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ARY RUSSELL: Okay, so we’re in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and I was told that you picked this place.
MARÍA ZARDOYA: Yes.
RUSSELL: What was the reasoning behind that?
ZARDOYA: I’ve heard that it’s beautiful and I’d never been, so I was like, “Let’s do it.” Our guy just took us through and it has all the moss, and obviously that’s a big piece of the album. We have a moss vinyl, so it felt like a fitting place.
RUSSELL: You said that when making the album, you’d woken up from dreams and you had to immediately write stuff down. What kind of dreams were you having?
ZARDOYA: It wasn’t necessarily specific dreams but, for example, with “Vueltas,” the only song in Spanish on the album, I was trying to sleep and it would wake me up every hour with the melody and the lyrics until finally at three or four o’clock in the morning, I picked up my phone, recorded it, and then finally was able to go to sleep. And then in the morning I played the voice note and sang the melody and the lyrics out loud to my collaborators and they were like, “Let’s work on it.” So “Vueltas” sounds like it’s written to a lover, but really it’s a song written to the song, because it’s like, “You were spinning around in my mind.”
RUSSELL: It’s a love letter to the song.
ZARDOYA: Yeah. Because it wouldn’t let me go. It just kept spinning and spinning, and I was praying in bed. I was like, “Please let me go.” So in the song I’m saying, “I’m praying for you to let me go, but god is saying that you’re a part of me.”
RUSSELL: In the studio you played me “Puddles,” “Vueltas,” and “Swan,” I think. They sounded very celestial, very dreamlike. When the album dropped at midnight, I took out my crystals and I charged them to the album.
ZARDOYA: And it was kind of a full moon, the harvest moon.
RUSSELL: Exactly. What do you want someone to take away from Not For Radio that’s different from The Marias?
ZARDOYA: I mean, Not for Radio, it was my little pet project because of my love of nature. So the aesthetic with this album felt more like me than it did with the guys. Overall I want people to reconnect with nature and go outside, listen to the album outside. The songs were written in the middle of woods, so you’re going to get a lot of my love for nature within the music.
RUSSELL: When we were walking through the garden, you had so much knowledge about different plants, and when you were writing this record, you were in a secluded cabin. How did nature act as a grounding force for the record?
ZARDOYA: We would go on a nature walk every single morning. I made it a part of our routine. I was like, “Guys, rain or shine, snow, sleet, let’s put on our gear and go walking through the forest.” So everything that we experienced on those walks is what I put into the music. “Puddles” is because I fell into a puddle that day, and “Swan” is because we saw a cardinal, and Sam [Evian] said that they mate for life. And then I said, “Swans mate for life.”
RUSSELL: I was curious about the swan anecdote because I wanted to talk to you about “Back to You.” There’s the lyrics, “I hope it brings me back to you.” Do you believe in the idea of soulmates?
ZARDOYA: Definitely. I believe in soulmates. I think that you can have multiple soulmates in a lifetime, and I think they come into your life at specific moments to teach you lessons. But I do think that there’s the one that you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, and that could be romantic and that could be platonic. “This is my person and we are going to go through all the ups and downs of life until the day that we die.” So I do believe in soul ties.
RUSSELL: A lot of people would hear that and be like, “That’s terrifying that there’s this one person who, no matter what I try to do, I can’t get rid of this hold that they have on me. That’s horrible.”
ZARDOYA: It’s so permanent, but I’m not scared of permanence. Okay, I’m a little scared about permanence. [Laughs] I find comfort in the permanence. “We’re going to work through the challenges that we have together, and I’m not going to walk away. I’m going to be with you until the end.”
RUSSELL: Whether you like it or not. [Laughs]
ZARDOYA: Yeah.
RUSSELL: When you came up with the concept for Not for Radio, this was post-breakup with Josh [Conway]. You’ve spoken about The Marias and how there was a period of time where you were like, “Can The Marias survive this?” And then ,of course, you made it through. When you had that conversation and said, “Also, by the way, I’m going to do this solo endeavor,” was there any fear that this was the beginning of the end?
ZARDOYA: Yes, there was a lot of fear because it’s new. So when I brought it up to the guys, yeah, there was a sense of, “Oh no, what’s going to happen now?” But I reassured them every single step of the way, from the moment the project was made, announced, released. I love The Marias. I love Not for Radio. It’s both of them that make up a part of who I am.
RUSSELL: And how do you decide what project gets made for The Marias versus what project gets made for Not for Radio?
ZARDOYA: Not for Radio is a seasonal project. So Melt was the winter project that was written in just three weeks, and whatever was made in those three weeks, that was going to be it. So I was like, “Let’s put it out. That’s a photograph of that time that I spent upstate New York in the winter. Let’s not overthink it.” Whereas The Marias, there is this more intentional thought that goes into even the track listing and the songs, and a lot more time is spent on it. A lot more groveling over the details, whereas Not for Radio, I wanted it to be a sort of escape of not overthinking.
RUSSELL: When you were writing for Not For Radio—
ZARDOYA: I love that freckle in your eye.
RUSSELL: I have a freckle in my eye?
ZARDOYA: Yeah.
RUSSELL: I looked it up because I didn’t always have that. I think it’s that over time, certain people get melanin spots on their eye.
ZARDOYA: I think it’s really cute. I want one.
RUSSELL: I’ve never had someone say that. [Laughs] But with Not for Radio, you go through a lot of the motions on this album about longing and heartbreak, and you’re very honest, but you still maintain that platonic relationship with Josh. How are you able to write so authentically and so openly? Do you feel there’s a pressure to self-censor because you still know that person?
ZARDOYA: When I’m in the moment writing, there’s no censor. Maybe I should, but it just comes out and that’s what it is. It’s not until after that I’m like, “Oh, I wonder what they’re going to think when they hear this” or, “I wonder how they’re going to feel when they hear this.” I never go back and edit. I’ve never written a song that’s bad-mouthing anyone, it’s more—
RUSSELL: Reflective.
ZARDOYA: Reflective, but still, there are a couple of very honest songs that I’m like, “I need to figure out how I’m going to talk to this person about this.”
RUSSELL: Do they get to listen to the record first, or do they find out with everyone else?
ZARDOYA: So Josh was the very first person to listen to the Not for Radio album after we made it and that was really important for me because he’s also my champion and he’s been supportive every single step of the way.
RUSSELL: Do you find heartbreak romantic?
ZARDOYA: I find heartbreak to be like a mental illness. You’re thrown into a completely different reality. You perceive everything differently when you’re going through heartbreak, but there’s also a sense of romance because of how different you’re perceiving things. You might find beauty in different details that you wouldn’t experience, just like if you’re happily in love.
RUSSELL: Are you a ruminator after something happens? Do you beat the dead horse?
ZARDOYA: Oh, yeah. And that’s what got me into meditation and got me in touch with nature because I’m like, “I need to learn how to be here and not in my head.” So honestly, I’m really grateful for heartbreak and for the rumination because it made me wake up to the moment.
RUSSELL: That’s what makes for great songwriting.
ZARDOYA: And good songs.
RUSSELL: Were you always a natural songwriter, or was it an evolution?
ZARDOYA: Yeah, there’s been a bit of a progression. Even early on with The Marias, a lot of the lyrics and melodies are what came out in that moment without overthinking it. I think more so with Not for Radio, there was less overthinking, that I took what I learned with making that project into The Marias’ next project. So they play off of each other, and the evolution, you’ll be able to hear in the next Marias album as well.
RUSSELL: Already dropping the next one? Oh my gosh.
ZARDOYA: Yeah, we’re done writing it.
RUSSELL: That’s so exciting. Do you want to start walking?
ZARDOYA: Yeah.
RUSSELL: I meant to ask you about something I saw on Twitter because we talked about our favorite Spanish music. Did you see that La Oreja de Van Gogh is going back on tour?
ZARDOYA: No, what?
RUSSELL: They’re doing a reunion tour with the whole group.
ZARDOYA: I love La Oreja de Van Gogh.
RUSSELL: I remember you talked about them. We talked about Julieta Venegas, La Oreja de Van Gogh, and Camila.
ZARDOYA: It was so long ago that they were looking for a new singer or something and my friend was like, “You should apply to be the singer of La Oreja de Van Gogh.” I was like 17.
RUSSELL: But then we wouldn’t have The Marias and Not for Radio. [Laughs] I want to go back to “Vueltas,” because I knew when you played it for me the first time, I was like, “This is definitely going to be one of my favorites.” Maybe it’s the Latina in me, but I sent it to my mom and she was like, “That reminds me of a traditional Spanish song.” I think even my grandmother would like it. That’s music that transcends generations.
ZARDOYA: Definitely. My dad is a very romantic guy and would listen to balladas. That was his music of choice growing up, so I think I share that similar DNA. Because I grew up listening to them, it came out of my blood.
RUSSELL: Yeah, it just happens. Is this the Rose Garden? It got hot all of a sudden. I hope it could stay like this for Halloween because I have a costume that I cannot be cold in.
ZARDOYA: What’s your Halloween costume?
RUSSELL: I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Secretary with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but I’m going to be her as the secretary. What are you going to be?
ZARDOYA: A gothic clown. I have this velvet hat that I’m going to do, and I’ll probably do my hair kind of curly, and then do really dark makeup and some little lace gloves.
RUSSELL: That’s so cute. Where did you find that?
ZARDOYA: eBay. It’s vintage from the ‘70s or ‘60s.
RUSSELL: This makes me think about your style in general.
ZARDOYA: Mm-hmm.
RUSSELL: We somehow came armored in black coincidentally, but you’re kind of always in that gothic vibe. It’s not even goth goth, it’s like this Victorian-esque gothic.
ZARDOYA: I’m like a gothic fairy. [Laughs]
RUSSELL: Did the style come first, or did the music come first, and then influence the style?
ZARDOYA: Both. While we were making Melt, I knew that I wanted it to be darker, whimsical, musically, and so me and the guys had this joke like, “Okay, we’re like vampires walking through the forest at night through the fog.” So any time we were making music, we were like, “Does this sound like we’re vampires walking through the night?”
RUSSELL: Do you have a favorite vampire movie?
ZARDOYA: Twilight. Everyone always compares us to the Cullens.
RUSSELL: You’ve sort of had a Cullen-esque transformation, because when I was doing my research, I found throwbacks of you. You had your brown hair.
ZARDOYA: Mm-hmm.
RUSSELL: You were a bit more tanned. And then now you’re very sultry, mysterious, enigmatic. Were you team Edward or team Jacob?
ZARDOYA: Edward. He’s a gentleman. He’s romantic, mysterious…
RUSSELL: Which one’s your favorite Twilight?
ZARDOYA: I think the first one is very zen. I would watch it until it calmed me down.
RUSSELL: My comfort movie is New Moon. Part of the reason why I connect with your music so much, and why I love New Moon, is that it’s very sad girl, alone in my bedroom.
ZARDOYA: Oh, yeah.
RUSSELL: And Bella was heartbroken and depressed and I thought, “I feel you, girl.”
ZARDOYA: When did you experience your biggest heartbreak?
RUSSELL: Oh, gosh, if this person reads this. It was my freshman year of college. What made it worse was it was my first queer heartbreak. That wrecked me for like, two years.
ZARDOYA: Oh my god.
RUSSELL: When did you experience your first heartbreak?
ZARDOYA: It was like kindergarten. [Laughs] I’m such a hopeless romantic.
RUSSELL: How do you prevent yourself from becoming jaded?
ZARDOYA: I don’t know, I’m kind of jaded.
RUSSELL: You got your battle scars?
ZARDOYA: I do.
RUSSELL: You seem so at ease, so in tune with yourself.
ZARDOYA: I’m just trying to figure out what went wrong. I’m trying to figure out how I feel about why I left, why they left, you know?
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