Way back in November 2010 it took a few unanswered messages, one ill-advised MP3 recorder purchase, and a whole lot of dithering before I accepted the fact that I wouldn't be interviewing Marnie Stern before her Glasgow show. Not getting to do the interview was both a dissapointment and a relief for the same reason. Stern was my favourite musician in the world back in 2010, and the fear of making an arse of myself was real.
On another day, I might have blagged the interview on the night, but I'd enjoyed the show too much to insert myself into it so loudly at the end. Turns out everyone was so timid/thoughtful (delete as appropriate).
A few weeks after the show, the NME ran an “On the Road With Marnie Stern” article that made me chuckle when I read it in the newsagents. (I don't pay for the NME because I was raised to believe you bought toilet roll before it was covered in shit, rather than after). It covered a couple of the gigs that Marnie had played just prior to her Glasgow set, and part of the hook was that at the end of every gig she plays, Marnie is approached by a dictaphone-wielding blogger in search of an interview.
I'd pay good money to avoid become an amusing detail in an NME article, but I had to admit that the portrait of the adoring but awkward Marnie Stern fanboy looked a lot like what I saw in the mirror every morning. Having avoided this embaressment, I was able to set up an interview with Marnie a few weeks later.
We talked about classic rock, Stern's writing style and her then new self-titled record, as you'd expect. Somehow we also ended up talking about Shrek, but perhaps not as much as we should have...
(Photo taken from Marnie's old tour blog.)
Vibrational Match: On record, your songs are really intricately layered – does it ever give you a headache trying to work out how to play them live?
Marnie Stern: YES!!!!! This last record is the simplest in terms of layering, so that was at least a relief. But some of the others, boy! What a pain in the ass! Sometimes when I'm writing I think, “How the hell am I gonna play this live?”, but I usually manage to figure something out.
Vibrational Match: One of the things I love about your music is the way that it plays with and against your lyrics – when you’re writing the songs, do you compose words and music simultaneously or is the process a bit more fragmented than that?
Marnie Stern: More fragmented. Sometimes I write down words and sentences while I'm reading. That way, when I sit down and come up with a guitar part, I'll have something to try and sing. Most of the time though, because the guitar parts are kind of precise, the cadence doesn't fit properly and I have to sit there and try and come up with more lyrics. Sometimes when I do it that way, I find that the lyrics end up fitting the mood of the guitar sounds better than I would have expected because I am tapped into the emotion of the song.
Vibrational Match: You’ve talked a bit about how you want to write a classic rock song without resorting to cliché. I think you’ve got a good run of cliché-free classics behind you now, but do you feel like you’ve managed it yet?
Marnie Stern: Certain parts of songs yes, but as a complete whole song, no. Some of the classic rock songs have been such staples in my life that I often wonder if I really have any clear perspective at all on them. I wonder if I had heard 'Gimme Shelter' by The Stones when it came out, if I'd think it was as precious as I do now.
Vibrational Match: I loved your second album, This Is It…, right away, but on the first listen through I thought The Crippled Jazzer was the least exciting track on there. Since this is 100% backwards, I was wondering if I’m actually the stupidest man on the planet?
Marnie Stern: That is a fun song to play live, but I can see how it can come across as pretty monotone and boring. It's pretty much straight up rock, with the exception of a few time changes, but for some reason when I play it live I never get sick of it. So I'm 100% with you on that one!!
Vibrational Match: You made a video for ‘Ruler’ that was a Rocky pastiche, and you did a cover of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ that made the song sound good to my jaded ears. I was wondering if these playful retro riffs were just a goof, or if they were actually a slightly different attempt at getting at some of your usual themes?
Marnie Stern: Actually, The Journey song was done originally as a demo for the Shrek 3 soundtrack. I knew they wouldn't pick me, but I wanted to give it a go anyway because it seemed like fun. Rocky is one of my favorite movies of all time. I love sports movies that revolve around an underdog, because I feel I can relate. There are plenty of those movies, but Rocky is my favorite one. Both those themes happen to be based in the 70's/80's, but that was a coincidence.
Vibrational Match: There’s a really strong personality to your music – since your mid-set banter and blog posts are so crude and funny, I was wondering how much you filter these parts of your personality out when you’re writing your music, and how much these elements just end up downplaying themselves?
Marnie Stern: I never put the silly, banter side into my songs. I don't know why really. Sometimes I'll throw in some funny singing part that is really goofy, but it always ends up sounding so incredibly silly, that I take it out. I guess because I spend so much time on the songs, they end up being of the more serious nature. Good question though! I need to think about that!
Vibrational Match: I’ve read that you used to practice for a scary 6-8 hours a day, but that you now spend the time working on your songs. Is it important for you to always be working towards something? This theme runs through songs like The Crippled Jazzer and Logical Volume, and for a lazy schlub like me it’s both kinda scary and inspirational at the same time!
Marnie Stern: Yes. I think I always have to have some kind of goal ahead of me, some kind of drive to get better and keep going. It's actually kind of sick though, because I can never seem to just stop and enjoy the moment I'm in! In other area of life, I am EXTREMELY lazy, and I have no idea why working on music is a different story for me.
Vibrational Match: Your new self-titled album rocks harder and looser than the two before it without sacrificing any of the complexity. Was this something you were consciously pushing for?
Marnie Stern: Yeah. I was trying to make it looser so that there was more breathing room, but I find it hard to keep the quality and integrity of the parts intact when I'm trying that. The biggest lesson I've learned from songwriting is that space is so important to let the song grow.
Vibrational Match: Marnie Stern is also probably your most overwhelmingly emotional album so far. Which… describing it that way makes it sound like a Korn album or something, but it’s really kicked my arse this year. Did you feel self-conscious, putting some of those feelings across so openly?
Marnie Stern: After I had healed a bit from what I was going through emotionally and looked back at what I had put down, I sure was embarrassed. But in the end, I could never put anything down that wasn't honest to what I was feeling, so I think it turned out alright.
Vibrational Match: What’s kicking your ass right now? Are there any books/bands/movies, either old or new, that you want to rave about before we finish?
Marnie Stern: I've been reading a ton of books lately to try and come up with ideas for the next record. I usually work better off of books than music for some reason. Sometimes I read garbage too, but it all helps me to separate from this tiny bubble of the indie rock world, and it makes me feel connected to everyone out there trying to create things (as hokey as that sounds!). Last month, I particularly liked Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and The Book Thief by Zusak.