ReturnToSound: “A great show at The Green Door Store, though it all started off with a little bit of technical difficulties and you probably had to adapt. I think you had to go acoustic a little bit early in the set, didn't you?
Marisa Rodriguez: “Yeah, that's never happened before so that was an interesting one, so basically Myke Gray was stepping in for Alez (D’Elia). It was his first time doing it and he brought his amp and it just broke. It was working and then it broke a minute beforehand. It's annoying because we prep for so long, we make sure this stuff's working, but you just can't predict if something's gonna break that's of no age”.
RTS: “There was a period when everyone was trying to go wireless, but everyone's gone back to good old plug it in with dodgy cables because it's rock ‘n’ roll isn't it?”
MR: “I actually feel differently. I've had less issues since using wireless than when I had cables because I no longer trip over them and actually, we fit my pedal board - because there's quite a lot of pedals - into a flight case where our in-ear system is then no one touches it. All of the leads that connect it were custom-made, so it lives in the drawer, and nobody touches it. I've also had an amp die at a gig as well, but I was like fuck it, I’ll just do it with lead guitar, bass and drums, it's fine I just won't play - it's fine. The good thing about that experience was that I realised that I didn't have to play a guitar in every song and that's why we are doing what we're doing now. It's meant that we can elevate our live performance more. I feel like there's a silver lining when things go wrong sometimes”.
RTS: “That's the experience you pick up playing live on the road. Those scary moments test you and like you say something good may come out of it”.
MR: “Definitely. I mean there’s nothing scarier than everything going off on stage and everyone just looking at you like “dance monkey”. I actually found out recently that I have ADHD, which makes a lot of sense for how I think I react to certain life scenarios. When small things happen, I can freak out more than a normal person but when under severe pressure, or in a really bad situation I can be the calm one. I'm like, right, how are we gonna deal with this? So I think maybe that part of my personality comes in handy.”
RTS: “You've actually been diagnosed? Though I don't know how you test for conditions like ADHD to be honest, what did you go through if you don't mind me asking?”
MR: “It was a psychiatrist in the private NHS sector. I was basically struggling with a lot of things that other people didn't seem to be struggling with and I've been struggling since I was at school. I just thought that maybe I was stupid or something, so if I struggled, I just kept quiet about it. I've actually just realised that I've spent my whole life bullying myself for being me when there's nothing wrong with me, my brain just works differently and actually I think I excel at certain things that other people wouldn't because of my brain being the way it is. I think, if you have the knowledge, that knowledge is power and if you understand how you work, you can accept it. You can double down on the things that you're good at and try to work on the things that you're not, rather than just beating yourself up for it. They're talking about this a lot more now especially for women, because they're now calling women with ADHD the lost generation. It shows completely differently in women than guys, that's the reason why they couldn’t be tested for it before because when they were studying people with ADHD, they only studied boys, so it's only recently that they have done something about it. So, yeah, to be honest I just wanted to know that I wasn't mental (with a chuckle)”.
RTS: “Haha, yeah, I think as you get older, I'm not calling you older in any way, but you learn more about your personal qualities and your imperfections. That's part of growing up, I think when you're very young, as you say, you may get mixed up and it can be very hard. It has probably given you some sort of release to know?”
MR: “I just wish that I had done it sooner, but I believed that in my head it was like, well … that's just the naughty boys at school that didn't get good grades or try hard, because I had to try hard. I struggled but it was like I had to get good grades, and I had to do what it took to get the good grades. It's just different. I think they said that women tend to internalise it more and mask it better than boys do.”
RTS: Has this played into your lyrics and song writing?
MR: “I didn't actually find out about the ADHD until after our recent album releases. It’s totally given a different meaning to a bunch of my lyrics and makes me think… oh yeah, this all makes sense now. Obviously, I write a lot about mental health and my experience of being in an abusive or toxic relationship. I think having undiagnosed ADHD may have affected my relationships and the choices of people I’ve been with. They weren't good choices, let's put it that way. They weren't very kind to me, but I think maybe I don't realise that I have a PP (people-pleasing) nature myself and maybe I could have gotten out of those situations more easily rather than just thinking there's something wrong with me all the time and thinking that I had to fix it because it was my responsibility, as it must be my fault.”
RTS: “It seems that you have come to a place where you can please yourself, you can now demonstrate to others who you are? Fate is taking you into the right place to be yourself in front of a band?”
MR: “Definitely yeah, everything happens for a reason, I really feel that. I’m still human, though, and have my bad days like everyone else. In Brighton I kind of touched on that fact, I was very open about the fact that I had a bad day. I know it sounds random maybe but part of me was like, oh no, did I bring this chaos with me BECAUSE I was having a bad day. I was just a bit overwhelmed. But it happens to us all, right?
RTS: “You have the band around you, they look like they back you both in musical and mental terms?”
MR: “Absolutely! We're all really good mates. We all have our strong points and our weaker points but, yeah, we're a really good team and we all get on and have a laugh.”
From: https://www.returntosound.co.uk/features-and-interviews/marisa-rodriguez-from-marisa-and-the-moths-explains-life-on-the-road-in-an-honest-interview
