CHRIS STEWART OF BLACK MARBLE
Hi Chris and thanks for taking the time to speak with us at Musicology.
Having released your last record Bigger Than Life in 2019, was now the perfect timing to put out a covers EP in the sense that you had expressed all of that deep, personal work and now wanted something a little more extricated and playful?
Yes, I thought it would be a nice change of pace and I tried to express that a little with the sort of dark humour of the album cover. Something more akin to an old Television Personalities album. Something that felt like a bit of a smirk as opposed to BTL which was very open in my mind.
It must not have been an easy task to cherry pick just a few choice tracks in which to cover. Can you explain why you decided on the artists that you did, the influence they exerted on you and the technical / musical appeal that each track offered you?
Each track was different. I’ve been mucking about on the guitar more as of late, and so The Field Mice cover was one of my favorite old guitar songs and I wanted to give it a try. Johnny and Mary felt like a bedroom cover of a Robert Palmer song already, so it seemed perfect. The Wire track had a bit of dark and foreboding energy and to me felt like it could be a Black Marble song, and yet there were things about the songwriting I would not have arrived at myself. This is part of the fun as a songwriter. Going through someone else’s choices and seeing how their process is different from yours. The Grouper song was very beautiful but felt so low-fi as to almost be a whisper. It runs almost entirely on mood. So I wondered if I could try and use some of the same techniques and achieve the same results. Turns out you can’t, which was interesting. The Lives of Angels cover was always one of my favorite songs and again achieves almost a perfect mood. The vocal pattern is very simple. The song itself is very simple and very patient. I learned about patience from that one. You don’t have to write a new part every eight bars. If you’re riding something, don’t be afraid to go with it for a while and trust people are going with you.
What were some of the challenges in putting this EP together and conversely what were some of the greatest surprises you experienced during recording process for I Must Be Living Twice?
The EP came together rather quickly as most of the recording experiments I implemented came from the LP. I probably recorded and re-recorded the LP five times. I was trying to get a more immediate sense of things without losing some of the sense of space and distance which is almost contradictory so it took quite a bit of figuring out.
As something of a general rule, your tracks are so richly layered and have such a masterful finesse to the compositional structures. By prising these layers apart can you elaborate on the technical nature of your production and your general approach to song making?
Well, honestly I know how I want something to sound before I sit down and I think that makes most of the difference. I think its a mistake to think that a certain box or piece of recording equipment or microphone will impart some kind of “quality” you are looking for and yet the entire recording industry is predicated on this notion. But its more or less possible to get a certain sound by EQing if you know what you want just as easily as using some 3k pre-amp or compressor or something of that nature. All these boxes do is create subtle shifts to tonality and harmonics which is just altering the EQ curve anyway (and maybe a tweak on an in-the-box harmonic exciter). So I think the most important element to the sound is just an idea. I came into things wanting to get this layered depth and mid excited slightly telephonic sound. I could have used a bullet mic on vocals for example which would band-pass the signal, but it’s just as easy to change the EQ curve inside of Logic and get the effect if you know what sound you are going for.
With your own live performances and throwing in a cover to a given set, just how dependent is the specific show itself in what track is played or is it very predetermined as to what, if any, cover you may play?
Well, at first we changed things up quite a bit but you get a sense after a while which songs work and where in the set they work. I will say though, that we don’t have a pre-determined set-order. We have a set list and depending on the crowd I sort of make on the fly decisions as to what order we should be playing the songs in. In that respect though, I know like, ok here’s a good moment for In Manchester based on the feedback you are getting. It’s just intuitive.
You have played countless shows over the years, is there a particularly remarkable show that you played and can you share with us what made it so remarkable?
We played our biggest show at that time at the Regent in Los Angeles on Valentines day. The show was sold out and the crowd energy was amazing. It was a very special night but honestly there are so many things about playing shows that are visceral, mostly good and some bad even, that is hard to match in everyday life. Im looking forward to getting back out there whenever its safe to do so.
Having played with some many different artists, during that time has there been any words of wisdom spoken to you that really resonated with you and in turn altered the way you approach your craft?
I’ve wrestled with the idea of how we should present ourselves on stage a lot. It’s easy to get in kind of an arms race with fellow bands about this stuff. like oh they have a strobe, we should get a strobe. Or they have fog, it seems way cooler with fog haha. But I’ve been told that the most important thing is just being open and honest with the crowd and that people are there to see you and how you react and carry yourself and the way you perform your songs and that’s more important than any kind of stage gimmick and that resonated with me.
It was Barry Gibb who said in reference to listening to your peers and contributing to a musical timeline that “as a songwriter all songs belong to songdom”. To that end, have you experienced your own work being covered, hearing from artists you have inspired and ways that your music has imparted itself onto others?
Yes, this is not my first go-around with this kind of experience though. When I was younger I was a fairly dutiful graffiti artist on the level of having my work in magazines and such and that’s when I first experienced younger people being inspired and emulating my work the same way I was inspired by and emulated the work of others. No one just makes up an entire catalog of original ideas completely out of thin air and I think that’s great. At the same time I think you do have a duty not to carry yourself in certain problematic ways as you are letting people down outside of your own immediate purview that you might not think about day to day or even be aware of and I think that’s a good thing too. A sense of responsibility is a good thing for sure, I think everyone should feel that.
Given the clarity that hindsight affords, can you pinpoint a few select moments, decisions, outcomes that have occurred during your career that have proved to be pivotal?
Well originally obviously the decision to just muck around in garageband. The decision to play songs for the first time to my friends. Their support was pivotal. The decision to leave the more traditional workplace after my first album and pursue this more seriously was pivotal. Every step of the way there has been something that kept me going. Getting on a label that I’ve long respected. Working with a booking agent that finally would allow us to do comprehensive tours in proper venues instead of underground sort of punk tours. As long as there are new experiences to be had I’ll continue to work within these constraints. Hopefully there is more in store. Getting to play in eastern europe for the first time this year was something that pushes me forward. It was amazing as an American to see that part of the world for the first time and get a sense of where you came from.
On a philosophical level, what does music give you that nothing else does?
Just a connection to a group of like minded individuals who are doing things on their own terms and are open to these experiences. Finding other people who value these same experiences and want to continue to sacrifice some of the more traditional trappings in order to pursue them. In the regular world you are sort of defined by your skill at a task. Like they’ll say at your funeral he was a good baker or shopkeeper or what have you. At least it feels that way when you’re going through it. Being in music is very chatty. Everyone talks about everyone so it’s more about can you move through this world with a modicum of grace and autonomy. Treat people well and be remembered as a good person who could be fun to be around, have a good time, be thoughtful of the people who work with and for you and not be afraid. That feels like a better way to be judged to me.
