Even some of the darkest clouds are lined with silver. For Spanish guitarist/vocalist Maria Rico, two of modern history’s most challenging moments have come to lay the foundation for Luna Marble. The Manchester-based band are the manifestation of Rico’s lifelong love of creating and performing. Their sound blends Fleetwood Mac’s bluesy etherealness with Led Zeppelin’s grit, a grungy undercurrent and psychedelic shimmers aplenty iced with Rico’s Grace Slick-meets-Stevie Nicks vocals.
“My dad is a big music lover. My earliest memories were going to his office and picking a CD for the car journey to school,” Rico reminisces. “If you asked a five-year-old Maria what I wanted to be, my answer was: ‘Rock star.’”
But it hasn’t been plain sailing for Rico. The 2008 financial crisis was the death knell for her father’s shop, and the family was forced to relocate from Spain to Manchester, where she was met with culture shock.
“I was surprised how easy it was to access music,” Rico recalls. “In Marbella, our only culture is tourist culture. In Manchester, it was like: ‘Wow, I can actually be in a band!’”
Having moved to Manchester, she learned to play guitar and immersed herself in jam culture before studying music production at Salford University. Bands came and went, until covid lockdowns saw Rico reprise her relationship with Romanian guitarist Dragos Colceriu. Colceriu came to Manchester when he was 19 to live out his prog-metal dreams. Rico flipped his world upside-down.
“Maria got me into the classic stuff,” he confesses, “and I’ve been trying to do my homework ever since. I also discovered that I really love the blues; in all the shreddy solos I like, it was the bluesy licks that spoke to me.”
Their relationship, both musical and romantic, grew with every song shared. Their debut album was born from that fizzing chemistry, driven by “a seventies philosophy” of recording live, without click tracks. It’s raw and unpolished, although Colceriu loves his Page-esque guitar orchestrations, which are overdubbed later.
They’re still an independent band, and have yet to score the kind of glitzy tour slots or famous fans that these columns often boast. What they do have is a deep-rooted love for the music they make, and a determination to quit their day jobs. That bleeds out into their superlative self-titled debut LP.
“I’ve worked on this band for eight hours a day after work,” Rico reveals. “We’ve always had that DIY approach. We have to. Before The Police blew up, they were getting cardboard and glue and handcrafting their vinyl covers. We’re doing the same, making stage sets and self-producing. We’re faking it until we make it, and that seems to be working for us so far!”
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