I. 

He got rid of the Saturn Astra in Frederick, Maryland. The car barely made any money, a  tenth of the price that his father had bought his first car for (a Volkswagen), but its AC had  kicked the bucket and he had no money for its repair. The buyer was a white woman that  smelled of garbage and expired food, and this seemed to be the last of her money.  

It was enough for new clothes, measly lunch, and a trip to the pool. In the men’s  bathroom, he applied hair dye on his fraying thin hair, and stepped outside to watch other  people, hear snatches of names he could take from. At the pool: a mild murmur, drowned out  by the waves the swimmers made. He didn’t see the appeal of swimming, largely because he  couldn’t. His father, whose father had been in the Navy, had never much enjoyed swimming.  His mother loved the sea but had no use for the pool; the chlorine didn’t do her curly hair any good, and she hated wearing swimming caps. She told him multiple times to take care of his  hair, to which he — then as now — responded with bleach and chemicals. He had done this for a couple of towns now: wash the dye; find a job, a crappy place  to stay; go do whatever job he found, cut down on food until he had enough money for a new  car. Then he’d drive off until he ran out of fuel or arrived at the next town, whichever came  first.  

Back in the bathroom, he stared at a shock of red hair going off in all directions, with  spots of white blond from where he had forgotten to apply the dye. He looked like a bet gone  wrong. A night nobody remembered, the morning that everybody regretted.  

“Mickey, go get your things!” he heard a boy shout. He smirked to himself. 

Soon enough, he came across a record store and badgered the owner into staying there in  exchange for working at the record store; the owner, a large white man, offered a storage  room that was really a recording room for local bands, and his own bed was a mat tossed  aside at the corner. There was a drum kit installed prominently at the center. He decided then and there that this would be his instrument and began to play drum fills, not very good ones, but soon enough he approached something he could only describe as sludge. “Good playing,” he heard. 

Across him was a dark-skinned man; bald and hunching, carrying a guitar in his hand,  he approached Mickey with a sparkle in his eyes. 

“How long have you been here for?” Mickey asked.  

“Maybe an hour. You were playing the drum track to When Doves Cry there, weren’t  you?” 

Mickey shook his head. “I was just playing anything.” 

The man took out the guitar from his case and plugged it in. He swished over the strings, playing in a way that was neither rock nor R&B nor punk; it was too jerky, too  jagged, too discordant. It stretched any definition of the word music, but the man nevertheless  continued playing.  

Mickey hit the kick once. The other man kept playing. Mickey hit the kick again. He  added a snare when he felt like it, then a drum fill. The logic was that there was none. The  drum barely made sense with the now screeching guitar, but it made Mickey play, and Denzel  did not stop, either. 

Denzel abruptly stopped. Mickey added a drum fill and hit the hi hat, and Denzel  laughed. 

“This ain’t your instrument, but you obviously played one before,” Denzel said. “And  you obviously know rock.” 

Mickey smiled. “So do you.” 

“What do you think of punk?” 

“You mean what Nirvana’s doing? Garbage.” 

Denzel smirked. “And Television?” 

He shrugged so as to answer the question without addressing it. “I like music that  ain’t got much to do with charts. They’re played on college radio once and they think they’re  hot shit. MTV made it worse. There’s no counterculture anymore. It’s all mainstream now.  Fugazi might be cool, but they don’t alienate. It’s ‘cause Black people aren’t part of this. No  wonder Bad Brains is the only band worth a damn.”  

He heard Dylan, almost smelled the waft of cigarettes, in half of these words. The  more Mickey talked, the wider Denzel’s grin got.  

“Name’s Don. Join my band,” Denzel said. 

“Mickey.” He got up and shook his hand. “Gladly.” 

In this version of the dream, they play together: Reese on drums, Dylan on guitar. A knock to  the door. Dylan stops playing, then goes out to see who it is. Mudman comes in. He looks at  Reese, and Reese knows he’s going to die. He starts to whack the drums instead. The force of  it kicks Mudman back and down to the ground; now Reese pummels on top of him, and he’s  gone.  

The name was Bridgeburn. Their sound: annihilistic, a word that Don combined from  annihilation and nihilism. Some of the pamphlets he made, the ones that Mickey could read  anyway, declared, “It isn’t metal, nor punk. Bridgeburn is COUNTERCULTURAL,  INTELLECTUAL and VISCERAL.” Mickey had no idea how intellect and viscera could  correlate, but Don was not receptive to feedback. 

Don was tall, though how tall, Mickey couldn’t tell from his hunch. Maybe six foot  five, maybe more. Everything related to Bridgeburn went through him: garish posters and  potential album covers, melodies so gossamer they might as well be hallucinations, lyrics that  were best performed spoken and not sung. When he played lead guitar, he’d stand like he was  peering down on an ant crossing his path. Mickey surprised himself by identifying Lou Reed  out of the creative rubble — his father revered him, and the first record Mickey had heard  was The Velvet Underground & Nico.  

Don, upon hearing the name, turned to Mickey with an indignant air, glared once, and  decided to sing instead. It sounded like scratching metal. 

Blair excused herself for a smoke break, motioning for Mickey to follow; as soon as  they were out, Blair said, “Make him speak again. This is horrible.” 

“Wasn’t aware this was on me.” 

“Say you didn’t hear Lou Reed.” She glared at him and puffed smoke in his direction.  “Soon as I’m done with this cig. The other day, my supervisor wouldn’t let me finish it. Because the shelves weren’t filled yet.” She rolled her eyes. “Damn shelves never fucking  end. And this cig’s not strong enough.” 

Blair, the bassist, was also tall, but she stood straight as a rod when playing. Her face  communicated her desire to talk as little as possible; but here, on one of her many smoke  breaks, with Mickey next to her, it exploded to long complaints of her job at the supermarket,  which included nasty customers, odd coworkers, pesky bags and dusty shelves. That she  didn’t bring up her parents’ heritage seemed a dogged insistence that she was as American as  everyone else, though frequent rants about citizenship applications let Mickey know that she  was not, at least in the legal sense. She never smiled, though it wasn’t for lack of Mickey  trying; the one time he didn’t, she asked him if he had gotten ill, or if he was mentally ill. He  said it was the latter; it made her smirk.  

They returned from the smoke break. Mickey said to Don, right away, that the Lou  Reed from before was bullshit. Don nodded; for a moment the air in the room was blessedly  silent, and then Don decided to sing again. Mickey exchanged a glance with Blair and  shrugged. His job was to play drums, though in his case, it translated to hitting them with no  rhyme or reason. As long as he kept Mudman at bay.  

He sometimes thought Don would disappear into his brown jacket, the jacket taking  over, turning liquid, like mud. This usually happened when Don decided to voice his thoughts  out loud. Like how he thought Mickey was more white than black. Said it had to do with the  smell, the vibe. Blair only shrugged when Mickey looked at her for help. She thought him  soft because he didn’t fight.  

It wasn’t that Mickey hadn’t thought of any violence. When Dylan fought with his  father, using his actual fists, Mickey had dreamed of fighting his dad all night, ending up with  a bloody mouth. It was that Mickey couldn’t fight. He blamed his nose for it, which bled by  itself. Anything could set it off and just about everything did. He couldn’t smell and taste all that much, but blood, he always managed to. Its pungent, metal smell never faded. That  interrupted the rehearsals more often than it had to, and only because the drums started to  sound wet, which was against the intellectual viscera that Don wanted Bridgeburn to have. 

Don thought Mickey had polyps in the nose. Don thought maybe Mickey should play  one song with the snare only, no kicks. Don thought Mickey should get himself checked.  Maybe it was the stress. Maybe it was just because he was genetically malfunctioned, a  cripple. 

Those times Mickey thought of violence again. Surely there would be some way to  hurl something at Don and rattle his brain a little. But Don told him to speak up if he had  something to say, and Mickey didn’t. 

Dylan, in his mind, always half-grinned when he said this. Just before Reese would go  somewhere, he’d shrug. Reese knew the story, right? There was this cult member who  believed he was made of mud. He’d go around biting others, harass and psychologically scar  them to induct them to the cult. He did this by biting people: their legs, their necks, their  shoulders. Then these people would become mud people. It was a virus of some kind. So  better not walk alone when it’s mud season. Mudman would always be there. When he told his story, the smile never reached his eyes. 

It was just past dawn when Mickey sat in front of the drums. He whacked over the snare, with both drumsticks and quick succession, then assaulted the rim like he was going to break  the drumsticks in the hope that it would hit him. Whack-whack-whack, patter-patter-patter,  clunk, clunk.  

“MUDMAN!” he shouted. He shouted it again, elongating the u, the a, a growl as he  continued whacking over and over. “MUD! MUD! MUD!”

Distantly he heard the bass and the guitar joining him, but Mickey heard his own  noise first, and he felt his throat strain from shouting. Blood dripped down the snare, mixing  with the sweat from his hands. The beat was audibly damp. He stopped to a thumping heart,  throbbing hands, and a clogged nose. He couldn’t tell where the blood came from: his hands,  his nose, his fingers. His head kept shouting: MUD! MUD! MUD! 

Blair and Don looked at him, Blair with her mouth open, Don with a glimmer in his  eyes. 

“Mudman?” Blair asked. 

Mickey swallowed. He wiped the blood off his nose. The world spun ever so slightly  in his vision; he distinctly felt that he would fall if he were to get up. He nodded. “This is it, man,” Don said. “Where’d you get that one from?” 

Blair raised an eyebrow. “You like it? Thought you didn’t want nobody doing the  lyrics but you.” 

Don laughed once. “I never said that.” 

II. 

In the dreams, Mickey was aware he was dying and then dead. Every time he woke up, it felt  like he was reborn. It didn’t feel as holy as it sounded. 

“Mudman”, pressed and distributed independently, came at a perfect time. Punk had broken,  as though punk was a dam keeping the putrid water of music journalism and the overall  establishment at bay, and now, more than usual, Mickey found Don talking to white people in  their band shirts and a card in their hands. Sometimes, they ran into Mickey, mostly at  restrooms; those times, Mickey pointed outside and led them back to Don. Don was clearly  into it. All the venomous looks he shot Mickey’s way were proof of it. In the touring van, Don openly discussed labels as though either Mickey or Blair had a say. SST was a no-go;  Dischord was good, but Don didn’t like to be in DC; Geffen was an absolute no-go. All major  labels were off the table, including a man from Atlantic Records that had promised them  “Beatles money”.  

In Chicago, Mickey paid with the remainder of his money for a recording studio,  enough for three days. They were about to record “Mudman”, the only song of Bridgeburn  that hit college radio, when a journalist – a white woman with thick-rimmed glasses – waited  for them at the entrance. Blair was nowhere to be seen, probably in some bathroom trying to  get her fix, and Don said they could use the break.  

They conducted the interview at the studio. The journalist was from a high-profile  music magazine that had recently begun to interview underground bands. Her eyes were only  on Mickey, and she shook his hand first.  

“And Blair?” she asked. 

Don looked at Mickey. Mickey rolled his eyes. 

“We can continue,” Don said. 

The first question was if Don was inspired by Public Enemy, because he, too, was  “rapping”.  

Don: “It’s not rap. I don’t think of my performance as rap.” 

“Sounds like rap to me,” the journalist said. 

“Is this because I’m Black?” 

“It’s because you’re rapping.”  

“We’re not—” Mickey said. Don raised his eyebrows, but didn’t cut him short.  “We’re not inspired by rap. I would say we do our own thing.” 

The journalist turned to him with a wide grin. “Surely you’re inspired by someone.”  “Mickey has no inspirations,” Don answered. His posture was eminently calm; Mickey had no doubt that Don believed this to be true. “He does what I tell him to.” “So Mudman is really your creation?” the journalist asked. 

“It’s not,” Mickey said before Don could claim that it was. “It’s mine.”  Don narrowed his eyes, straightening up as the last resort of towering over Mickey in  some capacity, but let him talk. 

“I like Fugazi,” Mickey answered. “Guy Picciotto is a great songwriter, abstract and  evocative. I don’t suppose I have a lot of inspirations besides that. Maybe some poems my  mom used to read to me, but I haven’t been able to read much these days.” 

“Yes.” She jotted this down. “Yes, I hear your similarities now. So would you  categorize your work in Bridgeburn as post-hardcore as well, or would you call it emocore?” Bridgeburn was a band with no remarkable talents swept up in a tide of media interest. They had one song, an emotional outburst Mickey had to perform by himself every  other day, and it was the one Don didn’t write. “I think we’re an older brand of post-punk,  closer to Wire. It’s about rattling the soul.” 

“We’re not close to anything,” Don said. He stood up so straight that he appeared a  head taller than Mickey. “People are close to us. They see us and want to steal what we got.” She looked at Don for the first time. “Mind telling names?” 

“Depeche Mode stole from our outfits. Looks too. The goatee—” 

Mickey laughed; he closed his mouth so more wouldn’t come out. That was his  goatee, not Don’s. 

“Goatees are dope,” Mickey said once he calmed himself down. The journalist’s head  turned right back to him. “Black and leather too. The scene is smaller than it looks, so I think  some overlaps are part of the point.”  

Seeing her jot it down brought him a little relief. At least he would come out alright.  These were group projects individually graded. Don would come to the same conclusion soon enough, and when that happened, Mickey would take the “Beatles money” an Atlantic  representative promised Don, go solo, buy a plane, and fly across America. He managed to  write some lyrics lately. There were toplines, some chords. He could use them all and it’d  still be better than the bullshit they recorded here. He rather liked it up on stage; the lights,  the shouts, the sweat, the blood working together to create a concoction more powerful than  chloroform. It was so nice to not exist for an hour or two. To not remember anything afterward. 

The journalist looked at him like she wanted all area access into his brain. “Mudman…” she said. “What a song. Truly ferocious.” 

Don said, “Matter of fact, we’re about to record it right now.” 

She furiously nodded. “Is it alright if I could sit in the room and watch you? To my  understanding, it is a Mickey Stanbull solo.” 

“It is—“ Mickey started. 

“Not a solo,” Don said, voice so clipped that Mickey flinched.  

The silence that followed was cold and thick. She didn’t write this down. “Don will play the guitar,” Mickey murmured.  

“On a song with only drums?” 

“Studio versions always differ,” Don said. “And it originally started as a band.” The journalist jotted it down. “But Mickey, you can play the guitar.” 

Mickey nodded. “I can. I started out acoustic. I wouldn’t mind going acoustic, even  folksy, down the road.” 

She tapped against the notepad. “This is interesting. I wonder if you heard of Dylan  Fitz—“ 

“I don’t want you to be part of it,” Don suddenly said.  

“—gerald,” the journalist said. She turned to Don. “No?”

Don’s leg jerked up and down.  

“Gerald?” Mickey asked. What’s this about?” 

“Dylan Fitzgerald. This talented young songwriter from Vermont. It’s a real tragedy  what happened to him. We could discuss this off the record,” the journalist said. She glanced  at Don. “Are you truly against me joining your recording?” 

Suicide was not a tragedy. To have a song stolen, to find no audience, to put all your  hopes in one song – these things were once tragedies to him, but now that Mickey had met  record label executives hounding him in parking lots, asking him to sign a contract, he  understood that it was all quicksand regardless. The tragedy was that Dylan had told Reese  he’d be outside for a minute and never returned.  

“Yes,” Don said. “Shit comes out when it comes out.” 

“I agree,” Mickey added. “It should be a surprise to everybody.” 

The journalist nodded, peeked at her wristwatch, and cleared her wrist. “Final  question. Mickey Stanbull, Mudman, I believe, is deeply personal to you. Where I’m from, in  Vermont, we have five seasons and not four. Lots of mud there. Vonnegut called it  Unlocking.” 

“That’s a good speech,” Mickey said. “I know that one.” 

“So are you from Vermont?” 

Mickey laughed. “Yes.” 

She fixed her glasses. “So how come you don’t know Dylan Fitzgerald?” Mickey didn’t know Dylan; Reese did. But he felt like Reese again. He felt it like  toothpaste remnants on his shirt. He was too old, too tired to think that driving from state to  state would wash it away, but he did once harbor the hope that Reese Fitzgerald would  reemerge as a part of himself, like a snippet of a melody in his head. Instead, Reese had  become a journalist’s scoop, part of the coveted biography of Mickey Stanbull. 

He found it quite hard to breathe in here. “Burlington has room for… um, all kinds of  lives and stories,” he managed to say. 

“I believe he had a brother. I saw him once. They performed the song together, over at  the Blunder, in South End?” 

“That’s nice.” 

“I’m just saying that you look like him.”  

His mouth felt stuffed with cotton. “Is it because I’m Black?” Mickey asked. She didn’t answer. They left it at that. She shook his hand and grazed Don’s. 

As soon as she was gone Don stood up straight; he seemed seven feet tall. He entered the  recording booth, cocked his jaw at Mickey, and picked up his Fender.  

“You don’t need the electric guitar,” Don said. 

He whacked it down to the ground in a beautiful arc. Even from the isolated room, the  sound was gnarly. The recording engineer, a muscular man with a Viking-like beard, shot up  from his deck. But Mickey was faster; he flung the door open, he was about to swing his  clenched fists, but a breath out and blood dripped down his nose, all over the rug. He put his  hands to stop it; energy seeped out of him like a teabag dropped into hot water. He could  barely stand straight, saw stars in his vision, black and white. He fell to the ground, his  fingers sticky.  

The viking jostled past Mickey, which made him bleed even more, and now it dripped  from his palm, thudding onto the rug. “Get the hell out of my studio!” the man bellowed. Mickey felt something past him and slid to the ground. 

III. 

He left the record store, the one in Frederick. The sky was a slab of white marble, the streets swept clean save for one figure at the horizon.  

Mickey knew at once that figure was Mudman. 

He wanted to turn around, but his body had become stone, his eyes burning the longer  he stared at Mudman. His mouth was parched; he couldn’t scream. His heart thumped too  slow. When he did move, it was a sudden jerking motion. It didn’t hurt his body, nor his legs.  Soon he floated backwards, and the entire time, he stared at Mudman. Mudman was getting  closer by the second. He was running, sprinting towards Mickey. There was a baton in his  hand that he whipped out, and his rattle petrified Mickey. 

Mickey fell. Now Mudman was on top of Mickey.  

“I…” Mudman began. A disgusting mix of horse and human feces emanated off him.  “I… crave….” 

Mickey was going to die. 

He shouted, screamed for help, yelled for somebody to come save him, but no one was there. Not one person opened their windows. He staggered up, felt his feet hit the  concrete as he ran as hard as he could. The horizon didn’t move. Something whipped him to  the ground again. His whole body shook from his tears, his open, loud sobs. He couldn’t  move his body, and this time, he felt a sudden coldness in his legs. He was being stripped;  Mudman would eat him, leg up; Mudman would kill him, He closed his eyes shut and let snot  and tears run down his face to the concrete. Everything in him tensed. There was no God to  pray to. Only Dylan on the other side. 

His stomach growled. Behind him, he couldn’t feel Mudman anymore. He felt something wet and rather sticky beneath him. When he opened his eyes, he found he lay on a  puddle, staining the street ruby red.  

Then he felt a horrifyingly large scraping inside his stomach. Like he’d never eaten before.

Mickey woke up. He was in the recording room. The viking man was shouting at Don; there  was a fight of some kind, outside the studio, the viking’s arms pressed against Don’s, locked  in something Mickey couldn’t quite get. But he saw Don, Don in his coat, and he felt the  scraping from the dream that didn’t feel like a dream anymore. He felt himself floating  toward Don. He heard himself say, “I’ll handle him”. They walked outside.  Don looked at him and asked, “What?”  

What a nice day it was outside, crisp and blue. Dylan killed himself on a day like this  one. Mudman had never had a chance to bite him. And if there wasn’t Dylan to warn him  from the threat, then could Reese be blamed for being caught after all? He tasted blood on his mouth. “I…” he said, “I crave.” 

IV. 

One to Watch: Mickey Stanbull 

This story was reported by Janet Lexington-Schwartz 

As soon as he got onto the mic, a blue Jazzmaster strapped on his shoulder, Mickey Stanbull  bellowed MUDMAN on stage and gave everybody a good fright. Time stood still and  became an eternal present — the thick riffs that were choked further against the amp; the  repeated wailing, oh my God, the wailing; the face, the locks falling like an angel fallen to  the pits of hell. This man spells out sex, desperation, and dirt all at once.  

The pit waited for this moment for almost an hour. And in four minutes, this grim  eternity was over. I was rattled, and grateful that this was the last song. The entire stage was  as spellbound as I was.  

Rock cannot be consumed through radio and MTV alone, and Mickey Stanbull is  living proof of it. He has a presence best experienced live. No more nerdy characters mumbling their way to the stage; it’s not cool to act uncool, despite whatever pretensions our  current leading men are under; and it’s not cool to be overeager about stardom, despite  whatever delusions Billy Corgan puts himself in. Our greatest frontmen are showmen,  whether conscious or not, whether willing to play on purpose or by accident. Hours ago, in  conversation, he struck me as the former; now, I am not so certain.  

After “Mudman” ended, Stanbull locked eyes with the nearest spotlight. His face was  startlingly empty when he looked up, as silent as everyone else. The audience erupted into  applause, roared for an encore, but Stanbull moved backstage without thanking anyone. I  couldn’t help it; I ran backstage, a few fans in tow, calling for him. He turned and didn’t  seem to understand. He looked at us and seemed to ask himself who “Mickey Stanbull” was.  It was to the degree that I briefly wondered if this “mud-man” he sang about chewed at  critical portions of his brain, leaving him crippled but savant, without an identity. In truth, as  he tells me later, he was rattled too. He felt the song exactly as we did, an earthquake of an  experience. What had just happened could not be repeated — until it would have to, all  across America, for many years on end. 

That night, in Chicago, he announced his departure from Bridgeburn. The death of a  band is the birth of another star. 

Lately, Reese dreamt of him playing music with Dylan, both on acoustic. He’d toured all  across America, and he was in Connecticut now. It wouldn’t take long to go back to Vermont  now, just in time for mud season. He’d just have to wait for Dylan to step outside for a little  bit. 

The post Mudman appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Back then, some quarter century ago, the nuns knew little about anatomy. Modest by nature and training, they either didn’t look or never noticed that my testicles didn’t drop. They had nothing to drop into, I was born without a scrotum. Many were too timid to even look at my penis. It’s just an organ, Sister Elfriede said. Without it none of us would be here. 

It’s dirty, some said. 

Dirty but necessary, Sister Elfriede rejoined. The two or three nuns who were least squeamish – they had brothers, they’d been around – were assigned to care for me. The others were excused. 

This was in a remote part of East Tyrol. Visitors, wealthy, middling, or impoverished, were, despite the abbess’ hopes, rare. 

My caretakers were musical. They hummed and sang religious music, hymns mostly but sometimes plainchant, as they washed, fed, or comforted me. I heard more song than conversation until I began my secondary education. 

Once I passed my toddler years, they let me walk the grounds unaccompanied. My voice, closer to a countertenor than anything else, was influenced by the chittering of the creatures I heard in the woods and clearings during the day, the distant sound of yodelers, and the screeches of the beasts culling their ranks in the night. 

I received my earliest formal education in the convent. The sisters had no way to send me to the nearest school, kilometers away. They suspected public education anyway. 

Progress came to our corner of the Alps. When I was twelve or thirteen, the road in front of our convent was paved. We started receiving visitors but no benefactors. One of our new guests mentioned there was a school bus stop a kilometer away. The nuns conferred. The following September they enrolled me in an all-boys prep school. I was a scholarship student. 

My first class was gym. We all had to strip. The teacher wasn’t gay. We’re in a gymnasium that believes in first principles, he said. Back to the Greeks! We stood in a line while he inspected us. He pulled me aside. 

Where are your balls? he asked. 

Balls?

Your testicles. 

Testicles? 

He marched me, still unclad, to the principal’s office. A woman’s group was in the waiting room waiting to speak to the headmaster about who knows what. Since the gym teacher had seniority, besides he had a class to teach, the receptionist waved us in ahead of the committee. They seemed more incensed about being bypassed than by my nakedness. 

The principal allowed the headmaster to return to class then called the convent. Sister Elfriede was indisposed. The second in command said she never noticed anything irregular about my anatomy but then she’d never seen me naked. The principal wrote out a slip, told me to report to the nurse’s office. I couldn’t find it till midway through second period. The nurse palpated me, said she couldn’t feel anything irregular besides my missing equipment. She gave me my clothes, which my gym teacher had a boy deliver, then sent me to the nearest hospital a village or two away. 

There I was X-rayed, MRI-ed, massaged again, made to cough and perform calisthenics. It was the first time I’d ever exercised. They had me lay on an examining table. Someone took pictures, others took notes. They planned to write an article about me for some Munich medical journal. 

A specialist came in. He explained that the procedure to create an external scrotum for my gonads to drop into was risky and very expensive. He doubted Sister Elfriede, given her poverty and beliefs, would pay for it. He’d seen the videos of the round nurse rubbing me, saw my erection. Your desires are normal, he said. You don’t need the operation. He wrote a lengthy note. Give this to your gym teacher tomorrow, he said. We saw you exercise. We know his type. He’ll go easy on you. 

The gym teacher read the note next morning. You must be a sissy, he said. Drop and give me ten. 

Ten? 

Ten pushups! 

Pushups? 

He dropped and demonstrated. He must have done fifty. 

I lowered myself then came halfway up. 

You may dress, he said. I need to get the boys ready for competition. 

I sat in a corner and leafed through a book about Salzburg’s heyday while the gym teacher forced some students to run laps around the gym and others to perform soccer drills. Those who weren’t on a team could do as they pleased. Most of those played basketball or used the gymnastics equipment. 

Next morning I had music first class.

I bet you didn’t expect to see me, the gym teacher said once we were all seated. I didn’t know what to expect. 

There’ve been a few budget cuts, the teacher explained. It’s all for the better. Franz, the old music teacher, retired. I hear he’s composing and conducting now. I don’t have the musical talent that old Franz has but I do know some things. He then yodeled for five minutes. As he ranged from low to high and back again, we sat in our seats dumbstruck. After our applause died down, he asked each of us to sing a short passage. He took notes on our voices. We’ll meet again next Wednesday, the gym teacher said at the end of class. During the peak of sports seasons, we’ll have music once a week. Later, towards Christmas, we’ll have music two or three times a week, depending on how much time I need to prepare you to sing in the concert. 

The following Wednesday, he arranged us in a semicircle then stood facing us. I was on his far left. The next closest person was a few yards away. Not all of you will be choristers, he said, just as not all of you will perform on a sports team. Since this may be your first formal exposure to music performance, I’ll give you all a chance to make the squad. 

He handed out sheets of music. The first song was a Christmas carol, “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”, of course. I’d heard it, we all heard it, many times. 

As we filed out of the classroom, the gym teacher asked me to stay behind. 

You have a wonderful voice, he told me. You haven’t just made the choir; I want you to be a soloist. He gave me a book of songs. I want you to practice as much as you can, during gym class of course, but also at home. 

The nuns of course were pleased that I succeeded at something. 

I was the featured soloist at every performance my first three and a half years there. Bored with the repertory, I added melismatic effects and other trills and tremolos to my parts. Audiences looked forward to my eccentric interpretations, never knowing what to expect. I changed them from evening to evening not so much for them as for me. 

In the spring of my last year there we performed an operetta, von Suppé’s Galatea. The female roles were sung by students of a nearby girl’s school similar to ours. That was the first time I saw Lotte, who played the lead. I was cast as Ganymede. 

I played the role straight, as straight as I could. Like all my schoolmates I was smitten with Lotte, a medium height fraulein with black curls, freckles, dimples, hips, and what we imagined was a stupendous bust. The production was a great success. The last performance was a matinee, the Sunday before school let out. Backstage we heard that Pelagio, the famous impresario, was in the audience. Lotte, usually composed before we went on, was jittery. I held her hand. How can you be so calm? she asked me. I didn’t tell her I’d never heard of Pelagio, had only a vague idea of what an impresario does. You’ll be fine, I said.

Lotte sang and acted better than she ever had, better than anyone who’d ever appeared on our schools’ boards. The audience applauded a full fifteen minutes, demanded she perform an encore. She sang a Lied by Schubert a cappella since the musicians had already left. 

As the star, Lotte had the only private dressing room. The rest of us shared a long dingy green room. Many of my classmates were going to fancy dinners to celebrate the capstone of their scholastic musical careers. I had to take the last bus to the nunnery where I’d eat cold leftovers from the communal dinner. The abbey’s finances hadn’t improved much. I’d be lucky if any meat was left for me. 

Worried that I’d miss my bus, I was on the threshold of the doorway out when I felt a familiar hand upon my shoulder. 

Thank you so much for encouraging me, Lotte said, then turning to Pelagio, who was with her, this is the man who inspired me to my greatest performance yet. Lotte turned me around, kissed me chastely on the lips. It was the first time I was ever kissed. 

Have you completed your farewells? Pelagio asked. 

Till then, it hadn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t see Lotte after my final performance or, for that matter, most of my classmates after the coming week. I wasn’t accepted to any universities, had no job offers. 

Come fall, I’ll be studying at the Mozarteum University, Lotte said. 

Ah, Salzburg, I thought. 

In Innsbruck. Pelagio will visit me at least monthly and arrange that I get extra instruction. After I graduate I may sing in one of his opera troupes. 

That’s fantastic, I said. 

I told Lotte I didn’t know what I’d be doing when she asked. Lotte batted her eyelashes at Pelagio. You’re a major benefactor to the Mozarteum, she told Pelagio. Surely you can find something for our Ganymede there. 

His voice is more than adequate for someone with his training, Pelagio said, but it’s not up to university standards. The school always needs janitors. He turned to me. Can you push a broom. 

I can learn, I said. 

After much back and forth, though only after Lotte threatened to give up music or go to another school, Pelagio agreed to hire me. I’d get room and board plus a miniscule stipend. 

Lotte’s parents emerged from the shadows. Her father gripped my hands hard, her mother smiled at me. They both thanked me for my pep talk. Let’s celebrate our deal! Pelagio said. He then took Lotte and her parents out to dinner.

I missed my bus. I didn’t get home till just before the front door was locked. They’d never given me a key. The sister who let me in told me that the leftovers for dinner were already added to the compost heap. We’re becoming a green nunnery, she said. 

The next morning I told Sister Elfriede of my plans. She agreed that I could stay at the convent till the new school year. She’d even let me wash walls and floors. I didn’t realize that they planned to banish me once my education was complete. 

I worked mostly with Turks and Arabs. My voice deepened though it was still higher than most. There wasn’t any demand for a singer with my range. My deepest note was at the high end of a light tenor’s range. 

At the beginning of my second year there, Bruck, a wealthy Englishman or an Anglophile, I couldn’t tell the difference, sponsored a performance of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. Tryouts were winding down when Pelagio appeared at my locker at the end of my shift. He spent most of his time in Vienna and Milan, sometimes in Salzburg, rarely in Innsbruck. He asked me why I didn’t try out for a role. 

They only ever want baritones and tenors, I said. I was told to stick with my brooms. 

Not for this piece, Pelagio said. He showed me the part for the Chinese Man. Bruck is a very wealthy man, much wealthier than anyone your nuns will ever know. This is the first piece he’s sponsoring. We need to wow him. 

Next day I won the part. My partner was a Korean woman, not Lotte. My supervisor gave me time off to rehearse and perform though I wasn’t compensated for the hours I missed. 

Bruck was detained by some lucrative business in Cambridge. He was only able to attend the final performance, another Sunday matinee. Lotte, who played not Titania but Juno, approached me before we went on. She asked me if I was nervous. 

No, I said. It’s a small role. 

I’m worried, Lotte said. Bruck isn’t like the other burghers who sponsor our productions. I hear he’s very knowledgeable and demanding. The stakes for our institute are high. 

I held Lotte’s hand. She calmed. Pelagio appeared. What’s this? he said. 

Nothing, Lotte answered. 

He left, most likely because he didn’t want to disturb Lotte before her finale. 

We all performed splendidly till the last line of “Yes, Daphne” my final song. The rest of the cast carried on as if I didn’t flub my part. 

Pelagio was already in the green room when I entered. We could still hear the audience’s applause. It may have been the loudest ever heard at the Mozarteum.

What do those yahoos know? Pelagio said. I sat next to Bruck, saw him wince as you concluded your part. I told him you weren’t part of our academy, just an outsider we decided to bring in, we didn’t want to make it a breeches role. 

I’m an aesthete with a cultivated ear, Bruck said. Even so, I understand that singers don’t always hit their notes just as athletes and actors sometimes miss their marks. Besides, this is a music school not the Royal Opera. That was the last he said to me. He left as soon as the final curtain fell. I’m ruined and it’s all your fault. 

Lotte approached as Pelagio finished his tirade. He left the green room apparently without seeing her. 

Pelagio wasn’t ruined. We didn’t stick around to find out. Instead, we flew – where else? – to New York. 

I’m fed up with Pelagio, Lotte said on the plane. I didn’t know if she was angered by his attention or lack of attention to her. 

We had to share a room our first night in Manhattan. Lotte sent me out for pizza while she showered and changed into her nightclothes. After we ate she told me to shower and to come to her naked. 

I approached her side of the bed more excited than I’d ever been. She touched the tip of my quivering penis, examined the fair hairs around its base, gazed at the spot where my scrotum should be. You may dress, she said. 

That’s it? 

I just wanted to see if you’d passed puberty, she said. I should have known from the peach fuzz on your cheeks. Who castrated you? 

I wasn’t castrated. My testicles didn’t drop. 

That’s gross, she said, but we’ll still be friends. 

Lotte, her parents, or someone that they knew has connections in New York. We soon found work. Lotte was accepted at Julliard. 

I went a-whoring with all the spare money I scrounged. The whores didn’t notice or didn’t say anything about my missing equipment. This went on till the director of the troupe pulled me aside. Lay off the hookers, he said. Satiety is bad for your acting. Remember the part calls for you to long for your beloved. 

He didn’t prohibit sex, I just had to seduce or be seduced by my partners. The few cis women I slept with were queasy about my equipment. I had better luck with trans women. Our company had an about equal supply of both. Lotte sang with us summers and during winter breaks, her duties at Julliard were that demanding. Wholesome as a milkmaid, she stood out from the rest of the troupe.

Lotte graduated from Julliard with honors. She wasn’t able to find many roles. Casting directors for conventional media – TV, mainstream theater, even film – looked at her history with the various groups she played in, considered her healthy appearance, and scratched their heads. My troupe evolved. We didn’t have any major roles for singers with Lotte’s talents and appearance. She didn’t want to play mere foils to major characters. One day the director fired her. Lotte came to me straight after. I don’t know what to do, she said. My father is sick, maybe dying, my parents have to cut my allowance. 

The following Sunday – we no longer performed matinees – I took Lotte to a pier in the West Village to help her forget her troubles. We brought mountain bread, a hunk of gray cheese, and Grüner Veltliner in a wineskin, my treat. It was the first fine day of spring. For some reason we had the pier to ourselves. After we had a little bit to eat and drink, we sat on a blanket at the end of the dock, our legs dangling over the Hudson. I held Lotte close, was about to kiss her when we heard someone shout, What’s this? 

We turned. It was Pelagio. He put the cheese and knife in his bag, slung the wineskin over his shoulder. Do you have any idea how far I had to walk to find you? he said to Lotte. Come, I’ll get a taxi, we can still catch a 6 pm flight to Vienna. He tore Lotte from my arms and dragged her to the street where a cab was waiting. I reached for the wine, found only the bread, a sort of flattened boule, tore a chunk off, and chewed it. I, who ever since my rescue by bony Sister Elfriede sought solace only in buxomness, had a long empty afternoon and Monday ahead of me.

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Can you tell me anything about the name MAROU?

You know what, when I was younger I would always hear these names like Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and be like that’s a great name. These people were just born with these names? Well then they were destined to do this. Angela Peters? I can’t really see that on a marquee or anything, “Now Starring Tonight Angela Peters!” It just didn’t have that feel to it. So I was talking to my sister one day, and I thought if I really want to do this music thing I want a name. Then I can be whoever I want. I can have this new persona, I don’t have to be this shy Ang who’s too scared to even sing in her room. 

But I love that it’s not like you’ve created a persona, it’s simply that you’ve grown into who you truly are, through doing this. And it’s genuinely you, which is lovely.

Yes! So my sister was just like, “alright let’s think of a name.” And I kind of wanted it to be just one name, one word. We were at Whole Foods one day and my sister was like “what about Marou?” And I was like, “huh that kind of slaps. How’d you just think of Marou like that?” We’re in line just buying kombucha or something. And she’s like, “oh look at that chocolate bar over there, it just says Marou.” I saw it and I was just repeating the word in my head over and over like, yeah, that works. Later I was fooling around with the font and stuff, like do I want uppercase first letter, all lowercase? I figured no, I want it all caps, just MAROU. So it hits you. 

A statement.

This is MAROU. I started signing my name as that at open mics and I love it. It fits. At first it felt like this person I would step into, but now, hi what’s up I’m MAROU. I’ve really grown into it.

Before you were MAROU, do you remember what first got you into music? 

You know, I was thinking about it yesterday, it’s crazy because I remember this vivid memory of me being in first grade (laughs) and we were doing this thing of like “oh what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I was really into American Idol. I would watch it all the time with my mom, like Simon Cowel, I think it was Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, and I told my teacher, “I want to be a singer!” and she was like “What? No!” and I was like “Okay.. I want to be a vet”. Which is weird, because I never really had any interest in singing back then, but I was like “oh that’s cool”, you know. It wasn’t until middle school, when my brother went to the Cayman Islands, and brought me back a ukulele that I started getting serious about an instrument. But then I was like “okay I can’t just play it, I have to sing too”. 

It just felt like that was a natural combination. 

Exactly, and I think even before that I always liked singing, but I was never confident in myself, because I was like, a kid. I remember when Adele was really hitting it big, I was singing her in first grade. I did a talent show and I think I sang Rolling in the Deep. (laughs) I had no reason to be singing that song when I was that young. And oh my god there was a talent show in fourth grade, where I hula hooped for one half, and the other half I sang Who Says, by Selena Gomez. 

A classic. 

I mean it was bad, it was really bad I will admit. So then I played saxophone for a few years in school. So I had little bits and pieces growing up. But I wouldn’t say I really started getting into music until my brother bought me that ukulele when I was 12. I learned Riptide, of course. I was really into Leon Bridges, so I started singing him. And then that’s when I made a youtube channel, and was like “I want to be youtube famous, I want Ellen Degeneres to discover me”. So yeah I was really into Leon Bridges,  I played some Ariana Grande. But the thing is I was just not confident in my singing abilities. 

I would tell my mom, “Hey mom I’m going to go upstairs and record a youtube video, please stay downstairs until I come get you” And she was so cool she was like, “okay do your thing”. And sometimes it would be hours. I was too hard on myself I think, because if I messed up just even a little bit, which no one could hear but myself, I’d be like no I need to start over again. And the videos never took off or anything, but it was fun. I’d come home from school and be so excited to learn a new song.

When did you get your first guitar?

My dad had one, so I always had one in my room. I always looked at it, but I never picked it up, I was too into ukulele to try anything else. But then, the pandemic hit and I remember I was just so bored. I remember getting tired of the ukulele, at least the standard one, because it was so high pitched and it didn’t really fit my voice. I bought a baritone ukulele, and that sounded more like a guitar. So when the pandemic hit I was like, why don’t I just learn guitar, because I’m already kind of playing it. 

It was April 2020, and I told myself I was going to learn the hardest song for my level, then everything else will be easy after that. I tried learning Blackbird by The Beatles. I never finished it, because I was like nah this is too hard for me right now (laughs). I also really loved writing, and I was really impatient with trying to learn chords on the guitar. I had so many songs but I didn’t know which chords to match my lyrics up to. So I would just make up chords, and be like “yeah that sounds good, let me just go with that.” That’s what I was doing for a while, I wasn’t really learning guitar, I was just doing my own thing. But it was fun. 

Do you think the pandemic and all that time spent at home encouraged you?

Yeah definitely. I was a senior in highschool, so I’d have online classes in the morning, and then my sister and I would go on our daily run. Then I’d have the rest of the day to myself, so music is what I filled my time with, which was really nice. 

You mentioned Leon Bridges, do you want to talk a little more about your influences? 

Leon Bridges definitely influenced me. I think I liked his soulful singing. It was more of the style I wanted to get into. He was the gateway into what I later listened to, like the musicians and music I love now. My sister also influenced a lot of my music tastes. 

Hmm I also remember I listened to one song by Big Thief…

Oh, okay, actually this is about to get deep.

It was the summer after my freshman year of college and I was home. I was studying animal science so I figured I had to get an internship related to that. I started working at this wildlife refuge, like 2 hours away from my home, it was insane. I’m from Jersey, and Jersey is pretty big, and this place was on the border of Pennsylvania. I was an unpaid intern…and I was working there like six days a week, and it sucked. Anyways, I had, or have, really bad OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where you have intrusive thoughts and then compulsions. 

My brain will be like “oh I need you to touch this” or “turn off this light switch five times or else this is gonna happen.” And the “or else” part was always a fear of mine. 

So that was just really bad for a while. 

I’d wake up and it’d be like, “Don’t get in the car today or else, you’re gonna die on your way to work.” I would be so scared on this long drive in the morning because of that. Even though I knew nothing was going to happen, that’s just the disorder I guess. So the two hours in the car to the animal refuge and back was just horrible. The whole way I was driving was just, “Don’t switch lanes or you’re going to get hit by a car”, or “Don’t do this or this will happen.”

So I was having a miserable time, and I remember Mythological Beauty by Big Thief came on. And there was something about it, because I just relaxed and I wasn’t thinking about any of the bad things that might happen. So from then on, I listened to Big Thief for the entirety of my car ride, and that just became my routine. I’d wake up and immediately start listening to them, because I was like as long as I’m listening to this, my mind isn’t thinking about anything else. That’s initially how I got into them. Adrianne Lenker’s voice was so soothing and I was starting to relate to the lyrics. I remember they were my top Spotify artist for the year because you know, two hours there, two hours back really started to add up. 

Now I would say they’re really an influence because of their writing style.

Back then I depended on their music, because it shut my brain off, but now that I’m past that stage in my life, I can appreciate them more as a band and less as a…

A lifeline? 

Yeah, yeah exactly (laughs).  

Inspiration

I wanted to talk about your writing process. Before you started playing music, was writing something that you did often? 

Well when I was playing ukulele, I wasn’t really too big into writing, I don’t think I had anything to write about honestly. I do have one embarrassing story though. I was in second grade and had a crush on a guy at my school, and I wrote a little song about him. And for some reason, I don’t know why I did this, but I set the song about my love for him as the background of the family computer! I was so embarrassed because my sister saw it and was like “what is this!!” and everyone was just laughing at me, which I probably deserved (laughs). 

How old were you? 

I was in second grade! I think that incident probably discouraged me without me knowing. When I started playing the ukulele I didn’t really write too much, it really began when I picked up the guitar.

A lot of the songs you write are about relationships right?

Yeah! (Laughs)

What kind of relationships are you often thinking about when you write, or create? 

I’d say 95 percent of my songs are about romantic relationships, about guys I’ve dated. And it always used to be about the same kind of guy. About me getting myself into these situations where I know I shouldn’t, but I do anyway.  Just things that don’t really work out, or I’m in it, and as I’m in it I know this isn’t going to work out but I stay anyways. I know I shouldn’t but I do. 

So it’s more singing about yourself, rather than these people. 

Yeah, it’s me singing about how I know I deserved better, and the ways I grew from those things. Like I’ve experienced going through all that, and yet here I am. 

I sing a lot about my relationship with myself too. The OCD, how that was tiring and lonely, and I felt like I was going insane. And then my sister, I have a song called Sister…about my sister.  Because she’s really been my best friend and has influenced a lot of the music I listen to now. She would always share her music with me. I have some lyrics, Sister, why don’t you come back home / Sister, why don’t you pick up the phone. We’re eight years apart, so she’d be in college and I’d be home, wishing I had her to talk to. So this song is just about, being the youngest sister and needing my best friend to help me through high school and stuff. Another lyric is, am I gonna be like you? Because I’ve always looked up to her. 

She went to grad school for photography, and I think if it wasn’t for her taking that path, I probably wouldn’t be as confident as I am now following my own path. Because my brother is a big science guy and pursued aerospace engineering, and when it was my sister’s turn she went to art school, and my parents were like woah. She kind of broke the ice ya know, so now with me doing music I think I’m able to just do it. Like, okay my sister did it so now I can do it. I’ve always looked up to her for that, I just think she’s the coolest person ever. 

So yeah, I tend to write songs about my romantic relationships, my sister, and myself. 

On that concise note, if you had to choose three words to describe your genre, style, content, what would they be? 

Hmm, okay you know what, I started writing my spotify bio recently and I actually really liked what I wrote there. Okay, I would say… (laughs) but I don’t want to sound like, full of myself. 

Disclaimer everyone, she’s not trying to sound full of herself!

I mean, probably haunting, introspective (laughs) wow this is good, and vulnerable I guess. 

Don’t you have a song called Haunted? 

Yeah I do! I like storytelling through my songs. I try to get people to feel like they can see what’s going on. That’s why I would say vulnerable and introspective. 

Getting Started

What has performing live been like for you so far? 

Well I knew once I went to college I was going to have to get over my fear of performing. I knew it was going to suck, but I was ready for it. I was working at this coffee shop, and everyone was just the sweetest. One of the managers was in a band and he invited me to open for them at their house show! I had never sung in front of anyone before. He was like “yeah this could be your big debut, open for us at our house show! It’ll be chill, we’ll have our friends over” and I was like “what!” And I knew I HAD to do this, this would be the start. 

So I did it. I remember I was so nervous and my voice was quaking, but I got through it! The next year I started playing at the open mics the cafe would have every week. I was getting good feedback which I really needed to boost my confidence. At one point I was like okay, I’m ready to move on to bigger open mics.

I was living down in Kingston RI, and I guess the big city was Providence. I called up this place Askew, which was the first open mic I went to here. It was January 2022, and there weren’t a lot of people there which was nice. I got some great feedback from a guy called Jake, I remember I saw him walking and he had on cowboy boots, cowboy hat. I was at the bar getting a water and he came up to me, and was like “that was awesome”. He was up next and his voice just blew me away, so I thought “well if this guy thinks I’m good I gotta keep doing this.” 

After that, any free time I had I would just practice for the open mic. Like practice, practice, practice. And every Monday night I would go back to Askew. That was definitely when I got my foot in the door. The next year I switched majors, which then took up a lot more of my time and I wasn’t able to do music as much. That destroyed me. So I was like alright, during the summer, I’m just gonna take a break from everything academia, and I was determined to move to Providence and do what makes me happy for three months. I wanted to immerse myself in music and work a job that allows me to do that and see what happens. 

So that brings us to this past summer. 

Yes! (drums on table) 2023 baby! 

MAROU takes off!

(Laughs) Thank you. Yeah, I mean I told my parents I wasn’t going to do an internship, and they’ve always been supportive. So I moved to Providence, and lo and behold, typed in “coffee shop jobs providence”,  cause that was the only thing I could think of. Pretty soon I started working as a barista which was great because I had my evenings free for music and performing. I was doing Monday nights at Askew, Wednesday nights at the Parlor, and then in between trying to book shows. Wherever I could, whenever I could. And that’s the happiest I’ve ever been, it’s been awesome. 

I remember one day sitting in my bed being like damn, if high school me could see me now, she’d be so surprised. 

And proud!

And proud! It just felt so right, everytime I stepped on stage. 

When I was 12, my sister took me to see Matt Corby, this indie singer from Australia. We were front row, and I remember standing there and his voice was so deep and rich. It stirred something inside of me, and I was like I don’t know what this feeling is, but I want to feel this all the time. I don’t know how, but I need this. I don’t know if I’ll be behind the stage or in the audience, but I know I have to be in this music thing somehow. 

So when I started doing these shows, I felt that again, which was really cool and very reassuring. Like here is that feeling I’ve been trying to figure out, this is what it’s been trying to tell me. The moment I felt that again I was like holy shit! I solved it! I solved the puzzle! It was my first show of the summer at AS220, and I went home after and just cried because I was so happy. 

Do you have any pre-show rituals?

Normally I call my mom and dad (laughs). I’ll be like “heyy I’m bouta perform.” Because they’ve always been supportive of me, so I like to let them know I’m doing this, not only because of me but because of them too, like “thanks guys, talk to you after!” So I do that. 

How has collaborating with local musicians in Providence been for you?

I will say, this guy Daniel Pond, who is part of Scaffolding, has definitely been a musical guide of sorts around here. He knows almost every musician in Providence. He was my go to this past summer. If I needed musicians for a gig, or recommendations for a  new amp, he would be my guy. Or if I was like “hey how do I go about playing a show at Red Ink” he’d be like “I’ve got a show lined up for you.” He’s been so awesome. 

The Making of an Album

Last year you released your EP There’s Time for Me, and there are some really special songs on there. 

Let’s see, all of the songs I’ve written, I’ve written after a mental breakdown. That’s the only way I’ve written songs up until now. I would try and sit down if I had extra time and write stuff but I just couldn’t. Nothing creative would come out. It would only happen after I got so worked up, I would be in my room between 11pm-2am and just start crying. Then I’d get mad at myself for it and want to channel that into something else. So I’d pick up my guitar. Sometimes I’d just strum a chord and instantly words would come out and it would work. 

One of my songs I really like, Midday Mourning, was written about my ferret Mimi. My freshman year of college I was really missing her.  One night I was crying and I told myself “I’m tired of crying, it feels like, not useless, but what am I crying for” you know? So I picked up my guitar to see if writing a song would give me something to put all that emotion into. I strummed two chords and the words came out, without writing anything down. But now I’m in a place where I haven’t had a mental breakdown in a while, cause I’m actually genuinely happy. So I’m kind of in a rut now honestly (laughs). That’s the only way I’ve known how to write songs so now I’m like “what do I do!” Which is great because I’m happy, but music-wise I don’t know what to do. 

You also released a music video alongside the EP for your song What If.  

So a year prior to making that video, I had expressed on my instagram that I was interested in recording my music but didn’t know where to start. So my friend was like hey I have all the equipment, come to my house with like five songs ready and we’ll record an EP. And I was like HUH? REAllY? So yeah, we did that. Later that year there was some delay with the release, and I was itching to keep creating and to get something done, so I was like what if I made a music video to release with the song! I had all this creative energy I wanted to do something with. I picked the song that meant the most to me, What If,  and I went looking for someone who could help me put all these ideas together.

How was the process of creating the video, and seeing one of your songs come to life in a visual sense? 

My friend Hayden Carr-Loize is a film guy in addition to being a musician, and he was super interested in the idea. We met up one day to brainstorm, and I knew how I wanted certain pieces of the video to go but not everything. A week later he sent me a storyboard and a full script. He was on that shit. I remember reading it and thinking, this is fucking perfect, I love this. So everyone got together and we recorded in New Jersey. We didn’t have specific places in mind, we sort of wandered around and certain things worked out.  At first I thought it was going to be really nerve wracking, but like I said it just felt so natural. Then we headed back to the city and ended up on Roosevelt Island.

 Oh! And there was a dance scene! This was one part that I knew I wanted in it. I wanted to choreograph a dance scene at the end. I love dancing, I won’t say I’m a great dancer but I love it. So yeah I choreographed it and I’m so proud of it. I knew I wanted it to be the ending of the video, I knew I wanted it to be sunset and I’d be doing this dance. So we’re on the island, up on a hill. I lay out this blanket and I just go for it. Again, I thought I would be nervous because I’ve never danced in front of anyone. Singing is vulnerable and dancing is a whole other thing. It felt so great.  Not the whole thing made it into the original video, but they did record a clip of the whole dance, which I actually just released as an alternative music video!

It was a very important music video, because it was about OCD. I wanted to encapsulate everything I’ve been through with it, and the video ended up doing exactly what I wanted it to. The dance scene was me releasing a lot of those feelings, and starting new. 

By the time the music was ready to be released I was going through a really hard time, I was going through a break up, and I really needed a win. This video definitely felt like it. 

This reminds me of something we were talking about earlier; the idea that art is not only what you do, it’s who you are. 

That’s exactly what I sing about. Like the OCD. That has had such a hold on my life for so long, and that’s why I sing about it. It’s who I was. These relationships too, I put them into song because they’ve had some kind of role in who I am today, they have shaped me. The music is a product of what I go through in life. Art is not only what you do, it’s also who you are. It manifests into what you create.

Reassurance

Could you tell me what you’re most proud of, music or otherwise?

I think number one, it would be that I’ve gotten myself to this place where if you told me to sing right now I’d be like “yeah alright get me by guitar and I’ll go right now.” If you asked me that back in high school, I would just freeze, and the fact that I can just do it now is pretty great. 

Okay wait actually, you know the thing I’m most proud of right now is my Red Door show I did this past summer! The Sharon Van Etten cover band that I put together. Let’s see, the venue was putting on a benefit show for Sojourner House, and it was a woman-led cover band event. There were a bunch of bands playing – they were doing Taylor Swift covers, Alanis Morrissette covers, and Blondie covers. There was an extra spot for a band and I was so fortunate enough to snag it last minute.

I had one week to put a band together. And this was going to be the biggest event I had done yet, like the streets were going to be closed off, there was going to be a stage, it was outside, insane. Sometimes the way I prepare for these things is I don’t really think too much about it until the day of, or else I freak myself out. So I was like, okay I know I need to get this done, I know I need to put a band together. I gotta practice, but I’m not gonna think about it otherwise. 

I was texting people I knew who were musicians, I needed a guitarist, bassist, drummer, maybe a keyboardist and then I’m good. I got all that together, and it was so great. I love being part of a music community where I can just be like hey, anyone want to play this gig with me? And a bunch of people are just like “Yeah totally!” So we met up to practice just three days before the show.

 Lets see, Keith Haupt was on drums, Niels Versavel on bass, and Ethan Dowding on guitar. We ran through like five Sharon Van Etten songs, and they had never really listened to her, so they were like we’ll just follow you, which was sick. And it went great! 

We ran through it again on Friday and then we just went for it! Saturday it was go time, and I remember being on stage and realizing this was the first time I had performed with a band, especially in such a large setting. I was also performing songs that weren’t my own. It was exhilarating. It was so fun, and I want to do this all the time. I thought singing by myself was great but no, I need a band! Having the crowd clap and cheer, it was just even more reassuring. 

Was it one of the larger crowds you’ve had? 

Oh yeah, it was the biggest crowd I’ve had yet. I know they didn’t just show up for me specifically, but even still being in front of that many people was great. 

So you mostly perform your own songs?

I mean at open mics I’ll do a few covers here and there, but if I’m doing shows I’ll do my own music. This was the first time I sang all covers. Not only was I playing somebody else’s songs, it was a cover band, so I was also trying to give off her energy on stage. And it just worked out, it felt so natural.

The next day I posted the performance and Sharon Van Etten saw it! And she reposted it! And she said was so honored. The fact that my idol said she was honored I sang her songs, was even more of a – I’m gonna say it again – reassurance. 

That you’re on the right path.

Exactly, that I gotta keep doing this, I gotta keep going.

Keep up with MAROU on Instagram, YouTube & Spotify

The post MAROU appeared first on The New Absurdist.

The emergence of The Wasp was also unnatural because of how visitation was handled in our home. How, I wondered, are you here, tapping at our windowed walls? How did you find the side road behind the clusters of bushes that leads to the front gates, the presence of which is only revealed to guests in a message from my mother? How did you find the little panel on the left pillar of the gateway, press the voice memo button, and receive my mother’s approval to allow you in? And how did you know I would be here, in the grand living room, seated at the piano but never once playing it, weightlessly sliding a hand across the keys at most, because my mother gave up on me a long time ago, no longer watching me with a smile as I play out a phrase, then stop, then lean closer to the repertoire book on the ledge, then play it out again, a terrible and artless thing, but still she believed, still she goaded me on with that voice of soft leaves?

The Wasp did not say anything in response. It maintained its rhythmic patter on the window. Boxed by the windless dark, by sleeping pine trees, The Wasp seemed nothing but an astray beam of yellow light, reflecting on the window from a source high above, something not really there. The taps were precise: it slammed its body against the glass with consistent ferocity and tempo. It was unearthing something within me. Soon I was playing a languid etude dug from the sealed fissures of my memory, amateurishly woven together, all the while guided by the metronome of The Wasp.

I was sweating by the time I finished. I turned and The Wasp was no longer there. The wind inhaled slowly and the trees shivered in apprehension. The living room with its sofa that could stage six people, ten if they were drunk enough to get close, was so very empty. The tapping came about again: The Wasp was now assaulting the front door. Through the glass panels sandwiching the entrance I could view it more carefully. It was the largest insect I had ever seen. Its wings shuddered the surrounding air; its abdomen, possessing the heft of a filled grocery bag, swayed jeeredly from its thorax like the entrancing swing of a grandfather clock’s pendulum; the blade of a sharpened pencil extended from its backside. It studied me with a million black beads.

You can’t come in, I said. I made sure to open my throat and propel my words with my stomach. I’m sorry. It’s too late. And my mother doesn’t like bugs. Mom doesn’t like anyone visiting, really.
The Wasp stopped tapping. Its antennae looped and unlooped as though crossing its arms. Do you treat all your guests like this? it seemed to say. Gales with great arms dragged helpless sheets of leaves across the path that connected the door to the front gates. The moon winked behind layers of clouds. The Wasp lingered for another moment, tapped one more time against the door, and shot skyward.

I stepped back from the door. Our home was situated close to a commercial flight path; as The Wasp undertook this maneuver, I could discern no difference between the whisk of its wings and a turbine’s low roar. I returned to the piano, hoping that The Wasp would too return to the windowed wall where I had first noticed it. I twisted myself into the corner of the room; I ran up the stairs to the first landing; I adopted any position in which I might attain a wide and unburdened view to escape The Wasp as soon as it reentered my vision. Nevertheless the buzz was everywhere. For all I knew, it may have tunneled its way into the walls.

In a fit of childlike panic I ran back to the door, for the camera system was controlled there, a large high-definition screen that amassed all the gazes of all the cameras around the home, and so I thought, delusionally, that in reaching this screen—meaning traversing once again the living room where I would be vulnerable—I would be able to scroll through all the cameras and pinpoint The Wasp, and so delusional I was that I did not consider what would happen afterwards. I arrived at the screen; I whipped my finger against the controls, sifting through the camera footage as a madman scribbles paranoias on a page; I saw no Wasp through any of their eyes; the plot of the house was silent and dark; The Wasp was behind me.

It was crawling on its legs. It studied me like a dog.

Hi, I said.

The Wasp’s head swivelled to the left. It waved an antenna.

You’re not supposed to be here, I said.

The Wasp held out one of its front legs. I took it and shook it politely. I thoroughly enjoyed the kindness of The Wasp—that despite my running and hindering, it surrendered to common courtesy.

How are you? I said. I pushed myself onto my toes. Pretty cool, huh? It’s pretty big. Bigger than your nest, I bet. Or wherever you live.

The Wasp shook its head.

Well then. I can’t imagine why you’d want to come here.

The Wasp was now crawling towards the piano. It floated up onto the lid and examined the tuning pins. Satisfied, it receded to the couch.

Do you want me to play?

The Wasp nodded.

Once more I found my way to the piano bench. The line of keys was a stretch of wrathful river; I felt if I were to place my hand on the keys, I would be swept away. The Wasp recognized my hesitation. On the sofa it began a gentle flutter of its wings, a sound like soft leaves padding a path. The blood under my skin stopped rolling.

That’s a nice sound, I said. Thank you. But I’m really not sure what to play. I haven’t played in a long time, see. My mother doesn’t want me doing so.

The Wasp again swiveled its head. The clusters of black beads swelled and corrugated.

Well. I did play just now, didn’t I? You’re right. But I’m not sure if I can do it again.

The Wasp wandered up to the piano lid. It navigated a leg into the innards of strings and hammers. Slowly, without any concern for rhythm or dynamic, it plucked out the first few notes of the etude I had played. It opened its mandibles as though saying, You can’t play much worse than that.

I had made up my mind: I would play. I realized that, seated here by the piano every night, dreaming, looking for something in the soundless instrument, I had been waiting for The Wasp all along. The wrathful river died down. I settled my hands on the keys.

A boom came from upstairs, the sound of a door flinging open. It was the first time I saw The Wasp recoil in fright. The stairway rattled with my mother’s footsteps. She was singing an old 70’s tune to dreadful results—her tongue didn’t seem to work properly. The Wasp flung itself off the couch, scrambled through an air vent, and disappeared. I could hear its wings as it was eaten by the night.

My mother paused on the final step. She sniffed. Her hair looked as though it had been tumbled in a washing machine. Her left arm was kept snug to her bathrobe; her right brandished a wine bottle.
Was there anyone here? she said. Coarse sand and creaking floorboards. I shook my head. Mmm, she grunted, and began downstairs.

So concluded my first bout with The Wasp. I hoped for its return. My mother was probably going down to drink wine and cry.

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