a leap forward and a new chapter for the trio`s riveting

MARRIAGES
Words: Andreia Alves // Pictures: Nick Fancher
Emerging in Los Angeles in
2011 as a project between
members of Red Sparowes
and The Nocturnes,
Marriages are a band of three
talented musicians that bring
an atmospheric post-punk
and post-rock vibe into their
songs. In 2012 they released
their debut EP Kitsune,
showcasing their promising
and fierce music, but it's with
Salome - their debut album,
out in April - that their most
ethereal and captivating
tunes are revealed. We
had the pleasure to talk
with the lovely Emma Ruth
Rundle about their first
full-length and everything
that came in between.
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music&riots
April
A LEAP FORWARD
AND A NEW
CHAPTER FOR
THE TRIO’S
RIVETING AND
NOSTALGIC
SOUND...
47
INTERVIEW // MARRIAGES
T
hanks for
talking with us again and this time
around regarding the release of
Marriages’ amazing debut album!
How are things with you?
It has been an adventure. [laughs]
You know, busy doing a lot of music
and art stuff, so it’s good!
How do you feel now that you are
about to release the album?
I feel relieved. I’m very happy
that this record is finally coming
out. It’s been a long time as you
probably know, since we released
Kitsune. We did a lot of touring on
that record, but I’m very happy
that this is finally coming out.
In January, Marriages were on
tour with Helms Alee and you
guys played the new songs from
Salome. How were the first
reactions regarding the new
songs?
People seem to really like the new
songs a lot. It’s always amazing to
me to be in a band where people
even know your music, you know?
It’s an honour that people listen
and recognize things and to have
somebody coming up and say “Oh,
I love the new song” or “That’s a
new song”. The feedback that people are listening and know what’s
new and what’s old makes me feel
very humble. People seem to like it
and I do think it’s different music.
The first single “Skin” is having a
lot of great feedback and listening
to the whole record it feels like a
leap forward for the band.
Yeah, it does feel like a step up
or a step forward. It’s a step in a
different direction I guess. You can
definitely feel the post-rock Red
Sparowes’ influence a lot more in
Kitsune and what’s happening since
then you can hear in the music.
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April
It’s been almost a year since you
released your debut solo album
Some Heavy Ocean and it was
one of the best records of 2014
for us. It must had been a busy
year for you with touring your
solo album and finishing
Marriages’ album. Were you
expecting such amazing feedback from all that?
The song that premiered (“Skin”)
I had no idea it would get so good
response and that really blew
my mind. I was very surprised
and grateful, obviously. With
Some Heavy Ocean I really wasn’t
expecting that it would be any
response. I thought that record
would just sort of come out as I
like to record and release music,
regardless of a potential audience
or not. It’s just you keep working
and keep making work, making
music and making art as a solo
artist and musician. So, with Some
Heavy Ocean I wasn’t expecting
anything at all, really, and the
response and the fact that had
been reviewed so much and people seemed to have talked about
it and people coming out on tours
was a great surprise. It’s been
really lovely, but with Marriages I
was expecting to have a little bit
more of an impact just because
how successful Red Sparowes have
been as a band. I think it was
easier for us to gain some traction
as a brand new band because of
our history together as musicians,
so I wasn’t surprised when there
was a sort of built audience for
Kitsune. I think it’s difficult for
any band to go a number of years
without releasing any new material and it’s very easy to fall into
obscurity. Luckily, I believe that
the listeners who are listeners of
Sargent House’s bands, listeners of
the kind of music that Marriages
make - which I would say it leans
towards maybe some heavier and
heartier music - and those people
are very faithful and they’re
really listeners. It’s never gonna
be flavour amongst types of music
or projects, so I am surprised by
the initial response to what we’ve
released so far, but I have to say
that I was definitely more
surprised by the solo record
coming out and getting such a
good response. I look forward to
what happens when the whole
record comes out. [laughs]
You guys released Kitsune EP in
2012 and it’s been a long time
since you released new material,
so it must be really thrilling to
"It's easier to use mythologies or stories as
a key to describing things that happened in
one's personal life, I guess."
release new music with
Marriages. How did you approach
the writing process for Salome
and how was it overall?
It was a long process to the way
we wrote Kitsune, which we sort
of did it in a linear fashion, so we
literally started that record with
the first note and wrote it all the
way through from beginning to
end. With Salome, it’s really more
of a song based album and I don’t
know when we actually started
writing songs that haven’t ended
up on that record. I mean, we
wrote a lot of songs over the last
three years and many of which
have just fallen into the abyss and
some of which ended up on the
record. It was very different than
Kitsune, more of a formal band
sort of process, you know?
Having Andrew [Clinco, drummer]
involved in the band, and he’s
a permanent member now, has
changed the dynamic and I think
it’s been helpful to write more
structured songs. That was
definitely a goal for the record
which was to write more traditionally structured songs versus
the long sort of meandering thing
that was the first release.
Do you approach each one of
your projects with a different
mindset or is it something that
just occurs naturally either if it’s
Marriages or Red Sparowes or
even your solo project?
Probably a little bit of both of the
things that you’ve mentioned.
Every project is very different. I
think when you’re writing music
as a group, there’s a chemistry
and a confluence of tastes,
feelings and styles that come
together and that’s what creates
a band. I definitely don’t write all
the music for Marriages and it’s a
group effort, so that’s very different than writing solo music
which it’s mostly just sitting
around hopefully alone [laughs]
and playing guitar... and so it’s
different. With Red Sparowes it
was different, even more different
in the sense of just sort of getting
to contribute in a smaller way. It’s
nice to have less responsibility.
[laughs]
Listening to Salome, we get this
gloomy nostalgia of the 80’s and
90’s post-punk and post-rock
blended with shoegaze. What
were your main musical and
non-musical influences while you
were writing this album?
Honestly, I think there’s a lot of
exactly of what you said. I would
call nostalgic indulgence in this
record for all of us. It’s the music
that we grew up listening to and
that’s the music you grow up
playing like the 90’s stuff, postpunk and shoegaze music, which
had a huge effect on me personally
and I can speak for Andrew at least
in that way, so... just kind of going
back to the things that you know...
You know how you grow up and you
listen to so much that it’s nostalgic
and it becomes a physical response
that you have to the music. It’s
not analytical, not trying to push
boundaries or write something...
Just writing from what feels
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INTERVIEW // MARRIAGES
familiar I suppose, at least in the
musical way. I think lyrically the
content has a different story... But
musically, I agree with what you
said.
As we talked earlier, there’s definitely a big leap forward between
Marriages’ two releases. Would
you say that Kitsune was only
an early stage of Marriages and
Salome is what the band’s sound
truly is?
I don’t know... If it takes another
three years for us to make a record, maybe we’ll sound different.
I think there’s something about
this record that is a little closer
to something familiar to all of us,
some kind of nostalgic home, but I
like the idea of Marriages just being
a group of people that come together and can write music without
having to limit to any genre or to
any goal like we never get together
and say “Let’s write this kind of
song”. There were restrictions in
that and we wanted to make it
more of a vocally focus record,
because Kitsune wasn’t, the vocals
were more hidden... So in a sense,
I could agree that this is what we
sound like, but I don’t know what
we’ll sound like and I don’t know
what the next record will sound
like, but I hope to have the
freedom to change.
opinion, as we witnessed on
Some Heavy Ocean as well. How
was it like to write the melodies
and lyrics for Salome?
Well, it was a combination of
things because we wrote the songs
over a period of time and it was
not a short period of time, it
was sort of spread out and with
Kitsune we wrote that really
quickly. The vocals came
afterthought and some of the
songs of Salome the vocals ended
up being an afterthought... I guess
what I’m trying to say is the voice
is an instrument and some of the
songs are difficult to sing. They’re
very high in my register, so
sometimes I wish I could go back
and change the key that I played
the songs in. [laughs] The vocal
melodies seemed to come easily.
Writing lyrics for this record
was... I guess writing lyrics in
general can just be hard to do,
because the way that I feel about
writing lyrics is usually something
to do with the subject matter that
impacts you in a way, so having
to kind of feel those things and
make them tangible and then
putting them into words can be
frustrating, but also maybe a little
painful.
Yeah, something like that.
[laughs]
[laughs] I don’t know... That’s an
interesting question. That would be
a great question for Greg [Burns,
bassist] [laughs] because he plays
pedal steel in Red Sparowes and
bass guitar. I know that me and him
have discussed in the past his
feeling about bringing that instrument and I can’t remember if
that’s something he just doesn’t
want to do now... I don’t really
foresee us bringing in other instruments. Maybe someday another
guitar player, but I don’t think
we’re ever gonna incorporate
anything. No strings section, no
saxophone solos. [laughs]
The title Kitsune for your EP
had a particular meaning. Does
Salome have one too?
Yeah. Well, there’s a song on the
record called “Salome” and the
artwork that we had done for the
record paired with the song, so
it just made sense to name the
whole record Salome. There’s
the story of Salome... The story
of this woman who does basically
a public sensual act - this dance
that she does - the result of which
ends up being St. John to be
beheaded. That story resonates
with me for some personal
reasons. [laughs] I just found that
it was a character and a story
that I could identify with like a
transparency over something else
and see how things make sense
and line up. It’s easier to use
mythologies or stories as a key to
describing things that happened in
one’s personal life, I guess. It was
all just taken with that story and
the imagery is really strong and it
goes along with it as well.
Talking about instruments, your
voice as an instrument is also an
essential part of Marriages’ music,
standing out even more in Salome
than in Kitsune. It’s more
expressive and diverse in my
So, is it you in the photo of the
cover art?
Yeah. It was a collaboration
between me and Greg, so we kind
of have the concept and I’m in the
photograph painted in white. I
Do you think that in future songs
you will experiment more instruments in your music?
Like different instrumentation, like
adding a flute player? [laughs]
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April
painted myself white [laughs] and
Greg did the photo and he
developed the editing of it. I
guess it’s a collaboration, but
at the same time is Greg’s art. I
really enjoy that we kind of have
this relationship.
You worked with engineer Tom
Biller (Elliot Smith, Silversun
Pickups, Fiona Apple) on the
recording process in California.
What can you tell about that
process?
We sat with him in the studio
about a year ago. Every record
that I’ve ever made or have been
part of making has been vastly
different, so no two experiences
have ever been alike or even
really too similar. We made Kitsune with Toshi Kasai who also did
Aphorisms, the Red Sparowes EP,
and he’s an absolutely wonderful
person and wonderful engineer/
producer. Our label mates, Indian
Handcrafts are working with him
now and so we chose to work
with someone different just as an
experiment to try a different
sound. The recording process
was... I don’t know if I’m the best
person to ask, I think everything is
difficult [laughs] and I have a hard
time sitting in the room. It always
stresses me out. There are people
who really love recording, I’m not
really one of those people. I like
things to be on my own terms,
so I wanna wear my pajamas and
take forever to do everything, but
I think we spent 10 days recording
the basic tracks, then vocals and
very few overdubs in the following
months. Then, the mixing process
took quite a while. I wish I could
give you some juicy inside stories,
but there’s nothing really exciting.
[laughs]
Is there a favorite song of yours
off of this record for you?
I love “Salome”. There’s this
song on the record called “Under
Will” but it used to be called “For
Paris” and it’s a song that I had for
a long time and I’m very surprised
that it ended up on the record.
It’s sort of a special song to me.
I’ve written it for a friend of mine
that I used to play in a band with
called Nocturnes, so it’s funny
how that kind of made its way
into Marriages’ record.
I read that you are working on
demos for a new solo record.
Can you give any further details
about that?
Yeah. [laughs] It’s not gonna be a
"I guess writing lyrics in general can just be hard to do,
because the way that I feel about writing lyrics is usually
something to do with the subject matter that impacts
you in a way..."
huge breakaway from Some Heavy
Ocean. It’s probably gonna be
in the same world, doing a lot
of these demos here in my
computer using very much the
same techniques that we used to
make Some Heavy Ocean... just
recording guitars directly into
computers and using electric
guitar, acoustic guitar, layering
with ambient textures and kind
of right now programming some
drum stuff, but I think if I could
say something about what it would
be like, it’ll probably be very
similar in the same world. Not
gonna be releasing a punk record
anytime soon. [laughs]
Last time we talked, we talked
about your paintings and how
important that outlet is for you.
Are you currently working on
a new painting that you wanna
share with us?
Yeah, I am. Thank you for asking.
I haven’t done anything for a long
time. I sort of switched over from
the blog. I have a website that I
try to integrate the blog into and
I stop sort of posting things like
smaller projects and I was only
posting sort of larger bodies of
work and things that I thought
were more professional... I was
sort of leaving all the doodles and
all the things that I used to post.
Right now, I just started doing
these drawings with charcoal, big
drawings on newsprint and they
want to do a bunch of those. I had
finished a series of artwork and I
released a little book called
Aberration. I hadn’t put the book
up online, but I’ll put it up soon.
I was just taking it on tour with
me, but it’s a collection of
drawings of infants and it’s kind
of hard to really describe... It’s
sort of a slightly disturbing book,
so that’s one thing that I had
finished, and then just the
charcoal drawings. I have some
other ideas, but I’m really
focusing on art right now.
www.facebook.com/MUSICandRIOTS.Magazine
Salome arrives
on April 6 via
Sargent House
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