Jared Monaco, the guitar player of the band The Maine, chatted about their new single “Quiet Part Loud.”
How did the new single “Quiet Part Loud” come about?
“Quiet Part Loud” was initially written by John and our producer Sean Silverman. Funny enough, it’s working title was “ShawnJawn.”
It’s one of those tunes that immediately stuck out at me when we were going through our demos.
My favorite thing about the song is that we didn’t really have to do much to it. In a lot of ways, those are usually the best ones.
What inspires your music and songwriting?
I think while we all have our own musical tastes and references, there’s a handful of bands we can all agree on and reference quite often. Above that, however, thing that inspires our music the most is each other.
We rely pretty heavily on each other’s judgement in the studio, and I think our collaboration is what makes us who we are.
How did you approach the song selection process for the new album?
For the last several records it kind of goes the same. John starts warming up many months before we hit the studio, and by the time we get to pre-production for the album we’re usually dealing with 40/50 demos.
From there, we start to put them into groups according to how much work they need and what kind of vibe they have. Then it’s a matter of discussion.
For “Joy Next Door,” this process took a while, there were a lot of close calls.
The album will be out on April 10th, 2026.
What’s your personal favorite song on there?
Personally I love “Palms.” It’s big, it has great energy. Some of my favorite melodies John has ever written. Very proud of the guitar work on that song as well.
Were you going for a certain theme?
I think we looked at it less as a theme and more as a story if that makes sense. There’s a clear beginning, middle, and an end.
We didn’t follow this extremely closely while working on it, but it certainly helped with the track-listing.
How does it feel to be a part of the digital age?
It’s sort of all we’ve known. Started on MySpace and from there we’ve seen every single iteration of the Internet. We probably wouldn’t have been able to be a band for two decades without it.
What is your advice for young and emerging artists/bands?
My best piece of advice: be prepared to make sacrifices, but never compromise when it comes to your vision.
What would you like to say to your fans about the new music?
For anybody who’s been following our story, I think they know by now that we value albums in their entirety.
“Joy Next Door” is no exception to this rule. My hope is that people take a break from life to experience it in its entirety.
Selfishly, we hope that they can put it somewhere near the top of their favorite The Maine albums.
“Quiet Part Loud” is available on digital service providers by clicking here.
