is perfect, just the best the Bay and surrounding areas have to offer. Junebug from Modesto rips. First Day Back and Grad Nite from Santa Cruz absolutely kill it.
MOTEL VOID: Are you planning any shows to go along with the release of the new album?
MAYA: hope so! but i’m recovering from a gum graft at the moment so yeah
REOH: this is a point of major contention: as a band, we voted that Maya needs to get braces in order for us to land in a more marketable niche. We thought “if Benson Boone can become so popular because ppl know he does backflips, imagine how much more popular could we get if Maya had braces!” Esp considering that our music is better. However, when Mat & I outvoted Maya on this matter, it put in motion a string of events we truly couldn’t have ever comprehended. Now she’s had a gum graft, a necessary requirement for her braces. Even worse, the braces have made her afraid to be seen in public. So while our manager (Rick Rubin) has really been pushing us to tour to capitalize on this whole “Maya has braces” phenomenon, we’ve been getting a lot of pushback from general anti-braces advocacy groups. A whole classic American conspiracy theory thing about braces being connected to government mind control & the 5G cellphone towers. It’s like when the Beatles said they’re bigger than Jesus, but possibly worse. The dream is we’ll be able to push on and do it anyways. As an inspiration for the California Independence Movement.
MAT: We’ve talked about it. Because we live apart it would require the same precise and rigorous individual and group discipline we demonstrated during the writing and recording process, which is something we would be happy to engage in if the fickle hand of time allows Maya’s gum graft to heal at a miraculous rate the same way Wolverine is able to quickly heal his wounds despite how dire.
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