I play piano, but I don't swing my head round and round like Myleene Klass.
SUPERSWEET are usually not one to feel apprehensive in interviewing an artist, but with Marina’s brash stance seeping through blog world to counteract comparisons with Kate Nash and Lily Allen, we wonder if she emerges as another female singer with too much attitude to bear. Yet after flittering through the crowd at Pure Groove, Marina Diamond lively beelines to us in bounds shouting “Hiii!!” and her fearless charisma washes over any doubt of her character. In ecstatic awe, Marina confesses her delight that “people know me now for more than one song or just the girl who can play piano,” revealing why she’s so determined to surface through stifling associations.
Before launching herself into the musical playground, Marina giggles about her career direction in fruit picking while in Wales, “I had I to fill a punnet, a pound punnet, it was like child labour!” Laughing at her dismay the singer jokes “It was awful! In the end I got sacked because I went to the side of the field that had the fat blueberries, so I could fill it much quicker and the man called Mario got really mad at me! He knew that I would get my punnet filled quicker and leave early!”
Maturing within the music world, the Welsh-born singer has gained confidence, away from her fruit picking days through her love of performing and overlooking public desire to pigeonhole her as an artist (“I don’t think I am a clear cut artist! – Marina). Churning out hit after natural hit, Marina (and The Diamonds) takes on summer with her recent EP, I Am Not A Robot, with its namesake a defiant piece admitting vulnerability is welcoming trait: “It’s okay to say you’ve got a weak spot / You don’t always have to be on top". While Marina continues a confessional outlook in her lyrics and her life, “I’m not particularly secretive person, I can’t keep things in!” she keeps album ideas guarded, with its release in January “It’s just not ready...”
In her creative element Marina is a song writing machine, but only when she’s “really angry or passionate about something”. The part Greek siren lists “I’ll write a lyric down, sometimes write the whole song out…and then I’ll go to the piano and see whatever melody comes up!” In a day in the life of Marina, she tells us “I have really bad concentration so I’ll get up and down all the time but I usually try to write songs all day till nine!”
Proving her emphatic endeavours, when Marina’s songs do take shape, they materialise as what she envisages in her mind: “In my head I want it to be inventive, fearless kind of thing where you don’t care what you do and you’re just experimenting, that’s when the best music comes out.” Without holding back the songstress expects full exposure of emotions in her music: “a bit theatrical because I’m a bit of a drama queen! Like emotional, everything!” and before quietening she quickly blurts “Oh and a little bit pop!”
Another artist quickly pinned to remix; Marina receives attention already in her few released tracks although when asked preferences to official or unofficial versions she admits through her smile “I don’t know enough about remixes!” Warming up to the question, Marina continues “There was a guy called Lull who I wanted to do the 'Robot' song with, he did a remix with a band called Goyte: they’re amazing! But in the end we got Starsmith and The Aspirins of Your Children and I was happy with them.”
Sitting with rapt attention, wearing a vintage bolero and necklace encrusted with diamonds, the singer evidently takes her name to visual heights. So when Marina curses for the first time in the interview, we are taken by surprise all because we’ve asked her what jewels she would rather wear, Marilyn Monroe’s diamonds, or the Queen’s Crown Jewels: “Oh Shit! The Queen’s, although I don’t really like Queen...” Continuing “Marilyn was so lovely, but I think [the Queen’s Crown Jewels] would have more significance”. Questioning how Marina could take them on stage in performance, or use the jewels for special occasions she chuckles in conclusion, “Maybe just wear them to go out in, like the Queen!”
Words: Gemma Dempster and Tiffany Tondut