Some of the people who pick up Marissa Nadler's upcoming release Songs III: Bird on the Water might mistake the mournful, guitar-plucked tracks for re-mastered or remade traditional folk songs. However, with the exception of "Famous Blue Raincoat" (a Leonard Cohen cover), the songs were written by Nadler, mostly penned and plucked to life in one of many nameless hotel rooms on her nearly endless touring.

Though Nadler was never trained as a musician (she instead spent four years at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) studying painting and woodwork), her songs have an old-world feel to them that imply a sense of history. Her songs are entirely unselfconsciousness, perhaps because the lack of official studying didn't wear out her sense of fascination with music before she was able to release a record.

Everythingrock caught up with Nadler as she was shopping for packing tape, during a quiet moment after playing some shows in Europe, before embarking on a three-month tour of the U.S.


Catherine Disabato: How were those [recent shows in Madrid]?

Marissa Nadler: They were good. It was nice to get to go swimming in the Mediterranean. That's not something I'm used to, so I kinda tried to appreciate that a little.

CD: Songs III: Birds on the Water is the first American record that you've released, right?

MN: Well, it's the first American record I've had released on a wide scale. I had two other full-length records but they were on a psychedelic vinyl-only label, called Eclipse records. And then we did some CDs too, but that was pretty underground, so this is the first marketed release.

CD: And I'm taking from the title, that those first two records were sort of Songs I and Songs II.

MN: That's a good assumption, but those weren't the names of the records.

CD: I meant more in spirit.

MN: Definitely. They're other full-length records. I guess I just struggled with naming the record; it's really hard to name a record. I spent a long time just saying "yes" and "no" to lots of different ideas, and finally I was like, "eh, that works."

CD: Is there any particular reason why you came to that one?

MN: I have been aesthetically drawn to birds lately in my songwriting, as a representation of flight and movement. I wanted something natural, alluding to nature. But its just hard to name a record in general, there's so many bad names for records. I was trying to avoid triteness, but it's kind of impossible.

CD: I have noticed a lot of bird imagery in the songs on the album. What are the other images and the other things that really speak to you when you're doing your songwriting? What sort of gets you going, what are the symbols and tropes that you generally fall back on?

MN: Generally, I tend to be an impressionistic songwriter, not a realist. So, it's a lot of natural lyrics about water and grass, not so much about getting coffee in the morning. I guess I'm a romantic in terms of songwriting, kind of brushing everything over with pointillism. In terms of thematically, I think I definitely have some themes that pop up quite a bit in my songs, like heartbreak and misery.

CD: Right, those little things. Are you going to settle down a little bit or are you going to be touring to support Bird on the Water?

MN: I've got about three months of touring scheduled, which is pretty daunting. I live in the Boston providence area. I'm driving down to Florida and back, basically by myself, next week, which is kinda crazy. It's an in-store tour. It's just lots and lots of touring. I think its that touring is not conducive for creativity, you need to kind of be in one place and have a home and have your paintbrush and your guitar set up for you. I don't think I'm going to be touring forever.

CD: For you, when you're songwriting, you really need sort of a place to settle? Are there any places that inspire you?

MN: Yeah, definitely. It's funny because a lot of the songs on the new record were written in hotel rooms, which is kind of crazy. If I had my choice, I probably would go under a tree somewhere, but the reality is starkly different. I generally just go on these lonely benders where I'll write twenty songs in a week, and then I won't pick up the guitar for a month. I think creativity does come in spurts.

CD: Do you think that there is anything about songwriting in a hotel room that affects your songwriting?

MN: Yeah, I think that generally in my songs there's always lyrics and themes about moving on and moving away. It's hard not to have that [in my songs] because that's been my life for the past couple years, just searching and moving and traveling. But, I think that if you listen closely, [in] the imagery you can hear that.

CD: You also do some fine art, some visual art. Does it have the same motivations as your music?

MN: I think that the themes that I'm interested in are the same with my fine art and my music. Not even in terms of what I think about when I'm creating, but I've always been drawn to melancholy and sad pretty things. I think it's apparent in my paintings; [they always have] kind of muted color palates and filled with fragile broken things, and that's the same kind of vibe as my music. But, I haven't been painting very much since I graduated art school. I think that art school can really mess you up.

CD: I have a number of good friends who go to art school and who have been feeling really limited by it.

MN: Yeah, it does! When I was in high school I was so, so creative. I used to stay up all night long painting, and there was no limit, you know. And when you're at art school, I think that you develop this complex, about being not good enough and everything's been done before. I think that's why I ventured into music, because I was never trained in it. The element of exploration was still there and still fun. I really didn't know enough about music, what's been done or not been done. What other people are doing didn't concern me so much.

CD: And that element of creativity, of excitement, of almost artistic innocence, that's still there for you in music even three albums later?

MN: Exactly, it definitely still is. I'm really thankful that I never took a music lesson, and never did voice lessons. I read some article with Keith Richards where he said every time he picks up the guitar he learns something new, and I feel the same way because I didn't practice my scales and I can't read music. I'm not a hack, but I'm an outsider musician, I guess, so it's still fun. Every time I pick something up its exciting for me still, just to figure out my favorite song, how to play it and sing it. It's just cool.

CD: How do you think that has an effect on the songwriting process?

MN: Yeah, throughout the years my singing and songwriting has undergone a lot of transformations. It still sounds very much like Marissa, I guess, but I think having so much to learn makes each record a big growth for me. I think that you just can keep getting better and keep becoming more expressive if you just happen to [work at it]. I look back at my first record, and I cringe, like 'god, I sound horrible.' I think I'm getting to the point where I can hear myself and not cringe, so I think I'm learning something.

CD: It's much better to feel as though you're growing as an artist than to feel as though you're losing something as an artist. It keeps you moving.

MN: Exactly, I don't think that I'm to that point where I'm out of touch. I think that my next record will be the best. I'm always ambitious and can't wait to start something new and try something new and different. I kind of want my next record to have more like a dusty, Memphis feel, more country.

CD: Now that Songs III has been pressed, sent out, and you can't work on it anymore, how do you feel about it as an album?

MN: It's hard to say, because I think that if you ask any artist what they think of their record, you'll get pretty negative responses. Generally, I'm proud of the record, because I definitely tried a lot of new things in terms of vocal harmonies that I hadn't done before, and there's some heavy metal guitar riffs, and there is percussion, which is a first for me. There's just a lot of jumps, sonically, and I think its focused - I'm pretty proud of a bunch of the songs on the record, in terms of having had worked hard at them, and coming back and fine-tuning them. The funny thing is, you know how it is in the record industry, the record is already over a year old for me. I've already moved on. It's hard, because that's where I was maybe a year ago, but I have to remember people are hearing it for the first time and they're not going to have the same reaction that I have when I listen to it, like "oh that's so old."

CD: Does that ever come up when you're touring? Do you ever get stuck when you're playing the same songs over and over again?

MN: Yeah, it's hard to play the same songs over and over again because you get bored; especially me, not being able to tour with a band yet just because its expensive and you need to organize a lot of things. Just being up there alone and playing the same songs - I try to do a lot of improvisation live, in terms of adding new melodies and changing songs to keep them fresh for me. Because it definitely does get a little hard to play the same songs, but I try to infuse a lot of brand new stuff in my sets quite a bit just for myself to keep it fresh. First and foremost, it's most important that you're actually enjoying what you're doing.

CD: Do you feel that when you add that improvisation it has any effect on your songwriting?

MN: For one thing, I'm starting to break out of a traditional structure, because adding different parts breaks up a structure. I think that for a while I would adhere to a songwriting structure, like verse chorus verse chorus verse bridge chorus, and now my songwriting, because of my touring, has gotten a little more organic. [I'm] breaking the mold of what I felt was necessary for a song.

CD: You have that singer-songwriter thing going on, and a lot of people who have that vibe tend to write lyrics that are more literally personal than metaphorically personal. Why do you think you write lyrics that are a bit more removed, rather than the typical "oh, my broken heart!" lyrics?

MN: It all started with me having a huge fear of being like every other singer-songwriter. I'm perfectly aware that there's millions of girls with guitars, and I really didn't want to be that. I definitely don't consider myself remotely grouped in with that vein of songwriting. At first, it was intentional, but some of my favorite songs are first person; I think if you're gonna do it, you have to do it well. Initially, it started as a fear of being overlooked as another singer-songwriter, but then I discovered that you could say the same things without talking about yourself all the time.