Marnie Stern - The Interview!

Before we talk about any music stuff, I wanted to talk about your blog.

[laughs] Ok.

Your approach is a little different from the typical, self promoting artist blog. It isn’t really that glamorous - you don't shy away from the more mundane aspects of the touring rock band lifestyle, like eating McDonald's all the time and just trying to find a place to wash your clothes and stuff.

No. I mean I've always been, to a fault maybe, pretty open about my life. Plus, with me there really is no glamorous side - touring, or the music world.

I never thought about it really. The girl who was tour managing us at the time said she always wanted to have a blog but nobody would read it, so I said, "Let's do one!" And it made us more active to do more stuff [while on tour] because then we were like, "We'll put it on the blog!" It’s cool, I'm noticing, to put it up on the blog, because otherwise you forget. Everything disappears into the next day. Only when it's the most outrageous thing, do you remember.

You've had Zach Hill play on all three of your studio albums, but he doesn't really tour much with you anymore. How does that influence your ongoing studio collaboration?

We've always been the same. The reason [he can’t tour is] he's so busy, he just does so many projects that you can't nail him down for a tour. The amount of time that he would want to practice and then tour it… his schedule is too nuts. But in terms of the writing process, it's always been the same where I demo tracks separately and then I send it to him and he puts the drums after. I've tried jamming with him. It's very confusing…I think i'm pretty good at rhythm and time, but he is, you know, in a class of his own.

Speaking of demos searlier, your original demo cassette was just released through Dog Daze Tapes. Since it's a demo tape I was expecting them to sound more like "demos," but they actually just sound like lo-fi versions of the actual songs from the first album.

That's because they are. We use the recordings that I do at home, and then we just dub over them. We've never started over from scratch. I demo in Pro Tools, send it to Zach, he does the drums, then we get together and I put guitar over it. I overdubbed all the guitar parts and all the vocals but we keep a lot of the bass recordings that I've done for the field.

So you're actually working from the demo as the foundation for the track?

Yeah, for the first record more so - we didn't even really do much overdubbing.

“Nothing Left,” on the new album, has a very dissonant, no-wave style intro, which sounds very different from most of the other stuff on your albums, which tend to be in more of a major key. Did that little piece had any specific origin?

That was just an early, more experimental piece that I had found that I had done and took me forever to figure out how to play, so I tacked it on to the beginning of that song because I thought it was neat.

You seem very settled into your own creative process at the moment - has it gotten to the point where outside influences don't really factor in?

You mean with other [people’s] music? Well, there hasn't been any music that I've liked in years and I feel that it's taking a toll and becoming a problem because I'm desperately craving more outside influences.

Zach and I were thinking about maybe trying a different thing together, just something to shake me up. I don't want to end up being cliched, and it's hard for me, because it's just me, to keep coming up with new ideas or sounding different. And it's frustrating. There are thirty other [songs] I've been sitting here doing for months.

It seems like the change [with the new record] isn't so much in the sound as in the emotional content, which seems much deeper than on previous records. Which is very refreshing in its own way, because emotional depth is definitely, in my opinion, lacking from popular music now.

Yeah, I agree. It's always been very hard for me to be emotional and sincere without sounding cheesy, and so I was really trying to work on that with this one. But it's strange because lately I've been wanting to get back to just some gritty, punk-style yelling and I just don't even know how to do it anymore.

But I think also the reason why it doesn't sound so different is 'cause the recording style's the same thing. I'm still using the exact same one guitar with the same one pedal, so the actual tone sounds the same because that's how I'm recording. I think it would sound maybe different if I recorded it somewhere outside the studio.

I mean, it's weird that I can sit there forever and play but I get really frustrated and bored quickly trying to fuss with tones and settings and stuff. I'll sit there for ten minutes and I'll go, I have been sitting here for 400 years!

Either you don't want to do it at all or you spend all your time fussing with your sound and just never play guitar.

Right, and some people, I've been noticing, have been making, I guess you'd call it an art, out of just manipulation with pedals. Maybe I'm not right about this, but it seems like because everyone can record everything themselves, you can spend so much time focusing on the details of how it's going to sound and not much time on the actual material itself. It's like all the production, and then the substance is just not really there. At least, that's the way it feels to me.

Yeah, and that's a shame.

It's a bummer.

It's almost like with the technology and with people focusing on sound so much, it's almost like we’ve gone back to the eighties when rock records were 100% production and 0% content.

Exactly! And also, that's considered cool. I'm into bands having no shame about what they like, but it's just shocking to me that that style is considered cool. Listening to stuff that just sounds like Bobby McFerrin.

You know, ten years ago, you could have bet me $10 million that the [indie] stuff that's being played now…I mean I am just shocked, because it seems just like American Idol. It's really weird.

Well, I think it's always been like that. There's always been a large place for mediocrity and sort of a small place for real innovation.

And it's odd how the mediocrity in the indie world is now put up on a pedestal as this great music. And I'll talk to kids and they'll mention all these hyped bands, and I'll say, “well what do you like about them?” And they don't understand the question. They're like, “well, it's cool,” and I'll ask them again, “what do you like about it?” And they have no answer.

And also I think it's uncool now to have opinions about things. It’s supposed to be “C’mon man, everything’s cool.” And in some ways it’s true, anyone making music, I think that’s terrific. But I don’t know how you would form any opinions and make anything of your own unless you have some definitive taste going on.

Yeah it’s definitely not cool to be critical these days.

Why is that?

I don’t know, it’s just not cool, you know. People just think you’re broadcasting bad vibes.

But that is bizarre. I mean, how else would you weed away the crap from the not-crap? I guess it just doesn’t get weeded away any more - it all falls together in one huge pile.

Alright, one last question and it’s the obligatory Austin question.

Okay.

There was a video on your blog of you and the band hanging out on Sixth Street after your Halloween show, amongst the humanity, and I just wanted to see what your fondest Austin memory was.

I’ve been to Austin maybe seven or eight times in this past couple of years, and I love it. I was seriously thinking of moving there. Until somebody told me it was a one night stand town and that you can’t find a serious relationship there. And then I just stopped thinking about it. It was between Austin and L.A. I don’t really want to go to L.A., because it’s L.A. But I’m really wanting someplace warm. I’m all done with New York.

You should move to Austin!

I’m thinking about it.

It’s not really a one night stand town…at least, not exclusively.

Well, that’s good to know. So, Austin is back in my mental Rolodex.