Montana-born, L.A.-based pop shapeshifter MARIS is slated to release MOSH★PIT, her latest EP, on September 18. And, frankly, the whole EP plays like it's double dog daring you to try and stand still.
The beginning of the EP's origin story isn't all that glamorous. "The inspiration behind MOSH was originally me feeling overworked and uptight, just craving a moment to throw my head back and dance," MARIS says. Then came a real moshpit incident, back when she lived in Brooklyn, at a punk show with her boyfriend at the time. "As soon as I went into the pit, I got punched in the head," she says—and she didn't go near one again for three years.
It took a tour schedule to bring her back. "I found the ability to curate and make the MOSH★PIT my own, and ever since then it's been a place I yearn for," she says. Somewhere between the touring and the burnout, the pit stopped being a hazard and became a release valve—hers, and now, everybody else's. "Whenever I get bogged down by day to day life stuff, I remember how amazing it feels to be in the middle of a Moshpit, especially at my shows because everybody does a crazy lil dance," she says before rattling off a beautifully chaotic list: "everything from the worm to handstands to breakdancing to simply having their hands in their hair, smiling and screaming." Her verdict: "It's so cathartic, the MOSH★PIT is a place for you to be yourself in the fullest form, and everybody around you is gonna love and celebrate you for it."
As for how the tracks came together, it started as a leftover scrap of a notebook line. MARIS wrote alongside Taylor Dubrey for the EP, and by her account it barely took convincing. "We started with that beat, and a little poem I had in my notebook that said 'meet me in the kitchen, open the moshpit,' and from there we got into a pretty good flow state," she says. "As I was building this EP, I got so attached to it that I had to put it out!" she continued. From there, producer Dylan Bauld, who executive produced the full EP, took it apart. "He rebuilt the entire thing and we had so much fun putting it all together," MARIS says.
MOSH★PIT arrives with real momentum behind it. MARIS' collaboration with Caroline Kingsbury, "Give Me A Sign," landed on Spotify's Best Pop Songs of 2025 list and helped sell out her first headline show at DC9. "SUPER F★CKING MEGAST★R" hit No. 4 on Stereogum's Top Pop Songs of 2025. She's played Boston Calling on a bill with Ed Sheeran, Chappell Roan, and Reneé Rapp, landed in Spotify's Fresh Finds Class three separate times, and gotten the Elton John seal of approval—he played "Mary + I" on his Rocket Hour radio show and compared her to Lady Gaga and Freddie Mercury, which is the kind of sentence most artists don't recover from hearing about themselves for a week.
But ask MARIS what she actually wants out of any of this, and it circles back to the room, not the résumé. "I hope listeners take away a feeling of release, and then come to the shows and experience that release with 249 people in a tight club where we are gonna find god and keep her there," she says. Asked which song off the EP she's most excited for fans to hear, she declines to play favorites: "All of them lol, I can't pick."
If there's a thesis statement buried in all of this, MARIS gets closest to it here: "I want the world to know that even though it's a crazy time to be alive, there's beautiful people out there who want to dance like idiots and scream and laugh and make new friends in person! And they're at my shows, and they're the best." Then, the mission statement: "I also want the world to know that I see the Superstar in the world, and so the world should see the Superstar in themselves."
What's next is, in her words, mostly one word repeated a lot: "Festivals, EP, Tour, tour, tour, tour, album, tour, tour tour tour tour tour <3 (if i'm lucky)."
MOSH★PIT hits the shelves in just two days (September 18)—be sure to tune in.
Photo By Kylie Rebecca
