Saturday, December 27, 2008

a lass who can really sing - Laura Marling Interview

first published - 12th February 2008

I can’t tell whether she is being modest or she honestly doesn’t understand how popular she will be. I assure Laura Marling that this time next year she will have sold a boat-load of records and, for better or for worse, she will be really, really famous. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
Yet she must be aware of the following that is snowballing around the country. Perhaps when she first started seriously playing music a few years ago, she wouldn’t have expected it, but in the past six months her music has changed. Her fan base, having established itself will only continue to grow.
To those unfamiliar with her songs, she plays what could be described as folk music. Genre can constrain a musician but it does make it easier to describe, “I would call it folk for want of a better word, it's not really folk is it? I don't want it to be whiny bitchy girl music so…”
Her songs range from the hauntingly depressing to the strangely uplifting. Most have a prominent acoustic guitar with various layered percussion instruments. The one astonishing constant is her voice; a sound of such power and subtelty that it must be heard live to be believed. Her music is connecting with a growing number of people, she is going to be huge. I wonder if she wants that, “I'm not sure really. I was thinking about this today, I never wanted to be played on daytime Radio One. I never wanted that.” A bold statement from an up and coming act on a major label. This clearly isn’t her playing up to us, the alternative music press, mostly probably because she read partB for the first time last week. These seem to be the sentiments of a genuine musician. In an age where fame is craved, and success measured by how many magazine covers you’re on, it is nice to meet someone who will be wildly popular but simply wants to make her music. “I could certainly play in front of a hundred people for the rest of my life.”
So if it’s not coming from her, where does the pressure to be conventionally successfull come from? “It's not just the major label. It’s what people expect. People think that you want to be on daytime Radio One. People think you want to be famous. You feel that pressure to perform, that if you're not on daytime Radio One then you're not a success, but I don't want that!” Some could construe this as ungrateful, assuming that everyone on Radio One wants to be there. “When you first get started and people are making an effort to find out who you are that's really fun. You feel really appreciated as people come and look for your records. When you're on Radio One, snobby as it may sound, you're just being given to people.” Or even sold to people, “Yeah yeah exactly. I’m not gonna lie it can be pretty soul crushing. But you have no choice. They pick it up. You don't have to push yourself. Luckily I haven't been given to anyone yet.” It is only a matter of time though.
As her popularity grows she is starting to see that side of the musicians life that they leave out in the brochure. The endless promotion and plugging of your work. “I've never wanted to be interviewed by someone who doesn't know who I am and didn't want the interview that much, only it's their job. I've always been very selective with interviews.”
By the time you read this interview I suspect daytime Radio One listeners will be more than familiar with Laura Marling, although perhaps not with this beautiful philosophy, “At the end of the day who gives a fuck about what anybody else thinks?”
It would be easy to take what she says with a pinch of salt. The fact is quite a few of the songs she has made are quite radio-friendly. Although to be fair most of those songs were written much earlier in her career and she rejects a few of them now. At an in-store Laura did last week there were a lot of fifteen year old girls. A significant proportion were called Emily and a fair few asked her why she didn’t play “New Romantic” anymore. ‘New Romantic’ is a song that could have really pushed Laura Marling into the big time. It was a rather twee and fluffy acoustic number that was not bad but was hardly the most progressive folk music. I raised the topic of another of her old songs that long-time fans may look kindly upon, “London Town.” “It’s rubbish,” she tells me, I protest but she repeats herself, “Come on, I wrote that when I was fourteen, it’s rubbish.” I’m a little taken aback by such a brutal condemnation of her work but concede the ground. The truth is her early work was far from the finished article, but it demonstrated two things; she had an exquisite voice and a gift for poetry. She needed something else to propel her music to the next level, that something came in the form of one Charlie Fink.
Those that don’t take Laura seriously would do well to listen to Noah and the Whale. They are a grunge-folk band in which she plays and sings, although she doesn’t write for them. Their music has little danger of being played on Radio One any time soon. Arguably more optimistic than Laura’s music, Noah and the Whale with their complex array of ukulele, guitar, drums and other layered precussion produce a magnificent sound. Currently on indie label Young and Lost Club, they have recorded an album and are right now touring the UK. The single Five Years Time is out now and it is their happiest (if not their best) song. Laura describes Charlie as “incredibly talented”, and it isn’t that difficult to tell how much influence he’s had on her music. “Six months ago I'd never tried to put anything around my music. Then Charlie came in because I wanted him to produce it. We sat down and he said tell me what you want and I'll try and help you do it.” The melding of their formidable talents has resulted in something really rather special. After recording her four track EP My Manic and I, she went on to record her album, Alas I Cannot Swim, which is out now.
Alas I Cannot Swim is a phenomenal album. “Ghosts”, the first single is the opening number. It is beautifully subtle and hauntingly sad, every bar demands total attention from you. The other stand out track is “Cross Your Fingers”, a rather lovely but kind of bleak song. The one complaint I have with the album is that most of the tracks are played at a slower tempo than when she plays live. A speedier count would not have gone amiss, particularly on title track “Alas I Cannot Swim.”
The album is immediately trying to do something different and not just with its musical content. There are two versions available, one is a limited editon “Song Box.” It’s a big box which contains little mementos for each of the songs. They were designed by Laura wth artwork by Andrew Mockett. It looks quite similar to Joanna Newsom’s first album The Milk-Eyed Mender. There’s a board game, a little booklet with all the lyrics in, postcards and other delightful trinkets. It also contains a code to get a free ticket to the “Song Box tour.”
The idea for the Song Box was Laura’s. “My Dad was a sound engineer so I can’t stand downloads.” The cynic would probably put it that they’re simply trying to make more money. Whilst it is true this is an attempt to “scrape back people buying CDs,” it’s more about having a physical product. In terms of the mementos in the song box it is about “doing something special for people buying the album.”
Downloading is obviously seen as a problem by many people in the music industry. “It's weird because if I'd come in to this five years ago, this wouldn't be a problem.” Yet there are some interesting things happening to try and claw back those sales. The Song Box is one of them, in particular the idea of gig tickets is significant. It seems likely in the future a greater proportion of money will be made by live performances. Radiohead’s releasing of In Rainbows online in a pay-what-you-want format was a fantastic example of one way the industry could go. “That was a fucking cool idea, but they had the support of a record label for a good few albums. Fuckin’ well done to them though. Also they made more money out of the box that they sold.” ­
Laura gained a small degree of fame and notereity in October during a gig at the Soho Revue Bar. After being asked to leave the venue due to her being under 18, she performed an impromptu busking session. Her live performances, whilst not all as surprising as that, do defy expectations. There is no escaping the fact that she is quite a small person. With beautiful delicate features she refuses to wear make up on stage. Thus after a brief and unassuming intro to the crowd, when she unleashes her extraordinary voice upon them there is a certain air of disbelief that such a softly powerful sound is coming from such a diminuitive figure.
The 29th of January marked her first CD release. Previously the only format on which people could buy her music was vinyl. So even if she may disapprove, a significant number of fans have discovered Laura Marling on the internet. Youtube has become a wonderful way to discover music that artists don’t neccesarily have on their Myspace or on any peer to peer networks. This can only have helped Laura because the work done on her videos has been very impressive. James Copeman has worked closely with Laura on her videos. The video for her single Ghosts is particulary interesting. It features what looks like stop motion animation. I ask if she is involved with the videos much, “I wish I were. I just I have no vision like that. I’m completely useless at the visual things.” Yet Laura is basically obsessed with film. I ask her if Cloverfield is any good and I’m met with a scornfully patronising grimace any art school graduate would be proud of. Surely someone so interested in film should be part of the music video making process. “I'd like to, I just don't know enough. That's something I'm really interested in, something I wish I'd been offered at school. I might go on a film studies course.” So this leads me nicely on to the question of what Laura Marling’s going to do next.
First up she has the Song Box tour. The London date is on March the 6th at the Union Chapel but you need to buy the Song Box to get a ticket. She’s touring simultaneously with Noah and the Whale on their Young and Lost Club tour. I balk at the idea of her doing two tours at the same time. “I had this gig with them [Noah and the Whale] and it was meant to be my last gig with them but I couldn't really deal with that”
Having recieved a bass guitar for her birthday she’s already formed a punk band with Charlie Fink. A lot of commentators have mentioned the influence her dad had on her musical tastes, playing her various Neil Young records. However little lip service has been paid to how her Mum’s tastes affected hers. She says her mum is a huge punk fan and Laura adores punk. Although the one piece of music their band The 4Qs has recorded is “about as far from punk as you can get.”
She doesn’t yet know what direction her next album will go in. “That’s another thing that genre does, it confines you. I like the idea of doing something completely different on my next album... maybe plug-in.” There’d be more than one person shouting “Judas” on any future electric tour I reckon. Although with an electric guitar and a proper fuck-you attitude perhaps Laura would morph into this generation’s Debbie Harry.
The comparisons to her contemporaries made by some commentators range from the innaccurate to the frankly absurd. The only common denominator she can see is that rare quality of being female. At my suggestion of it being a London accent she swiftly reminds me that she doesn’t have a London accent but a Reading one. Of course the difference has nothing to do with accent nor indeed gender. “Honestly if anyone's actually heard my music I can safely say they won't seriously think that.”
Laura Marling is on top of a wave about to break. To ride it she will have to work hard and paddle furiously, to stay standing she must perform a remarkable feat of balance. Success is a must because alas, she cannot swim.

Alas I Cannot Swim is out now on EMI.

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