Extended Biography

Marya Roxx was born on January 18th, 1986 in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. From her early childhood, her love and talent for music won her recognition in several local competitions. While her singing talent was mainly developed under her mother’s careful hand, who is a music teacher, she gained interest in instruments from music school, where she studied saxophone for eight years. Marya also plays bass guitar and piano, which she taught herself how to play with the help of her music teachers. At the age of 7, Marya Roxx won the main Estonian singing contest for children "Laulukarusell 1993" (translated in English as "Singing Carousel", organized by Estonian National Television)  She also won it 1994 and 1998. She is the only person who has won it 3 times. In 1997 Marya Roxx won another TV channel TV 3 contest "Tähtede laul" (translated in English as "Song of Stars. ").   In 2002 she came 7th in Eurolaul (Estonia’s song selection contest for Eurovision).

Therefore it was no surprise that when Vanilla Ninja was founded in 2003, Marya was one of the solo-singers and the bass player in the band. Later that year she became one of the original four members of Vanilla Ninja, taking on the lead vocals and role of bassist in most tracks on their first two albums, 'Vanilla Ninja' and 'Traces Of Sadness'. Marya Roxx left the group in mid-2004 due to the pregnancy of her first child, and Marya was replaced by Triinu Kivilaan.

The girl-group enjoyed a fast ride to fame in Estonia and following the joint effort of the band’s manager Renee Meriste and scandalous producer David Brandes it had a striking success on the international audience. Despite the fame and high rankings in various international music charts, TV shows and awards, Marya Roxx decided to take a brake from her career.

So what happened?

Marya and the band’s former manager Renee Meriste found themselves in a relationship, which led to them getting married in September 2004. A few days later they gave birth to their first child Dora-Liisa.

Despite the rift between Bros Music and Vanilla Ninja, Marya continued her affiliation with the group's former manager David Brandes. In cooperation with the well-known scandalous German producer David Brandes, Marya Roxx came back with her first solo-single "Could You", which was released on the 20th of January. Although her solo comeback was at first unsuccessful, her single "Could You" peaked at #35 in the Swiss chart, launching Roxx back into the public spotlight.

In September 2006 Marya, with help of producer David Brandes, had published her 2nd single "Shine It On". The success of this single was similar to "Could You", it peaked at #48 in Germany and #53 in Austria. Although with this single Marya had a debut in MTV Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). In MTV Baltic charts she reached #16, which made Marya Roxx much more popular in Baltic countries. Afterwards, you could order Marya Roxx poly and mp3 ringtones for mobile phones in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Using her first name Maarja (it was used since December of 2007) for her solo career, Marya caused some aggravation within the Estonian music community. This is because Maarja-Liis Ilus, another solo artist from Estonia, who used to work for the same Universal record label that Roxx was signed to, had already been using the name for several years. Ilus said that the identical naming was a "bad move" on the part of Marya Roxx and her label. As it's written in the BrosMusic Board, Marya will go her own ways. She separated herself from the Record company Bros Music. The decision was taken by Marya and David Brandes in mutual agreement.

All those years after she left Bros Music Marya Roxx wrote her own songs and in summer 2007 she made her dreams come true and recorded her own album with mostly her own tracks. The album was recorded at the Document Room in Malibu with world famous producer Kevin "Caveman" Shirley (Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Led Zeppelin, Him, etc.) with amazing musicians Paul Crook (MEAT LOAF, ex-ANTHRAX, SEBASTIAN BACH) on guitar, Scott Metaxas (ex-NUCLEAR ASSAULT) on bass, Derek Sherinian (YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, ex-DREAM THEATER) on keyboards and Brian Tichy (ex-OZZY OSBOURNE, SLASH'S SNAKEPIT, GILBY CLARKE, PRIDE & GLORY) on drums. The manager and label is RAM Music, which companies master is her husband Renee Meriste.

In the December of 2007 Marya Roxx decides to change her performance name Maarja into Marya Roxx. Such changes happened because Marya wanted to forget about all the past in Vanilla Ninja and associations with that group and to start her own solo career. Marya Roxx will use this name for commercial use, but her real name always will be Maarja Kivi likes.

January 5, 2008 was a big day for Marya Roxx fans because that was the day her song recorded with world famous producer Kevin Shirley was heard for the 1 st time on the 100,7 Radio station. Also, in February 2008 Marya Roxx finally has her new Official website, www.maryaroxx.com, where you can find lots of info connected with Marya! Her forthcoming album will be called 'Payback Time' and her CD single '21?!' is available digitally in the internet and original EP will be released at 01.07.2008. The Marya Roxx forthcoming album will be released in the end of 2008.

Marya Roxx is amazing singer and songwriter, she wants to rock the world and she is ready to prove it with her songs, powerful performance and rich guitar and bass sounds that rock'n'roll is not dead!

Last updated: 25.04.2008