Purveyors of: The perfect mix of fuzz-calamity and melody
File Next To: Nirvana, The Flaming Lips, T. Rex
Playing: Wavelength at Doors Open Toronto, 4 PM Saturday, May 27 @ The Masonic Temple (888 Yonge St.). Free show! More information available here.
Kurt Marble has been blasting his unique mix of fuzz heavy garage rock since his debut release in 2015. Now he’s back with a brand new EP, Friend of Mine, that picks up right where he left off – and then some. Wavelength’s Garrett Olson spoke with Kurt about the new record, VHS, and Jurassic Park.
Tell us a little about the new EP, Friend of Mine – was there anything you did differently this time than with your 2015 release, Notes?
Friend of Mine was written and recorded during a pretty crazy couple of months in my life. I was juggling three jobs and three bands, while filling in for a few other bands, taking random bartending gigs, and working door at some shows. Some of my loved ones were sick and dying and I had just gone through a rough break-up. I was also going on tour with a new band and making lots of new friends. Friend of Mine is a lot more heavy and tense sounding than Notes. I suppose I was feelin’ pretty heavy and tense at that time.
Loved the VHS vibe in the “Laura’s House” video, what inspired that concept?
Mike Pereira, the boy behind the whole video, wanted to do a cool layered lighting video of me running in slow motion. We tried using a treadmill and a green screen, mixed with shots of me running through back alleys in the city, but the footage we got did not look very good. In the end, we just hung out in his dark living room and he got me to do a bunch of random stuff. I did a lot of running in place. It sucked. As for the cool effects and VHS stuff, well that is all Mike’s video editing wizard magic.
On the VHS note, what was your most played VHS growing up?
Either (The) Land Before Time or Jurassic Park. Spielberg movies, yo.
I love the raw feel to the EP, it’s refreshing to hear something with some actual energy behind it. What lead you to developing the sound you have today?
Trial and error. I’ve been making bad music for years and years. I still write bad music all the time. I just use the good and loud ones for my band.
I’ve seen pictures and some live footage of your shows and it looks like they can get quite crazy – what is the weirdest show you’ve ever played?
Definitely the SummerWorks “Glitter Jesus” show. It was meant to be a spoof of a jukebox musical, based around Kurt Marble songs, but it ended up being a fake church sermon for a made-up cult. The idea that people paid to see something like that is weird enough, but the fact that people participated and played along with the whole silly thing was even stranger. One person even started kissing my feet. It was awesome. I still think back about how ridiculous and silly the premise was, and that we pulled it off. My hope is that we get to continue being idiots and be praised for it.
What does the closure of venues like The Silver Dollar mean to the music scene here?
There will always be a music scene in Toronto. As Dr. Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”
Lastly, If you could have written/taken credit for any song in history, what would it be?
A:
– Live photo from Camp Wavelength 2015 by Stephanie Keating