Culture Cabinet

Mariah Rose Faith is simply not someone who can be summed up easily in a 500 word write-up. 

After a generous acceptance to an invitation for an interview, I found myself chatting with Mariah over Zoom. Our twenty-minute conversation quickly turned into a forty-minute conversation that was peppered with delightful side track conversations. She’s immediately excited to introduce me to her dog, and is delighted to meet mine. We converse over our shared love of School of Rock and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and make pleasantries that feel more like catching up with an old friend, rather than conducting an interview. Her innate friendliness has a way of putting one at ease. 

While I, like many, was most acquainted with Mariah’s work as an actress, I wasn’t here to talk with Mariah Rose Faith, the actress. I was here to talk to Mariah Rose Faith, the singer-songwriter, in anticipation of her single, CinemaScope (slated to be released on March 27), which will be included on her full-length EP that will be released later this year. 

What I learned, however, is that despite the immense amount of talent Mariah may possess as an actress and singer, neither are quite as delightful to witness as Mariah Rose Faith, the human. 

Growing up in San Diego, Mariah began singing around the time she was three years old. She cites the score of Titanic, and Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” as some of her earliest memories centered around music. 

“I’ve been writing for a really, really long time,” she says. “I think I’ve been caught up in this beautiful world of musical theater, and film and acting. And I think music is so integral to my being, it was kind of the scariest thing to jump into. But I’ve been working on it consistently. My whole life. Like literally, the first thing I think I started working on was music.” 

Having become arguably best known for her work in theatre, gaining popularity for her debut performance in StarKid’s 2018 production, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, and having accrued a following through her work in other musicals such as Starry, Mean Girls, and her subsequent work with StarKid, Mariah has rightfully earned a sense of notoriety amongst the theater community. And while she is evidently grateful for such, there’s a clear feeling that she’s finally going for what she always dreamed of doing. 

“I work really hard when I’m involved in shows,” she explains, “But, I kind of got caught up in that world. I think it kind of got a little murky, and some were easier to do because it was a little less vulnerable. Whereas singing, and my writing, that’s my lore. There’s so much that’s my make up of who I am, and sharing that feels so huge. Even if only a few people listen to it, it’s like a few people read my diary.” 

It’s that vulnerability that made her hesitant to pursue music in the past, but makes her all the more excited to do it now. 

“I got to a point in last year, where I was just going through songs that I wrote and also just a healing process within my own mental health. When I started to really feel confident in who I am, and my choices, and I realized I like who I am now. I root for her. That’s when I was like, ‘Okay, I think I’m strong enough to share my diary.’ Instead of playing someone else’s character that they wrote, this is me. I had to get a little more secure to feel ready for it because I just care about it that much.” 

I can’t help but feel some sort of tug of the heartstring at that statement. There’s something so universal about that feeling, and yet, conversations around self-growth and mental health still feel so stigmatized. Hearing Mariah talk about that journey with such openness and vulnerability gives me a glimpse into her approach to her artistry, and can only make me assume that her willingness to open up in her music will only serve her EP well. 

The EP, which is slated to come out later this year, features six tracks that were all written at different stages of Mariah’s life, from ages 19 to 25. 

“I was [writing songs] all this time, but I wasn’t ready till now. And if I’m ready, now, I want to take her with me, who wrote these songs. And so I was like, let’s just narrow it down then to one at 19, 20, 21. There’s an interlude at 22-23. And then traditional songs again, at 24 and 25. I felt like that was a nice EP size, and I narrowed it down well. But if I’m going to narrow it down, we’re going to tell the dang story. I don’t know how to do anything without an arc.”

She promises a mix of genre throughout the EP, that mirrors the different phases of life of which she’s paying homage to. “It’s not consistent genre wise,” she explains, “because each year, there’s different genres, there’s different tone, and so like, [CinemaScope] is more pop rock, kind of pop punk. But the other ones don’t sound like that entirely. They all come together and it makes sense.” 

Her debut single, “Ghosts,” was released in late 2023, and is what Mariah described in an Instagram post as “a love letter to my younger self, as well as maybe a reminder that it’s never too late to finish or release your art.” That feeling of it “never being too late” is a recurring theme. She hopes that her EP instills that feeling in its listeners. “For fellow artists, you can finish your art at any time. It could be ten years ago, and you can come back to it and produce it independently with your incredibly talented friends who know you as an artist and are going to capture you in the best way because they know you. And it’s it’s your timing for things.” 

But as for what she hopes listeners take away from her as an artist, that sense of vulnerability and honesty seems to work its way back into the conversation. 

“I hope [listeners] view me as an honest artist. I feel proud of my ability to be an honest artist, which I think is really hard. Women, especially right now in the industry, who are performing their faces off songs that they wrote at like 19? I just absolutely bow down to them, and they’re inspiring me at 28. I can do it in my in my way. It doesn’t have to look [any particular way], it can be like this at a pace that made sense to me so that I could do it in my best way that I could.” 

While I haven’t heard the rest of the EP, I feel I don’t need to in order to know that Mariah Rose Faith certainly accomplishes that goal of honesty. I’d even venture to go further than that and say she offers a sense of earnestness that one would be hard-pressed to find in another artist. 

Throughout our conversation, I’m given a glimpse into the real Mariah Rose Faith. From her excitedly telling me a story about when she saw Pedro Pascal at Hollywood Horror Nights, to getting into our shared love of Djo’s “End of Beginning,” I realize there’s something so endearing about her. She’s quick with encouragement, generous with compliments. She’s clearly excited to see others succeed.

And for that, one can’t help but want to see her succeed, too.