Billie Marten talks new record ‘Drop Cherries’
By: Sydney Hise
777 Collective: First off, I just want to say congratulations on a beautiful 4th album. It is already my album of the year! I can't stop listening. Did you feel any sort of pressure with this record to live up to standards that were created on albums one, two and three?
Billie Marten: Well thank you very much. I suppose each time I make an album, the external pressures decrease in the sense that I’m constantly discovering more and more autonomy and trust in my own instincts, but there will always be an internal war within me (a lot of lyrics comment on that) to make something good. Once you put your first record out, that takes your whole life to make or thereabouts, you then have an average of 2 years after that to make the next ones. So you have to work in a totally different way, come up with new ideas and thoughts, and that brings pressure.
Your lyrics and songwriting style come across as poetry-like. Do you have any authors or poets that inspire the way you write or put words together?
BM: That’s very kind, I like to think of it that way, I’m working towards the goal of having each song read as a poem, but perhaps that’s too poncy. I like the simplicity of poetry, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” for example, or on the first album I finished it with a cover of “It’s A Fine Day” by Edward Barton, which was originally just a poem. I think they go hand in hand, it’s about expressing how you feel in the simplest, most beautiful way possible.
You start the record with a completely wordless track, "New Idea". How did the concept of that song come to be? Was it a track you made intentionally to start the record?
BM: It was a production exercise for me, starting with the classical guitar part and building up from there. I knew the melody was too nice to put words all over it, and it expresses its sentiment without needing that I think.
Photo: Kate Silvester
In an interview, you mentioned "I Can't Get My Head Around You" is a cruising song. Is there always a place you envision people will be when they are listening to each individual song?
BM: I think I have my own idea of that yeah, but mostly it’s the zone I was in when recording/writing it. If it was made by the sea it’s a coastal song, if it was made in a cold bunker of a studio it’s probably something longing and expansive, but I like how songs make people feel and they’ve all got their own idea of an environment to go with it.
Previous albums of yours carry a sadder tone. This record feels more triumphant and positive, and has themes of romance and love. Do the themes in your albums correspond directly with what you're going through, or are they sometimes fictitious/about a scenario that you've imagined or seen someone else go through?
BM: That’s good, that was the idea. I’m a very situational and direct writer, for someone who is creative I don’t have enough of an imagination to write about things that aren’t real, these songs serve as a long form diary I guess, documenting how I feel through time. Sometimes I’ll do a sort of social commentary style thing, but it will always be explained through my eyes.
You have a lyric in your song "Arrow", “I’m at war with my shadow, roads dark and narrow, but I am the arrow”. What things in your life give you the strength to be an arrow? Are there any songs by other artists that empower you to keep pushing forward?
BM: One of the biggest things I learnt to do was trust others and learn that you need them. I’ve always considered myself a very isolated, independent person, who processed things in an insular way, and I suffered a lot for that, really leant into the sadness. I’m realizing more and more that one can’t survive that way. People give me strength every day, and I can return that back to them, which further solidifies the power and strength. It’s a lovely cycle I’m glad to be a part of.
Your sweetest song on the album "Tongue" is arguably the most simplistic on the album as well. Do you find that love, at its core, is a simple thing?
BM: Yes, in short. Of course it is. It’s the one thing we have as a species that allows us to live such intense lives, with such intense forms of feeling. At its core though, as explained in the song, it’s really as simple as wanting to be around someone and wanting to share your experiences with another. To occupy the same space as another and not feel encroached upon. It’s as simple as wanting to put them in your shoe to walk around with them all day.
The titular track "Drop Cherries" is about appeasing a partner and dropping cherries at their feet because they ask you to - seemingly an act of service. What is your love language?
BM: I didn’t intend it to be super hierarchical, I think it’s more of an ‘I’ll do anything for you but I will keep myself’ feeling. It’s about shedding the outer parts of yourself, the excess flotsam that you don’t need, and feeling truly at home with someone. Painting the landscape red for a moment. My love language is certainly words, and gifts, I love giving people things. It makes me happy.
I have a form of synesthesia, and when I listened to this album for the first time top to bottom, it evoked bright yellow, marigold and the gorgeous teal that's on your album cover, along with bright white. Do you have any colors that you feel suit this album?
BM: That’s interesting! The first album is obviously a lot of blues and yellows, which is why I named it that. So it’s nice to come full circle a few years later. It’s actually like a mahogany for me, or any type of deep old wood. Something warm and lived in, along with that deep cherry red obviously, which is kind of actually a purple.
A random question for you: do you have a lucky number?
BM: I refuse to have one! Makes me rely on luck. Although I have a weird thing about Fleet Street, they pop up everywhere in my life those streets, everywhere.
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Billie Marten’s new album Drop Cherries is available on all streaming platforms now!