Page 29 - BiTS_08_AUGUST_2022

BiTS: The latest album is called “Portrait Of A Woman (Part 1)”, and there’s a Part 2 coming
on later on and I gather your electric, for want of a better expression, rock and roll band, Mary
and the Contrarys, is also a multi-part job. Is this a
plan coming together?

MJ: It’s been in the works forever. Touring kind of
slows things down a bit when I’m on the road a lot
and I always have ideas and songs and projects that
I’m working on. But when I’m away from home, it’s
kind of hard to get on them, so finally the Mean Mary
and the Contrarys (check review of Vol 1 here) is a
four-volume project I’ve had [chuckling], probably
gosh, maybe ten years ago was when I was first going
to get this recorded but finally it’s coming out this
year and then the “Portrait Of A Woman” wasn’t
originally going to be a Part 1 and Part 2, but I just
ended up with so many songs that I really like, and
actually, Part 2 has some of my favourite songs on it –
not to diss Part 1 [laughs] because I really am proud
of the album, but Part 2 was actually some of the songs on it were the first songs I started

working on for this project including a song that’s called ‘Portrait of a Woman’ which is a song
I wrote when I was about 17 and it’s kind of sat on a back-burner for a long time now. At least
a couple of years since I’m only 19 now, but [laughing], so it’s going to be on part 2. So yes, it
just kind of happened.

BiTS: Was this surge of song writing generated because of COVID because you weren't able to
perform publicly?

MJ: It was to some degree. I have a lot of songs that I have written that I haven’t had a chance
to record, so that was kind of my goal to begin with was like all the years of songs that I’ve
written and every time I do a project I kind of like to have a little bit of personality to the
project, so a lot of songs get pushed aside and they keep piling up and I was like I’m finally
going to record some of these songs that I wrote years ago that I really like. And then, of
course, the creativity comes along, and ideas and you write a new song. I have had a chance to
record a few songs that I’ve previously written and then just being not such the hectic
schedule and just being in my studio and working with stuff, really gave that chance to get
some new ideas and record some of the old ones. So yes, I guess you can pretty much say that
that’s the case. I love touring, don’t get me wrong, it’s great and you get a lot of ideas when
you’re travelling because just sitting in one spot trying to over obsess on something, you’re
driving and getting new fresh thoughts going in your head and you don’t feel guilty just sitting

there for long periods of time thinking about stuff. Whereas when you’re home, you feel like
you need to be working, working, working. But when you’ve got an eight-hour drive, you can
just like zone out and think weird thoughts, so that is a good thing. But I’ve had so much
touring; I’ve compiled so many ideas and thoughts that it was good to have a little pause and
just let’s work on them now and record them.

BiTS: Right. “Portrait Of A Woman (Part 2)” is scheduled for, I think, September. Is it on
track? Is it going to be September?

MJ: That is September next year [laughing].

BiTS: Oh, September next year. I beg your pardon. I thought it was this year.