Nearit: 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.
Nearit: 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.
Nearit: 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.