Music

Q&A: Marnie Stern talks about the single life and why her album sounds like Taylor Swift

by Nicole Villeneuve

It’s late in January and freezing cold in New York and Marnie Stern is having trouble adjusting. She’s been back just a few days from visiting family in Florida for two months, and it’s not only the weather, but the day-to-day tasks of groceries and banking that she has to catch up on before getting back into a routine of teaching guitar lessons for income.

It’s also a month before the release of her fourth album, The Chronicles of Marnia, and while she calls it the least personally painstaking record of her career, personnel was certainly an issue: longtime drummer and close collaborator Zach Hill moved on to focus on Death Grips full time (being replaced by Oneida’s Kid Millions), and, for the first time, Stern brought in an outside producer, Nicholas Vernhes, who pushed her far enough outside her comfort zone that she can’t listen to the album. She swears it sounds like Taylor Swift. (It doesn’t sound like Taylor Swift.)

We spoke with Stern about the scariness of trying new things, making no money, and her record label’s (public) efforts to find her a nice guy.

AUX: How are you feeling about the album?

Marnie Stern: It’s been good. For this album, I wasn’t going through anything painstaking. I was really searching, trying to find different styles. I found little pockets of new things, but that’s the thing about searching for style. It takes forever. You’re exploring, and that’s different than when you have your blueprint and you go in and do your songs. I still pay attention, and it just seems like, every time I release a record, I look around at what’s going on, and everything is so fast. It’s a little nerve-wracking. That was what it was about. It’s about inspiration, and where that comes from. Does it come from you? Is it a cop-out to say you’re not inspired by other bands? Things like that.

With the pace of the industry now, how do you keep up with the business side of that? Do you even try?

No. I think for a little bit I tried to look at it like, okay, this is my whole profession, so I need to look at it from that point of view. So I need to pay attention to things like that. But it just made me not want to do it anymore, so I stopped doing that (laughs). I feel that I’m pretty judgmental when it comes to music, but it got disheartening, and I don’t mean this in a condescending way, for there to be so much music and so many bands and links to click on to listen to stuff, and not liking any of it. The interesting thing is, I know that there are hundreds of bands that are terrific. It’s my fault for not digging deeper to find them. But because I don’t know them, it then makes me feel more isolated. When I put out my first record, there were all these bands I was listening to and they were on tour and I got to meet them and it was so exciting, and I wanted to be part of that pack or whatever. And I’m sure that’s still going on now with bands, but it just feels a little more separate. And it’s just a little lonely feeling.

And what about just being able to sustain yourself financially as a musician at your level? Do you worry about it?

I’ve given up that idea. That’s not going to happen for me. For the first couple of records I still had it in my mind, a hope that that would happen.  But that’s not going to happen. So I’m not upset about it, because I didn’t get into music for that reason. I feel like I’m hustling all the time to try to get some money, pay my rent, you know, the usual stuff. But because I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s like, part of me now. I’m always stressed about it, so now that’s my baseline, so I’m sort of not stressed about it. But I always figure it out.

Do you feel satisfied otherwise with your career?

Yes! I’m so fortunate.  So lucky. Most people who get to tour and do all this stuff say that, but I really feel lucky that I’ve been able to do my brand of music, being a little bit more quirky, that people have embraced me, and I really feel like, even though generally people don’t buy my stuff, they definitely support me. And I feel that. And that’s where you have to—or at least I have to—live from. You can’t do the comparison game. “Why is this person making money, they suck?” It’s always been that way. It is what it is.

I guess there’s a different kind of satisfaction in that.

And that’s really what keeps me going. All of my friends have gotten married and had kids and moved on with their careers and are in very settled, comfortable places in their lives now. The trade off for me is that I’ll get an email from someone saying that, you know, one of my songs helped them through a really tough time, and all that other stuff kind of falls away. You build your whole life around one thing, which I have, and I don’t have a lot of other stuff going on, so it becomes more important. That’s why, in the record, there’s a lot of worry about, “well, shit, if I can’t do this, if something were to happen and no one would want to listen to it or I couldn’t release it, what would I do?” It’s all I do. It’s all I have.

Have you taken any steps to build something outside of that? Almost a back-up? Practical or emotional?

No. And so I can’t really complain (laughs).

Well no, at least you’ve identified that! Then, you know, taking the steps…

I know! You’re right. You’re right. Listen. You’re right. It’s my fault!

That’s not even what I mean!

But it’s true! And it’s my fault. And that’s all it is, is putting myself outside my comfort zone, and I don’t do it. I just sit and play music all day. Which doesn’t help.

Some of the other stuff about this record: Zach wasn’t around for it. What did that mean for the album?

Everything with Zach has always been kind of magical. Everything always worked out really well. And so the stuff I had been doing, as I’d been progressing, it started becoming more and more gentle. It wasn’t as aggressive. And I knew that with Zach’s style, he’s an aggressive drummer, so I thought, you know what, maybe I’ll try something else. Because the stuff I was writing was just not as frenetic. He called me, and we were talking, and he said, “Look, I’m really trying to do this Death Grips thing full time.” So it worked out kind of perfectly. I’ve been working with [Zach] since I’ve been doing this. He’s been around as my touchstone, but it was good to try different stuff.

It almost seems as though, like you said, the aggression that Zach brought isn’t there, but Kid has definitely picked up the frenetic energy.

Oh yeah. He’s still a very busy player.

That’s sort of a good way to really broadly paint this album—kind of the same, but it’s turned down a little bit. Your guitars aren’t really up front this time.

Exactly. And also, it was difficult for me, but we took a lot of my guitar parts away. It’s hard for me to sometimes see the overall picture. I’ll get attached to certain guitar parts, the way they interlock together, and the way those two guitar parts fit with the way my voice was going. And I’ll be like, “Cool, I love it! That’s the best part!” And all the other people hear it and say, “What are you talking about? You have to remember the song.” So I had to argue a lot, and then let go of some of those things, like a tone I like, the chunkiness, a certain squiggliness. All these little, very specific things that I’ve become attached to.

Having someone else [producer Nicolas Vernhes] make choices is a new way for you to work.

Oh yeah. And I’m, just in general, a loud person. I’m a more-is-more person. Not less is more. And with the vocals, I still can’t really listen to it all. The things I like are not what other people would like, so he’s right. But to me, eugh. I like when I have all those voices going and they’re not in key, going in and out. And he wanted me to try to sing them properly. I’m not a singer-singer. I’m not trying to come across as one. That’s not my thing. So there’s a softness. There’s a whole thing that I thought it sounded like Taylor Swift. But I trust everybody that was there. All three people that were there were in agreement, so I had to say okay.

It’s easy to be hard on yourself.

Of course, yeah! But I truly don’t think it’s me being hard on myself. I think I’m being real. I think I have a good…I know what it sounds like (laughs). But it was hard for me to let go of so many things. My reaction when that’s going on is just to shut off. I’m kind of a brat. Like, “Fine! If you’re going to take that thing away, then forget it, do whatever you want, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.” A real baby. But I just tried to rise above it. It is something different.

Was the process so difficult that you wouldn’t do it this way again?

No, I would do it the same way. There’s kind of—I know this isn’t true, but in my mind, there’s a little bit of a saccharine quality. A cutesiness to this stuff that I’m less attracted to.

It’s prettier, I’d say.

Yeah, it’s pretty. And I’m not so big on pretty. I was writing them thinking I wanted to make pretty. But you want one thing, then you do it, and it’s ehhh. I can recognize that to be fickle and ridiculous.

What do you think of everything that happened with Death Grips over the past year?

I love [Zach] so much, so I’m so happy. There’s no one that worked harder or longer than him. Even though he’s a symbol to a lot of drummers, an underground hero or whatever, I am so happy that he’s getting some fricking recognition and some attention. I also know him, and I know that everything he does is from the most sincere, un-phony place. He’s crazy about music, and has a very strong sense of morality and ethics. What happened was not some publicity thing at all, and I think that probably would make him so upset to think that anyone would think that. I would imagine he thought that he wanted everyone to get the music, and everyone to hear it, without maybe thinking about the consequences about that. But more than anything, I just feel a very strong, deep connection to him that I will always have. He’s just so talented. If it were up to me, I would want him to be as big as they get. I don’t think he would want that, but I would love for tens of thousands of kids to go see him play every night.

I wanted to ask you about this date that you’re being set up on by your label.

I’m good friends with my publicist. I happened to break up with my boyfriend, who she knew, and we were talking about it, and I was like, “Aw I broke up with my boyfriend. Shit. What am I going to do?” She said she wanted to do something fun. I was going through all this stuff; my dog also got attacked in Florida, all this personal stuff was going on. So she thought, “How about win a date!” My label thought it was awesome. And I was just like, “Oh, god. That’s…no.” But they were so excited. So I said okay, I’ll do whatever you want. And that’s really how it went down. It’s all in good fun. And hopefully it’ll make for a fun story.

Are you going to take it actually seriously? What are you thinking?

I haven’t really thought about it! Now that you’re saying that, oh Jesus. I guess? I think they’re really trying to pick somebody real. So I guess I’m going to go on a real date, which in a way, I’ll get out of the house. That’s a positive thing.

I did get the impression that it wasn’t totally a joke.

No, that’s the matchmaker in them. “We’re going to find you someone!” But I think I said yes to it just because I feel like my life is sort of an open book, in a way. I’m always so open about everything that’s going on in my life. And I can’t meet anyone on my own, so, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try this. Maybe it’ll work!

Are you looking for a “settle-down” type relationship? Not even necessarily from this, but in general.

Yeah. And it’s hard when you’re on tour all the time. The only boyfriends I’ve had over the past bunch of years have been much older than me, and musicians, and they live it up, which of course is normal. I did, too. But I think it’s not even so much that I want to settle down, it’s that all of my friends are all settled down and they don’t hang out anymore! I have no one to hang out with! Maybe I just want a friend (laughs).

Win a single friend who can also hang out.

Yes! That’s better, really, when you think about it. That’s what I want. Yeah, they’ve all moved away or are just very busy with their children or lives. My life seems more childish to them. They just can’t really relate to it. So that’s where that whole thing came from.

Have there been weird reactions?

I don’t know, they’re not telling me anything! I think maybe a couple super-feminist people felt it was exploitative or something. But other than that, they said there were a lot of responses, which makes me feel great! That’s nice! When she first said she was going to do it I said forget it, if we don’t get one response, I’ll be so depressed! But, I guess I’ll try anything for love.

Stream Marnie’s Stern’s Chronicles of Marnia here, via NPR.