Kirstie Shanley
Marnie Stern
One of the hardest-working musicians in the biz, the shredder says persistence pays off with building a career from the ground up
By Rose Schapiro
Published: August 1st, 2007 | 2:04pm
When musician-songwriter and Kill Rock Stars artist Marnie Stern speaks, it’s with enthusiastic appreciation of philosophy and biographies.
Prior to the February 20, 2007, release of In Advance of the Broken Arm — one of a handful of albums the legendary record label picked up on an unsolicited demo’s merits — Stern and her best friend, Bella Foster, the painter behind the album’s cover art, embarked on self-taught cram sessions of art and philosophy. They hoped that these subjects would help them transcend the hard-to-crack New York social scene. “New York is a very difficult place,” Stern says just hours prior to the Chicago show on her summer 2007 tour. Stern comes across as friendly and casual but speaks quickly, repeating words and phrases in an intense stream that bring to mind the frenetic “finger-tapping” style of her guitar playing. “It’s such a rat race there,” she says of the city she grew up in. “It’s so unbelievably competitive. People only want to talk to you if you’re somebody. We were like, ‘Fuck this shit.’”
Like most emerging artists struggling to make a name in the Big Apple, the nadir of Stern’s frustration with the art scene is the daunting exercise of trying to do what she loves — in her case, playing music — while traversing the business side of her art in a city that prides itself as the dog-eat-dog capitol of both business and art.
As a musician, Stern shreds a guitar incredibly well. And as a songwriter — unlike her counterparts in slashing (which is maximized speed through technical prowess in guitar-speak) — her songs are exciting and concise with complex signatures and structures and delicate lyrics. She’s also one of the most determined female musicians out there: Only 10 years after she began playing, and she’s an infinitely better guitar player than most high school boys who’d been pumping out power chords since they were old enough to hold a Fender. Stern, however, is quick to point out that she doesn’t see her gender as an issue in her progress. “Every time I’ve gone to see a show, I’ve never thought, ‘That’s a girl playing the guitar,’ or, ‘That’s a guy playing the guitar.’ I just thought: ‘Shit, that band’s good; Shit, that player’s good; I gotta go home and play.’ I just wanted to get good,” Stern says.
Talent and ambition aside, Stern spent many of those first years in New York nervously dropping off demos, playing to virtually empty bars, and in the process, living life as a stereotypical New York artist. “I didn’t have a single outside thing. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a car, kid, money, anything. I felt so good, so confident, so happy, and self-fulfilled. And I just remember that being the best thing ever. But obviously, how do you keep that up forever and still make a living?”
To keep herself artistically focused during those years, Stern read Foster’s college art textbooks. “It was all theory, and there were no pictures in the whole thing,” she says. “I was like, ‘Are you crazy? You want me to read a 1,500-page book with no pictures?’”
Eventually, the study of art theory included the study of art practice. “I was giving Bella all of my music, and we were going to the museum twice a week,” Stern says. “We would read at least a book a week, usually two. We’d read philosophy books. It was nerd to the nerd, nerd, nerd. I’m sure it must have been really annoying. But then it really started helping. You start feeling rich inside.”
Stern readily cites reading about historic figures like Arthur Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, and Abraham Lincoln in articulating her renewed artistic drive since the days spent attempting to place her demos. She explains that she studies these figures and their work for inspiration. “It takes all the pressure away of the here and now because learning about history makes me more comfortable to take risks. When you have a bigger, broader scope, you’re not like ‘Maybe this will sound too much like this or that.’ You’re just like, ‘Fuck it’.”
For most of 2007, Stern is touring with Hella's Zach Hill on drums and the Advantage's Robby Moncrieff on additional guitar. The group is a giant leap forward from her last tour companion: a speakered iPod that Stern controlled while hammering out exceedingly complex guitar parts. She also practices every day, all day, except when on tour. “I get an iced coffee. That’s about the only time I leave the house,” she says. “Onstage you try to bump it up a little: moving around, shaking. But at home I’m a schlub.” She paraphrases Calvin Coolidge when asked how she stays so determined. “Diligence, hard work, and persistence are the only things that win the game in the end. That’s true.”
Her incredible work ethic has served her well — an album that condenses two years’ worth of songs came together in just two weeks (with Hill’s help, Stern notes, “we recorded a song a day, and that was it”), and her success hasn’t deterred her from looking toward a future of more touring, writing, and recording. Her life seems to have changed considerably from those early days of struggle: she has a record deal, a new critically acclaimed record, and a great collaborator in the energetic Hill (she cites Hella as her favorite band). She’s also garnered a slew of enthusiastic fans. It’s probably why she’s smiling genuinely when she says of her life now, “It’s great. It could not be better.”
Issue #35
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