by Alan Pedder | view as PDF

With two truly extraordinary albums already under her belt, 25 year old balladeer Marissa Nadler has been bewitching audiences all over the globe with her unique blend of literate old time Americana. Alan Pedder caught up with her over email to talk about her latest project...

You describe your new record as “psychedelic Carter Family meets Leonard Cohen”, a description that makes me infeasibly excited to hear it. It’s also shaping up to be your most personal to date, as you’ve done away with the character shows that characterised your first two records. Was that inspired by a preoccupation with real events or have you simply outgrown your need for escapism, however temporarily?
Well, I think that to the outside listener, people thought that Mayflower May (a prevalent character in my first two records) was an imaginary person, as with my other characters (Mr. John Lee, Henry, Lilly, Mary, etc...). Yet, they were strongly representative of people in my life, drawing parallels, but perhaps meeting different fates. Therefore, many of the characters were iconic, and the songs were acting like parables. Writing with fictional names freed me up to have more leeway in how I wrote about people I loved, lost, etceteras. On the new record, I simply have stopped using ‘stage names’ for my friends, perhaps to feel more connected to them. I would never have called the early writings escapism, but rather an exercise in what happens when creative writing meets non-fiction. Now, it seems my song writing has tilted the pendulum towards the non-fiction arena.

I know the negative connotations of the singer-songwriter label are something you are wary of, and the first two records have neatly sidestepped traditional singer-songwriterisms by virtue of their anachronistic, fantastical themes. With this album, how did you go about bringing personal stories to the fore whilst still maintaining your stance?
The production alone on the new record is so removed from the vein of the traditional singer-songwriter that it is not a worry to me. The harmonies and synth tracks take it into a very psychedelic prism and my affinity towards a bit of effect on my voice also puts it into more into the ‘realms of the unreal’. I must say that although the songs are more personal, they are more melancholic and fatalistic than ever, and perhaps have more weight now that they are based completely in reality. They are songs about dying friends, lost love, the same thematic and aesthetic sensibilities will always run along the rivers of my creative veins. A very young friend of mine recently passed away, and his vanishment from this earth made such an impact on me than almost every song is about him, and about where our spirits might travel to posthumously. As for the singer-songwriter trappings, I did not mean to dismiss the genre, yet only to state that I see myself aiming towards a different goal. I wouldn’t think it would be far fetched that you might see me in the future in a sideshow troupe kind of band. I have always loved circus performers. Oh, I am getting sidetracked. Well, regardless of what genre music falls into, I think a good song is a good song, although everything is always subject to taste. I think as I get older, I am less fearful of being categorised and pigeonholed, and my focus is less on what kind of image I am putting forth and more about the songs, the music and connecting with people.

Whatever happened to your character Flora Barone, Queen of the Vaudeville Show? Is she still gonna get a record of her own someday? Her eponymous theme song has whetted many appetites for more of her exploits!
Yeah, I really like to sing that song, but it is an entirely fictional story. A friend and me wrote the song one night, with the goal of trying to write the most horrible things that could ever happen to one person in a lifetime: she buries her daughter, her husband, her mother, and her life, clinging on to the strand of hair her mother gave her. Now that you mention it, I might throw it on the new one and dedicate it to you. Now that I think of it, this is still kind of about one of the first questions, I suppose reading fiction and non-fiction books can be equally moving and life changing. I felt just as moved reading Patrick Suskind’s Perfume or Nabokov’s Ada as I did reading a book like Natural History Of The Senses, by a great non-fiction writer Diane Ackerman. It is strange that in the songwriting field, people seem to favour soul-baring memoirs to a moving moral fictional story.

Your new album was co-produced with Greg Weeks of Espers. You two have been friends for a while, right? How did the collaboration come about?
I met him while I was on tour with Nick Castro and Josephine Foster, which was my first time touring maybe almost two years ago now. We went down to Philadelphia, where Greg and the other Espers live.  I really liked him immediately.  I thought it would be a fruitful marriage of his technical savvy and vintage recording equipment and my technically intuitive approach to have him co-produce the record. Especially when he has so many great musicians hanging around his house.

From your description, it seems that you’ve really tried to experiment more with your sound. Your first two records were mostly very spartan, with few obvious overdubs. With this album, have you enjoyed being able to indulge more in your love of vocal arrangements? What other things have you tried?
I think I have grown more confident with trying out more daring harmonies. I was so shy and lacking in confidence throughout so much of my life that it takes a lot to get the guts up to exercise my instincts in a studio setting. But, I have tried a lot of harmonies, and lots of synths really. Helena [Espvall, Espers' cellist] adds a lot of string sections and they really do add an Eleanor Rigby kind of vibe or something.

Your five-part harmony cover of Famous Blue Raincoat sounds incredible, and it’s such an amazing song. The depth of tragedy that goes on in human relationships... you rarely hear a better distillation of that in a song than this one. I know you’ve been almost a lifelong fan of Cohen, but what drew you to this song in particular? Which of the three characters, if any, do you most identify with?
I really like the album Songs Of Love & Hate. There is a rawness to it, like he is on the brink of madness. When the album opens with Avalanche, you know you are in for a ride through the depths of his subconscious workings. Famous Blue Raincoat is one of my favorite songs off of that record. I have been covering it for years, but for recording it, I decided to try something really different. I think I identify most with Cohen’s character, the narrator, in that he lives in nostalgic times. And I always seem to get myself involved in sordid situations like he does in that song.

I read that Bob Dylan was another big influence of yours. What do you think of his latest forays into exclusive deals with Starbucks and that Victoria’s Secret underwear ad? Isn’t it sort of depressing? I’d rather he did a Joni Mitchell and denounce the cesspool of the music industry and indignantly retire than sully his reputation.
Yeah. Well, I suppose I feel like he has already proved himself to be a major contributor to the collective consciousness of generations, so if he wants to get some free lingerie for his lady friends, so be it. He was really revolutionary to modern music and songwriting and to a whole movement. I guess I feel like he deserves a get out of jail free card. I suppose that making your music available at Starbucks and the girls that shop at Victoria’s Secret might change some lives. Maybe Bob will have such an influence on them that they will stop wearing expensive bras and lingerie, and focus on what’s really important. I am just playing the devil’s advocate. I mean, of course I think it is “depressing.” Kind of betraying, but I feel like anything Bob does is cool. Maybe he wants to take the money and buy a bungalow in Tangiers, and write one last great album, á la Blood On The Tracks or something.

When we first spoke, you described yourself as a “closet righteous babe”. It’s really interesting that none of the women who are coming up through this whole anti-/alt-/acid-folk 'movement' really associate themselves with any sort of feminist message. For instance, when Joanna Newsom sings “when you go away/ I am big boned and fey” or “your skin is something that I stir into my tea”, it’s almost the opposite, like it’s almost too romantic to bear (in a good way). And maybe that’s why all the times I’ve seen her play, the male:female audience ratio is perhaps five times that of any Ani DiFranco show. Is feminism still scary?
I guess the new feminism is not to be anti-men, but to be strong, accomplished and feminine. You mention Joanna Newsom. She is an amazing musician and has major songwriting chops, and she is a self-made woman, yet she allows herself to be feminine. Regina Spektor, the CocoRosie girls, there is a whole new breed. When CocoRosie sing “to be your housewife”... I know that song caused a lot of speculation by people that thought it was degrading. It is ok for a woman to yearn for domesticity, and ok and modern to play house, as far as I am concerned. The fact that they are attractive and girly yet powerful is I think what impresses the men, and why the male audience is so drawn to Joanna Newsom. Wonderwoman was hot. And she got things done.  I am not saying you need to be attractive, but instead of hiding it, you should embrace it. I am probably also way too 'romantic' to bear, with pre-Raphaelite hair and gowns, singing about lost love like a damsel in distress. But, that is my choice. To be a woman that is successful in her career and also feminine, romantic, and unashamed of that; that is as feminist to me as the older version, which seems to have grown a bit antiquated of late. It’s like those stitch and bitch parties, where liberal woman who fancy themselves ‘feminists’ are going back to the kitchen, and saying its ok. Where a bunch of liberal young girls with leftist leanings will get together and knit. It seems strange, what happened to fighting for the cause? But embracing femininity to me is the new kind of feminist.

While we’re on the subject of feminists, let’s talk about Anne Sexton, whose poem Her Kind you’ve set to music on the new album. What drew you to that particular piece?
I have always loved that poem. It talks of madness and forays into the dark depths of humanity. I studied the poem in school, and there is some elusive Holocaust imagery in the lines, “I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, and woman like that is not afraid to die.” I found the poem very moving, and I am hoping I am allowed to put the song on my record. I have to look into it.

This adaptation is the latest of your adventures in setting poems to music. The Pablo Neruda and Edgar Allen Poe pieces on Ballads Of Living & Dying are exceptional, really stop-in-your-tracks fantastic. I read in an old interview that you were drawn to these writers whose private lives were troubled and tragic. Does that influence your enjoyment of Sexton’s poems?
Yes. I like the morbid, tragic characters. What can I say. There is this website I go to sometimes, called poets.org. It has listening booths where you can listen to great poems by great poets. Anne Sexton reads Her Kind. Her voice is so troubled, and so gravely. I suppose I am just as drawn to her troubled life as I am to her poetry.

Some of my favorite poetic adaptations are Björk’s e.e. cummings tracks and an Emily Dickinson poem that Natalie Merchant recorded, Because I Could Not Stop For Death. Beautiful! Do you have any faves?
Marianne Faithful doing Annabelle Lee maybe. I hope I got that right.

OK, let’s talk about the artwork for the record. I read that you were thinking of putting together a more collaborative effort, perhaps with contributions from your mum and your friends. How’s it looking?
It’s looking good. I want to use my friend Rachel Mosler’s artwork for the cover if she lets me, and my mother’s painting somewhere also.

I’m really looking forward to catching your European tour with Jana Hunter in May. Do you see her as a bit of a kindred spirit? Aside from the fact that you both use a fair bit of reverb on your vocals. Are there any other female artists you feel an affinity for?
I love Jana’s music, especially the song All The Best Wishes. Patti Smith, Nico, Joni Mitchell, Clara Rockmore, the Portuguese fado singers, Odetta, Elizabeth Cotton, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Maybelle Carter. I don’t know. I like the old stuff, you know?

You used to be quite reticent about performing. Are you at a stage now where that’s become a lesser issue than the other less endearing aspects of touring? What do you enjoy most about your travels? Is there anywhere you’re just dying to get back to?
I am getting better but still have major issues. I don’t know how long I am going to be able to tour, it takes such a toll on me in terms of nerves. I still have major stage fright. People always tell me I look really nervous on stage. I might go back to Greece. I really loved it there. The slow pace of life, and such a sense of culture that is profoundly lacking in the US.

Finally, a life without sadness is...?
A life without art.