Singer-songwriter Luke Marzec talks about his debut studio album “Something Good Out Of Nothing (Part A).”
How did you approach the song selection process of your debut album?
I love the Charlie Chaplin ethic/process that I read in his autobiography: what next? You start with one thing, and you ask what next? So he would say… “you start with a woman sitting on a bench… what next?”
I had come to a point where I had demoed loads of songs. I had quite a big cache of stuff to choose from before I was gonna really start to finesse the work. It was a gradual process for me to fully understand the themes, the subject matter and the sonics of the album.
I started with recording the penultimate song of Part B of the Album, “Enough Of Single Measures.”
After that, I guess it’s like when you’re on a road trip and you’re the one selecting the music – I don’t really like to queue the next song until I’m almost the way through the first one and I feel what’s coming next. So I really follow my nose on this; it’s quite an intuitive process.
The songs that did end up being chosen seemed to have a certain feeling in common. I guess they were the songs that meant the most to me at the time and it’s mainly an autobiographical work.
So I often go with the things that are most exciting to me at first. Then it’s a case of a balancing act. Balancing themes, feelings, instrumentation and atmospheres.
For example, “Red Boletes,” the final song of Part A, was one of the later songs to enter into the album track selection. I didn’t know it was even going to make it in at all.
I also didn’t know the first track of the album “I Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind” was going to make it in till late – that was the final song. Both of these songs came when I was looking to balance the rest of the work. On one hand, “Red Boletes” balances with its naked simplicity; “I Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind” for the opposite reason: for its more maximal instrumentation.
But as always, a lot of these decisions I like to make very quickly. I don’t like to think too much and I think the more you go with your gut, the better.
I like to work super fast when I can. I like Duchamp’s idea of an artist as a mediumistic being, and the faster you work (without judgment), the more you channel what is within and without.
The actual track listing (order) came last, and that took ages, but was really fun, really challenging. It’s all about giving shape on the one hand, and a context to each song on the other.
Each song feels completely different if you were to listen in a different order; I think I’ve achieved a cool arc, a story and a good amount of space in the track listing itself.
What is your personal favorite song on Part A and why?
Ok, just before I answer your question, one of my favorite answers to the “what’s your favorite” question, was when I asked a good friend from Morocco, who is a fisherman, what was his favorite fish, and he smiled at me a wry smile, looked at me sideways and grinned “all of them.”
And he explained how it depends at what time of the year you are fishing. Each fish comes to its tastiest depending on the season, through different times of the year.
It’s the same with my songs. I love them all – but it depends on the mood; the weather; what I’m up to; what I need at the time. Sometimes if I’m feeling lonesome, I need some songs more than others.
But without doubt, my favorite song really is “Red Boletes.” It is a testament to the friendship between me and Theo, and that time of our lives that we entered back into each others’ lives – which was during lockdown. I was on the narrowboat. We had loads of time then as you remember.
So I was stripping all the paint from the outside of the boat. I had to grind it all off, treat the rust, re-prime the whole boat and repaint it, as well as redoing the interior.
Theo called me up and I said I was too busy, but he came and we worked really hard on the boat; we had all the time in the world. He joined me on many of my travels through the country that time.
This song came in Autumn 2020, in Mushroom season, after a day of foraging porcini mushrooms in the beautiful pine woodlands in Berkshire, England. It was the first time we wrote together. It’s an amazing song and I absolutely loved and was thrilled by the process. We were so focused.
When I first heard his two lines over my guitar playing “Broken window panes, I’ve felt this pain before” (the first two lines of the song) I was absolutely hooked, and I knew instantly we were going to work this into something amazing; and I’m sure the song has equal amounts of each of us in it, and is a testament to our friendship.
Some of my other favorite lines are: “Deja-vu got the better of you” and “A quick shot ‘Vossier just let it out, just let it be,” “It’s been a while, running wild, wide eyed here, again with you.” And many others. I was very careful before accepting any of the lines – always knew we could give better.
The song is beautiful. We inspire each other and remind each other of what, for us, life is about. Life is exciting. Life is an adventure. And when I’m with Theo it feels like that.
What inspires your music and songwriting?
Well for me to be able to make good music and song-write, I need to feel inspired. For me this is about my lifestyle – very much; making sure that I stay inspired by life, by people. I need time.
When I’m working, (as I have to do sometimes), a full-time job (although I like it, cos it’s real life and I learn new skills) there’s not enough time in the day to really focus on my artistic work. But when I do make the time to write – and this album was written in Buckfastleigh, Devon; it’s about having your perfect day.
Living each day as if it’s your last. And for me that is: to eat healthily, to exercise, to have a few good walks in nature that week, to see good friends, to practice my instruments (and the meditation it serves me). And in this place where I wrote this album, it’s beautiful.
The landscape, the history and the architecture seems to inspire in the community something really good: people are kind and people have time and when I walk to the local shop to get some groceries I always bump into my neighbors here. And in the short amount of time that I’ve been here I feel like I’ve made friends for life.
And it’s when you have the time for those little meetings, and you ask someone how they are and they actually tell you; that sometimes when I’m lucky and when I’m writing some of those things they say can find their way through my music.
If I’ve had one of these good days; then when I sit to write I close my eyes, don’t think at all, and I make stuff; and when I find a sound, a tone, a lick, a pattern or a progression that I like, then I start singing and I record myself and listen back and I might find a moment, a syllable or a word, that sticks out from that improvisation.
I then enquire; what does that word mean? Why did it come out from this music? What is this music telling me about myself or the world around me? The process is an enquiry into how that music makes me feel.
I usually start with the music, then the melody, and for me the words come later. And it’s the lyrics that are the verbal understanding of the music and myself.
How does it feel to be an artist in the digital age? (Now with streaming, technology and social media being so prevalent)
Firstly, it feels broken. Spotify pays f*ck all. I’ve had many many millions of plays and it’s only a bit of pocket money. Secondly, I’m not very good at technology and I don’t like it; and if I had my way I’d live without my phone and I’d live without Instagram.
But apparently you’re not a serious artist if you don’t engage with that. But you need to engage with that kind of media, even though it slowly destroys your mind and attention. It sucks you in. I hate social media, as most of us do. But it seems like an illness we can’t live without.
At the same time, I know that, for some artists, and particularly for ones for whom the visual medium makes sense with the way that they think, it can be a really good thing.
I’m not particularly visual… I don’t make visual art or imagine visually and I can’t take good photos. I struggle with it and it doesn’t come naturally to me.
I have been engaging with it and have plans for how to be better at it – which is just making lots of content in advance really. But for some people it’s amazing – they can connect with all their fans whenever they want; and some people have made their careers out of it.
It’s just a shame that you need to use it all the time for the algorithms to favor you, it seems.
Also, I guess I’m from the old-school and I thought that making an album was the work – but it’s a very small part of the work. But I’m trying to see it not cynically these days. I just need to be more prepared and make, not content, but just a good representation of my work.
I unfortunately didn’t film or photograph the making of the album. I wasn’t thinking like that. It’s only after making this album that I’m thinking that for the making of the next one, I’ll be documenting it.
So I’ve already started work-shopping some music for the next album, and I’ve taken time to set up a half decent camera shot with good light. And for that I need to archive all the videos well. It’s taken a while to accept that that is part of the work. It’s a lot of work for one person.
To write, record, to play and practice your instruments. To market, upload the songs, maintain the campaign. Book the gigs. Jeez. Anyway, I hope the work speaks for itself.
What do your plans for the future include?
I’m back in my studio in Devon, UK preparing for some solo shows. I have a couple in London on the 7th April (Half Moon in Putney) and 18th May (The Star in Shoreditch).
I’m also preparing for the full band live shows and booking the album release party for the end of June. I will hopefully be recording the next album in Autumn.
I am also in the early stages of building an off-grid, residential artist/music studio retreat in a secluded rural part of England. So I’m plenty busy.
What is your advice for young and emerging artists?
Practice your instruments. Make good music, from the heart. Make an album – not just singles.
Remember that the art we make, and share with the world, is joining in with a long canon of human creativity spanning tens of thousands of years.
Remember, that it’s in the longevity of your art that its meaning to the world really matures. Be prepared to be bold and take risks and be bold and believe in yourself.
Oh, Gionotan Scali, an amazing performer and writer and singer I met recently said “It’s the responsibility of an artist to gather resources” which I remember taking away.
Engage with your community – give to it and it’ll give back. Look around you – you have everything you need closer than you realize.
Work with what you can get your hands on. Work with good materials. Work out of the box – not in it. And by that I mean the computer (DAW) box – but also it works in the other sense. Write from the heart.
All of that is the first thing. Do that first. Then consider how to sell it. Take your time before you put it on the market, as it were, and make sure you have a cohesive product: musically, visually, your descriptions of the work, your live shows.
Take your time – not too long – but take your time. We can always wait a little longer for something breathtaking.
Or just don’t think at all, and get a band together and just play. If you’re young don’t think, just do.
Which artists would you like to do a dream collab with someday?
I’d love to share a stage with and meet Dope Lemon. I’d love to make a record with BadBadNotGood (and maybe Baby Rose with that). To do a chorus for Kendrick would be cool. Alabama Shakes too.
What would you like to tell our readers about Part A of your new album? (What’s the one thing you want them to get out of it)
Life is music and music is life. This is the music of my life. I think it speaks to a life lived, well lived. To live passionately, with feeling, with love, and a bit selfishly at times, is important.
You may fail and get hurt so keep your friends close. Even in these modern times with darkening skies and techno-oligarchies, it is the crafts and passions of old that can never be forgotten and will need to be remembered whilst forging a world in the unknown and the modern.
His new album is available on digital service providers by clicking here.
To learn more about singer-songwriter Luke Marzec, follow him on Instagram.
