Marnie Stern

By Tim Lowery

Who Is She?
Until last year, nobody knew who the hell Marnie Stern was. Then the self-taught guitar-tapping virtuoso blindly sent out her demo and hit the indie up-and-comer jackpot by getting signed to Kill Rock Stars. Her debut LP, 2007’s In Advance of the Broken Arm, was hailed as “the year’s most exciting rock-and-roll album” by the New York Times. Considering the record was released in February, that’s about as strong an endorsement as any.

What Has She Done?
After playing clubs with only her guitar and an iPod, the born-and-bred New Yorker has enlisted many of her heroes—Hella’s Zach Hill, Parts & Labor’s Jim Sykes and U.S. Maple’s Mark Shippy, among others—to join her on tours supporting her excellent new album, This Is It....

Why Do We Care?
With all due respect to Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai, Marnie is one shredder who’s also easy on the eyes. When you’re not busy not watching her lightning-fast fingers, you’ll be enthralled by her sweet, girl-next-door charm.

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PLAYBOY: How did you come up with the new album title, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That?

STERN: The one I wanted to use was from the television show Arrested Development, which was Marry Me, a line that Maybe says. Jeff Garlin comes over and says, “You work for me?” She says, “Yeah.” He says, “You look awfully young.” She says, “Marry me!” I thought that would be really funny, but then we realized [singer-songwriter] St. Vincent had taken it the year before. And then we started coming up with a million different titles. There’s like a database [of album titles], and you wouldn’t believe how many things have been taken. It got to the point where we were joking around, thinking of movie titles. “Look up Look Who’s Talking.” “Yes, that’s taken.” “Look up Look Who’s Talking Too.” “That’s taken.”

PLAYBOY: Are you serious? Look Who’s Talking Too is an album?

STERN: Uh huh. Then we’re like, “Ugh. I guess we’re going to have to name it one of the song titles.” And I said I guess we could call it Simon Says, but Zach [Hill, Stern’s drummer] was like, “No, I know a band that sucks that’s called that.” And so then he texted me this Alan Watts thing, and I just saw it and I liked it right away. I didn’t know that it’s a weird thing to have a long album title.

PLAYBOY: Are you a philosophy buff?

STERN: A little bit. I’m noticing, at least in my life, how things come in and out and go in phases. But I’ve switched up a lot of my reading. I’m reading a ton of biographies now—de Kooning, Einstein….

PLAYBOY: There’s a YouTube clip where you do a Rodney Dangerfield impression. Do you do any others?

STERN: That’s the only one I know how to do. I’ve been working on it for years. I can’t do anyone else. When we went to England last year, we played at the Coronet and opened up for Animal Collective; it’s the biggest show I’ve ever played, 2,000 capacity, and I got onstage and did my Rodney Dangerfield. I didn’t know no one over there knows who that is! Dead silence. It was awful.

PLAYBOY: How did you start playing guitar?

STERN: I’m self-taught. I’d just sit in my bedroom and try to figure out how to play forever, for hours and hours at a time. And I started doing that when I was around 21. I really searched for a reason for why I started but I can’t find one. You know when there’s something your whole life that you want to do but it just seems really far off and not possible? And then I thought, “Okay, I’ll just start messing around, maybe I can do it.” And then I became really addicted.

PLAYBOY: Who influenced your style?

STERN: As I started focusing more on the guitar, I started focusing much more on guitar-oriented bands. So at first it was Bruce Springsteen and then, you know, the more experimental world—Spencer Seim from Hella and Mick Barr from Orthrelm, the guitarists from Television, Mark Shippy from U.S. Maple….

PLAYBOY: Your music is really wild but pretty at the same time. How does that come about?

STERN: The pretty part, or the more melodic part, is in me naturally from just growing up in life and having melodic music everywhere. I didn’t start listening to dissonant or mathy [music] for a really long time. I could listen to 20 noise bands for 20 hours and I could sit down to write a song and part of it would still come out melodic. But I’ve also made a conscious decision. I loved all those noise bands so much—Melt-Banana and just the wilder side of experimental rock—but I wanted to try and figure out a way to make it a little bit more accessible.

PLAYBOY: What’s a better release for you: rocking out in front of people or having sex?

STERN: They’re both equally exhilarating in their own way. And it depends on the show. When it’s a really great show, [playing live] is better. When it’s not, and there are a couple of people there, then the other is better. [Laughs and starts whispering] My dad is here so….

PLAYBOY: We’ll give you a pass on that one. So do you ever get hit on by guitar nerds when you walk into Guitar Center?

STERN: No, the only time anyone knows who I am is when I’m playing a show, and then I’ll get like 19-year-old kids saying, “Can we get married?” and stuff.

PLAYBOY: What do you say?

STERN: Wait a few years…then, yeah, sure.

Photo: Rachel Warner