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Female Guitar Players Are the New Black: An Interview with Marnie Stern
Marnie Stern shreds, but when you hear how great her songs are, that's almost besides the point. A late bloomer to the rock world... She released her first album on Kill Rock Stars, In Advance of the Broken Arm, in 2007, when she was thirty-one years old. But that's besides the point too. The point is that Marnie Stern, with drummer Zach Hill at her side, is a real progressive punker, making music that warbles your mind and kicks your ass... but makes you feel good too. Within her music she quotes Marchel Duchamp, Allen Watts, Back to the Future, and Mark Twain with equal ease and applies finger tapping with such a coolness and familiarity that people who show off that stuff just look silly in comparison...
Her latest album, the self titled Marnie Stern, is a bit different than her previous two releases, delving into a deep emotional core that causes the album as a whole to swell into more "song-y" sort of manners--- though the drumming of Zach Hill and Marnie's persistent playing keep the record in line with her other two releases. It's definitely a great record.
I was able to interview Marnie about it via e-mail last week.
I feel like "Marnie Stern" ,as an album, is less oriented as a "guitar record" and more about the actual "songs" than the last two records. I mean, I thought the songwriting was great on the last two, but this record seems to center around a more emotional core that wasn't as apparent previously. Was this a conscious decision or did it just end up playing out this way?
It just ended up playing out that way because I had some things from my personal life going on at the time, and they led their way into the song. And because I started with a different set of emotions, I tried to direct the guitar and the songs themselves to reflect that mood.
On the subject of songwriting, I've read some recent interviews with you commented how you wouldn't be able to write a song as good as one like "Baba O'Riley"... Which for the record, I think is completely untrue, as "For Ash" has to be one of the most powerful rock songs I've heard in general! I think it's really great that you do tie things back to people like Steve Miller and The Who, though... the direct acknowledgement or influence of that kind of music on most modern "indie" rock is largely dismissed or ignored. Why do you think this is? What draws you to classical Classic Rock?
I can't figure out if it's because I was raised on that music, or if I really love it in general. Either way, those are the songs I gravitate towards when I'm hanging out and just want to listen to music for fun, or as background music. I've also been trying to focus more on songwriting, and there are so many bands from that era that put together such well crafted songs.
With this, when I've read about your musical life, it seems like you were a kid listening to Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, and then in your 20's shifted to people like Hella and Don Caballero, which I think is interesting because it sort of avoids the trappings of the musical "middle period" a lot of people have in their mid-adolesence, where they will sport a rap-metal look or a pop-punk kind of attitude... this is true or am I just reading to far into things? hahah...
I think I would have fallen into those trappings had I been friends with more people who liked to listen to music a lot..or rather, people who actively sought out music that wasn't on the radio. I lived in NYC and so there were a ton of other things to do, so music wasn't as much the focal point as it is for most. I regret it only because I think I would have probably started to play the guitar or drums at a much earlier age.
With Hella, were you a friend of Zach Hill before you started to play music, or did your musical partnership come into play after you were a fan of Hella? If so, was it a bit strange playing with someone whose work you admired so much as part of your own group, or was it a natural flow?
No, I absolutely LOVED Hella, and when I was signed to Kill Rock Stars, the head of the label asked who I would love to work with. I said if i had my dream list of drummers, Zach would be at the top. He contacted Zach, and Zach said he would agree to work on it if he could produce the record. So really, it was a dream come true.
I was reading the 5-10-15-20 feature you did with Pitchfork, and I was delighted to see U.S. Maple's Acre Thrills on the list. That album, I think, is near perfect, and U.S. Maple is just awesome beyond words, their stuff is just so unique. How did you first get into them? How has their music affected yours?
Well US Maple was a big influence on me too. I loved the sloppiness, inventiveness, the push and pull, and overall nuttiness of their music, and I was drawn to Al's singing and lyrics and swagger. I was lucky enough to have Mark Shippy come out and play guitar with me for one of my tours when I was touring "This Is It" and it was fantastic!
What is the story behind the cover art of "Marnie Stern"? Is that a drawing of your room?
The painter Bella Foster has done all of my art work and she is a dear friend. She knows me very well, and the cover is really a bunch of things from her imagination... things she knows about me, placed into a room. That's not what my recording room looks like, but I wish it did!
The Great Kat would chew her up & spit her out.
Posted by: bob | November 17, 2010 at 04:06 PM
That's Marcel (no "h") and Alan, not Allen, Watts.
Posted by: Dan Coffey | November 17, 2010 at 08:15 PM
TEST PRESS Marnie Stern Salute - click!
Posted by: Chiba | November 18, 2010 at 11:24 AM