"Rewarding Like Poetry:" Marissa Nadler Talks Upcoming Record, 'New Radiations'
- Anaïs Turiello
- 8 minutes ago
- 9 min read
With her tenth record, New Radiations being set to release this August, Marissa Nadler is not new to the game. But what listeners have come to learn with each body of work she creates, is that each release stands to be hauntingly unique and refreshingly unparalleled. With complex lyrics following, for example, storylines of murder and intrigue paired with almost mythical melodies, Nadler guides us through a world not yet explored by us, but profoundly familiar to her. It is comforting and disquieting all at once. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter has vocals that reverberate down to your bones, and one can tell that that was indeed the intention. Gothic and ghostly yet profound and prolific, Nadler pulls listeners into a web where they will happily remain.
Ahead of her upcoming and highly anticipated release, Nadler sat down with Tonitruale to discuss New Radiations, her upcoming tour, her writing process, and more.
This being your tenth studio album, in what ways would you say your upcoming record New Radiations differs from your past releases?
Each record is different from the others because they're different songs, you know, although I'm the same person, so there's [going to] be threads that run through each one like my voice and guitar playing. I would say the style of writing is definitely different from the record that came before it and that it's much more introspective and raw and personal. And even if there are some songs about other people, they are kind of about both other people and myself finding parallels in the lives of other people. I think it's probably my most stripped-down record since my early work, sonically. Early work, meaning the first five records up to July, or so.
The acoustic guitar is a medium heavily relied upon in your sound. How would you say it elevates your work or rather aids in the artistic message you are trying to convey?
It's been a prevalent in a few of the records. The one before this didn't have my acoustic guitar at all—it was mostly other people playing the instruments. And so, I consciously wanted to make a return to that connection with the one instrument that I play well. I mean, I can play piano, but not very well, and it's just part of my vocabulary, I guess. It's like as if I was a writer with a pen or I'm also a painter, so it's just one of the ways of how I write songs. I was drawn to it at an early age around the time I was a teenager, because I was very into grunge music and very into Riot Grrrl and punk and then my mother was tired of [that]. She wanted me to listen to some other stuff, so she got me into Joni Mitchell and Carol King and Leonard Cohen around my senior year of high school, and it really made me fall in love with that kind of music and the rest is history there.
You directed the music video for recent single ‘Hatchet Man.’ What was that process like?
It was super fun. I've done the videos before but this would be [my] fourth official music video. I did the stop motion for 'All The Colors Of The Dark', which took forever. I'm really proud of that one. These last two, I'm really proud of too—New Radiations and this one. And because I went to art school instead of normal school, the visual art life has never gone away from my life, even if it's not what I'm most known for. I still paint and draw every day. I teach art when I'm not on tour. So, making the video is just kind of the combination of all of the things that I really like to do. I think filmmaking is kind of, not to put art forms and a hierarchy because they're all equally great, but it is one of the ones that I'm the most interested in because it uses photography, music, writing— all these things, all at once. So, I made it in this room. I film with one of those old opaque projectors and shadow puppets. I shot myself which I normally don't do [because] when I've had other people take videos of me, I don't really like the way that they see me as much.
Do you plan on directing more in the future for this album?
I think it would be cool to make one for every song on this record because this record is not a singles record or a pop record, it's really a start-to-finish kind of piece. And so, it would be interesting if the videos were all filmed by me because it's a personal record and it's more personal to make your own videos. It gives this different connection to the song. I think people's comments on the videos have been different than in the past where I would hire a friend or something to make a video and never be in the videos, which is probably not the smartest thing for my career. My parents ask, 'why aren't you ever in your videos?' and there are a lot of reasons for that. But this seems to be connecting to people slightly differently.
What does your lyrical writing process look like?
I really worked very hard on these lyrics. I go hard with everything, which is probably why I'm sick in the middle of the summer right now. I had some entry points with these lyrics, but the songs didn't really end up about what I started writing them about. The first one, I use narrative devices just as kind of a way into a song and then I'll decide what it's about later instead of saying, 'I'm going to write a song about somebody flying around the world.' It's more of a way to talk about the themes of the records. There are some interesting influences in the lyrics. 'To Be The Moon King,' which is one of my favorite songs on the record, is inspired by the father of modern rocketry, Robert Goddard. I was just reading this article about him, how he spent his whole life trying to get the rockets to go up in the sky, basically to sum it up. It's a lot more complicated than that. They just described him as a tinkering endlessly, toiling away in obscurity and very I'm drawn to that being a solitary artist type where I find often myself just toiling away for years on something. My point is that these songs, some of them are about specific people or about universal themes. So, the first song on the record, it hits harder. It's inspired by the first woman to fly around the world's solo initially, but it's really about trying to get over somebody. Like, "I will fly around the world just to forget you," is the first line of the record. And the last song on the record is also about saying goodbye to somebody. So, if somebody takes the time to spend with the record, I think the themes are pretty not too hard discern but also, I allow people to be able to read a book, for instance, and decide what the character looks like in their own head, or what a song means without being told. Which is why my generation was lucky; I had an analog childhood. I really didn't know what any musicians looked like, other than the CD or the tape booklet and didn't know anything really about what the songs were. And nowadays you can read interviews and know everything about somebody. It's different.
Much of your music is recorded and produced in Nashville. How does creating in such a legendary musical city influence your process?
Well, just to clarify it, I'm kind of a national transplant. I've been here for five years, so my last two, full length records, plus a few EPs have been here. Before that, I'd identify as a New Englander from Boston. I went to school in Providence and lived there forever-- in between Providence, New York City and Boston. I moved to Nashville; It is really different. I don't think it's affected my musical taste whatsoever, but I'll say that the ease of life, living in a more low-key place, and the cost of living enables me to spend more time on my art. I'm not into modern country, but I like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and older than that, like Elizabeth Cotton. But I don't go down to Broadway and I don't go to the Honky Tonks. I've met a lot of cool people here that are also transplants that came for the same reason. It's a liberal enclave within a red state, and if anything, it's been really weird for me to leave Boston, which is one of the most liberal cities in America, and come to a red state. Luckily all the people that I've met are weirdos and cool artists. I'll say one thing about [Nashville], you can go to any bar, anywhere in Nashville and the level of musicianship out of just anybody, not just people playing country, like jazz, blues, folk, rock—it's insane. It's been cool so far. I'm not going to stay here forever, though. I want to move back to the New England area eventually because it matches my darkness more, I think.
Later this year you will embark on a European and UK tour, with North American dates soon to follow. What are you looking forward to the most with this tour?
Well, actually, one of the reasons that I did make a stripped-down record was how tough the last one was to put on tour. You know, when you have a record with drums and stuff, you can't just hop into a small minivan or something and go from city to city. You need the big sprinter or a bigger van. It's a different kind of operation. So many people would tell me after those shows, 'you know, I really like you better stripped down,' which was frustrating to hear because I was funding this big operation. But I kind of agree in a way. Some of my favorite music is really raw and stripped down and if I liked an artist, I'd probably, really like to see them in that state. I'm looking forward to taking my partner on tour. His name is Milky, and he plays a lot of the other instruments in the record, besides the acoustic guitar. So, he did the synth and the steel, and it's just us two. It's going to be very cool to just have it be pretty much like a road trip that lasts for four months. Because I think the U.S. tour is going to be substantially longer than in the past. It's about three months long, every city. It should be fun. If I don't survive it or, I mean, knock on wood, but if it becomes too hard because it gets harder as you get older, I'll just figure it out. And then after that, I'm in a band now with my partner and this guy from that band Tangerine Dream, which is a seminal electronic band from Germany and Austria. He wrote me on Instagram, and we've made a record. I'm really looking forward to singing in that band after the solo stuff where all I have to do is sing. Holding down the fort the whole show is a whole different thing. It's a lot of pressure. Just singing while somebody else does that, it's easier.
Having such a lengthy discography, do you find it difficult, or rather do you find yourself running into creative blocks when trying to create something new? How do you overcome it?
Except for the very first record you do hit creative blocks, always. And I've tried a bunch of different things over the years to, just different writing exercises. My record Strangers was written entirely with the cut-up method. I would use it first and then write from the sentences that I did with that method. The record before this was very much inspired by certain unsolved mysteries episodes. You want to be able to be inspired enough to write something. It doesn't really matter what it's about or where it's coming from. Over the years, there's been waves. I think creativity in general just comes and you can't expect to treat it like a day job. When I've tried that, it hasn't worked, when I've said, I'm going to write nine to five, like I'm in the Brill Building, it hasn't necessarily been the most fruitful writing as opposed to when you feel that urge to a certain material. Like when Dolly Parton wrote 'Jolene', I think she wrote it out of a place of necessity or anger. Certain songs are easier to write. I just keep trying to make authentic music, you know? With this record, I've joked, it's my slowest and saddest record and that's a huge accomplishment compared to my other records because they're all slow and sad.
What can fans expect with upcoming record, New Radiations? What will surprise them?
I really think every song is as good as the next one. Like, there isn't one that I would cut from it, and there isn't one that I would say was the obvious lead single or anything. My record labels both had input, and I have to listen to them on that, because they have a promote the record. But I'd expect people to listen to it and realize it's a record that you should listen to maybe more than once, hopefully. Slow burn and they'll be rewarding like poetry and on multiple listens, hopefully, for people. I think that, especially my fan base will like it a lot, but either way, I try to live without expectation these days. You can't go crazy expecting everybody to love everything you do, but I think they should expect to hopefully love the record as much as some other records.