14 KARAT LIVING

Meet Marye Lobb

December 6th, 2011 | Liz Gold

New York City is a creative hub for artists trying to make their way and live the dream. Every once in a while you meet someone who sticks out – not for being outlandish or different, but for being themselves and doing what they love.

I met Marye Lobb a year or so ago at an art opening at the Leslie/Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (well, I actually met her friend first, and then was introduced to her). We stayed connected and as time has now proven we came together to collaborate – her sharing her music and me interviewing and writing about her.

Marye is an international singer-songwriter who fuses her influences of South American music and Buddhist and Quaker ideals into a folk, Bossa Nova, poetic mix of personal growth and passion.

Born in the Midwest and raised in Rochester, NY, Marye has traveled far for her 29 years having been to Ireland, Norway, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. She put herself through school at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and upon graduating released her first album in 2008, “Finding Home,” which reflects her journeys abroad.

With her home base in New York City, Marye spends her time teaching music, writing and performing and now, finishing up her second album, which is at the time of this posting, unnamed.

“My guitar and I have been making songs about love, sexuality, the state of the world, establishing one’s sense of self,” she wrote on her Indiegogo website.

Marye has played at La Zarza a restaurant in the East Village, Sullivan Hall, the French Institute in Midtown, Nuyorican Poets Café and Arlene’s Grocery, just to name a few.

I caught up with Marye in Chelsea’s Moonstruck Diner after a shift at her day job. Here she talks about her process as an artist and how she found her home in Bossa Nova music.

How’s the new album coming?

We just finished recording. We are going to start mixing.

Are you involved in that process?

Yeah. I like to be involved in everything. I will be giving notes for editing and giving my two cents for the mixing process.

How many instruments are on the album?

I play guitar and sing and did all the harmonies. We had a bass player who also plays accordian and then a cello player. She was amazing and is from Vancouver- Marie Kim. Jorge Saenz plays bass and accordion and is also co-producing the album. Carmen Estevez plays cajon, a percussion instrument. I didn’t use a drum set, I used Latin percussion. I don’t really care for a full drum set. She is from Spain and is a character and a half. Amon is the recording and mixing engineer and plays congas. And then Raymond Sinsay, he plays guitar, mandolin and also sang. Jorge and I have been friends for seven years and we went to school together. I met Carmen through a guitar player I used to play with.

How did the recording go?

Every day I got up to go to the studio I was almost in tears of how thankful and joyful I was, just so happy. I was like dreaming (laughs). It was so fun.

How long did the process take?

It was five different sessions and they were four hours each. The first one we did seven songs and that was just me and my guitar. We did it pretty much live, I guess we did half the album live. For my last album and most albums today, people lay down the drums and the bass and the piano and the guitar and then the vocals, which makes it flawless, but back in the old days they just got in the studio and recorded together. I recorded my voice and guitar together. In the second session, we did three of my songs and two of my songs Ray and I did together. Then in the third session we did bass and we did the accordion and then we did the cajon on the fourth and then the background session and congas the last session. Mixing will take, like, 20 hours.

What happens after mixing is done?

Then it goes on to be mastered, which is another techie engineering thing. People refer to it as putting the cake into the oven.

Did you go through the same process for ‘Finding Home’?

Yes.

When do you think the album will be released?

I’m hoping at the end of the month. Just in time for Christmas. I’m also working with a friend of mine who is doing the graphic design [for the CD case] and my friend, Alexandra Meske, took a bunch of photos over the summer and we’re using those.

Did you fundraise the entire album?

I saved a lot of the money personally and then raised $1,300. It’s exciting.

When you are done, how are you going to market? You are planning to tour, right?

Yeah and I hope to also get the word out online. And from the tour do videos and post them on YouTube and create a digital experience. I’m just trying to get my name out there as much as I can.

How did you decide where you are going to go? Is it because you know people?

Yes. I will drive to North Carolina and then I will take a bus to Washington D.C. and then fly to L.A. and then fly to Seattle. All those places I have people. This is my first real tour, I did some touring in South America in 2008 when I finished my first album. I want to set it up so it’s a success. I’m in the process of booking, which I am doing independently. At this stage in the game it feels like connecting with everyone I know and networks I know and just having them come out and have fans emerge. In Rochester this woman who came to my release party in 2008 brought her friend who is this huge fan and wrote me the sweetest e-mail afterwards. That’s when you really start to feel like your career is going somewhere.  It obviously touched her on a personal level and that is the most rewarding thing.

That’s exciting.

There’s so much to be grateful for and it’s so easy to forget that sometimes.

In terms of the album, I know your first album was about your travels and this one is more about your life as an artist in NYC.

It is. It’s definitely from 2008 to present day. It’s a lot about growing. I feel like there’s been a lot of growth.

Emotionally, how would you say it’s different from your other album?

I would think that it’s stronger. I think that my friend put it really well – he was like in the first one I was assimilating to living in all these different cultures and I just learned how to survive, feeling at home in different cities of the world. This one is more like I found home is within myself. That’s not at war … The lyric is ‘I’m not at war with myself anymore.’ I don’t need someone else to tell me how to live my life or a different culture to live my life this is how I feel comfortable and how I want to live. And being comfortable being an artist which isn’t a standard profession or with sexuality or being a woman or being really ambitious about a career.

How many songs are on the album?

We recorded 12, I think all of them will make it.

Do you like being an independent artist or would you like to be signed to a record label and have someone promote you?

I think it’s hard to say because I’ve been independent the whole time. I love that I have complete control of everything and those are all my decisions and if I am going to ask someone’s opinions I know who that person is and I know their background. I don’t know how it would be if someone said I need you to do XYZ that sounds like this. I don’t know if I could do that. But I think I’m a good candidate for a management company because I’ve done it all myself and I know what it takes to book things and it would be nice to have someone do booking. I don’t know if I’d want a label because I think they are becoming obsolete and I think the industry isn’t so up to date with technology and how people are interacting with media right now. I’m not sure a label is the right way to go. But a management company that is doing booking, yeah, that would be great because I would love to just hit the road right now. Just go on tour and get out there and connect with people – like the woman from Rochester.

I am so happy to go in the studio and do my thing it’s kind of two fold, but the other half of that is having the art be for someone else. I’ve learned so much from writing these songs I have to write them – it is like breathing – but the other half is like I really hope other people can learn from this, I hope it can help them in their life. Because it’s helped me in my life.

Can you tell us about the songs?

The first one is a little ditty – like a two-minute track. ‘Don’t let go of your feelings they are all we have in the end. If you have thoughts that burn your eyes to see them your heart will soon make amends. With those stories your mouth can’t open to tell, we have learned our lessons here its time to say farewell.’

Is that related to matters of the heart?

That was so painful and that was kind of, you know, when you think someone is just so awful to you and I don’t want to write about you because you don’t deserve it. But it was from that experience. I played it for my brother and he said this is about growing up.

So tell me about the places you’ve traveled.

I moved to Chile when I was 19. And I lived there for a year. I learned Spanish there. I was on a travel visa so I would  hitchhike to the border and go to Argentina all the time. Then in 2008 when I released the album I went back to Chile to visit my friends … I wanted to go to Brazil because I was obsessed with Brazilian music and I didn’t know why. I was doing all these Brazilian rhythms without even thinking about it. I wanted to go. So I went for a month and went to language school and then went out and listened to music every single night. I guess I speak Portuguese now I don’t feel as comfortable as I do with Portuguese as I do with Spanish but there is a little bit of Portuguese on the second album. Then when I was at music school I studied in Athens at a small conservatory there – I was there for four months.

What influences you? What types of music or musicians?

Definitely growing up it was Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco and Radiohead. My brother was big into Guns N Roses and Nirvana so that was cool. Then after moving to Chile everything changed completely, I heard so much music that I never been exposed to during my whole entire life. There is this folk singer, Violeta Parra – she’s called the Bob Dylan of South America which is kind of bizarre to me – she is a huge staple in Chilean culture, she wrote so many songs that are sung by various artists all over South America. That’s when I learned guitar when I was in Chili and some of the first songs I learned is her music. She’s a folk artist, very lyric driven, she sang in protest of her dictatorship. She was amazing. She had a huge influence. Mercedes Sosa is from Argentina and sang a lot of her songs. She has a very, very soulful voice. I’ve listened to a lot of her.

Then I got hooked on Brazilian music in school and listen to a lot of Bossa Nova and was enamored by that sound. The whole thing is like three different people created this whole style of music. One was Vinicius de Moraes, a lyricist who wrote all these poems, then this other guy Antonio Carlos Jobim was this incredible composer, musical genius, who wrote all these songs but then there was this really cranky guitar player João Gilberto, I saw him play at Carnegie Hall and he was amazing and he took the songs that weren’t really catching on and played guitar really really softly and sung the song like he was whispering and it was instantly a big hit. Then this jazz musician Stan Getz, a saxophone player, started playing that music and that’s how it came to the U.S. in the 70s. The point is it’s very quiet, soft and when I started hearing that I felt like I had a place. I think a lot of times singers are so big and loud. I can be but I don’t want to be most of the time. I felt at home in that music.

I just started listening to Regina Spektor and she has helped give me that freedom because she can go out there and really take a lot of risks but it sounds so fucking cool. She’s so modern and hip and everyone loves her and she puts on such a good show. I think that helped me relax a little more, too. I love her lyrics and she’s a ridiculous piano player.

What have been some of your favorite times on stage?

The Zinc Bar, a jazz club in the West Village, which was with a full band.  That was definitely really fun. It was an hour and a half set and we played straight through. It was a sexy little lounge, a great venue.

So where do you want to go? What defines success for you?

I want to go where the music takes me. I don’t know where I want to go. I just want to do it everyday and I want it to be honest. I just want to keep talking about the life experience being a human.

Listen to a track off her first album, “Finding Home.”

Music; My Love