INTERVIEW: Marmalade

On a Thursday night where the Tāmaki Makaurau skies have yet again opened in full force, Rat World is welcomed into the warm, neon glow of Big Fan to catch the end of Marmalade’s soundcheck - a self-described ‘clean-indie’ band celebrating the release of their debut single ‘Bright.’ As perhaps the perfect (only?) antidote to the dark and rainy evening, Zoë Larsen Cumming sits down with band members Jemilah Ross-Hayes, Liam Nuttall, Koen Aldershof, Chelsea Naepi, and Dean Rodrigues. 

Photos by Joe Nicholson

Rat World: Is it weird to do an interview straight after doing a soundcheck? 
Koen: It’s cool, man. You’re kind of already in a funny mode.
Dean: We’re in rock star mode. 
Jemilah: It’s nice to stop and sit down. 

Yeah. So what’s the story of this band? It's been a couple of years but you've just released your first single - how have you gotten to this moment? 
Jemilah: Sure, yeah. Liam and I met at uni and… 
Liam: Now we’re here. 
All: [Laughs]

Well, that’s the end of the interview. It was really nice to meet you guys. 
Jemilah: [Laughs] no, Liam and I had met at uni and had done a collab together, and then were like “oh, we should start a band,” and simultaneously Koen and I were having that sort of conversation. So I thought, why don't we just have a band together!

Nice! 
Jemilah: So it became Marmalade. We moved into a flat together, sort of coincidentally - 
Liam: - and started a band at the same time.
Jemilah: We had a friend of Liam’s, Sam, who was drumming for us at the time and studying law and went to pursue that. We were like ‘oh my gosh, Marmalade’s going to be over,’ but then Dean had actually come to our debut gig!
Koen: Dean was playing bass for Manuela at our debut gig and he came up to me and said “holy shit, you guys have great energy. If you ever need another member, let me know!”
Jemilah: Yeah, so then Dean joined and we’d been a four piece for like a year-ish, and then we were kind of wanting to switch things up. We really wanted another bass player so that Koen could, rather than playing bass, play rhythm guitar. And then Dean knew Chelsea and she came along…

…and here you are. This is a good opportunity to get into who Marmalade is, so introduce yourself and what you play in the band.
Jemilah: I sing mostly and play acoustic guitar sometimes. I write on acoustic guitar always but I only really play live for a couple songs.
Liam: I play lead guitar and sometimes sing. That's my contribution.
Koen: I’m Koen. ‘Koen’ as you say it in Dutch [pronounces name correctly] otherwise Koh-En or Quin [laughs]. I get those a lot. But no, I play guitar as well. At first I was a bass player but then became the guitarist of Marmalade and yes, I sing as well. 
Chelsea: I’m a bass player and I sing as well! We all can sing here, even Dean. We’re trying to get him to sing more. 
Koen: He doesn’t want to. 
Dean: Ha. I'm Dean and I play drums… and cymbals? 
Koen: And cymbals? That’s such a jazz thing to say. 
Chelsea: You also play bass but not in Marmalade. 
Koen: He fucking rips the bass. 
Liam: He also plays congas, triangle, timpani, bongo.
Dean: We’ll be here for hours. 
Liam: Keep it humble. 

So you've been gigging for a while and opening to some pretty cool people as well. How did that come about?
Koen: So Hot Potato Band was in the mix first. I ran into those guys in 2020 just before the lockdown, literally the day before level four. They flew back the next morning and had to cancel their tour, but anyway, we got talking. It was really cool to line up that gig in February which is actually just when Chelsea joined as well. We had a tour straight away, three shows three days in a row. Then with Beach Bunny, Jemilah and I just emailed the venue and the promoter of the show. We thought it was a good fit and they put that forward to the band! We played for them in Auckland and Wellington which is really cool, the crowd was so vibrant. 
Jemilah: But Hot Potato Band as people were like the best first biggest act we could play for. They were so kind and welcoming really made us feel part of that space. I felt so welcomed and accepted into that space it kind of like, dimmed some of the imposter syndrome. We're so grateful to those guys for having us on because I don't think we would have gotten the future gigs -
Liam:  - without having that slot. There was like no judgement from them whatsoever. They were just like the most down to earth, chill dudes. Like, it literally just didn't matter who you were, what your skill was, or anything like that. They were just like ‘come have a beer with us.’

Do you think because you've done lots of gigs and opened for people that has changed the recording process when you were making this debut single (which I want to talk about in a second). Do you think if you had recorded it earlier it would have been a different song? How did playing it live influence the writing? 
Dean: We actually had a lot of the music recorded prior to these tours. Like most of it was done by October, 2022. But yeah, I think playing it together as a four piece did kind of help. You know the build to the peak of the chorus and the big stop, that was a live element we brought into [‘Bright’] and potentially other songs for sure. 
Jemilah: Yeah. With ‘Bright,’ we always say it almost plays itself. It’s always been a song that has an almost natural unfolding. Some of the other songs need more workshopping because they're a bit more confusing or have different aspects.

Is it scary, or how does it feel to workshop a song when you're playing it live in front of an audience? Is that a daunting thing to do?
Koen: Nah, it's good! Of course, we have practices where we tear it to pieces and put it back together. But it's really good, you know. Maybe gigs are a bit more forgiving. We can trial some new things. We try out new songs and see how that sort of feels, not only to us but also to the crowd, like how was it received etc.
Dean: There are definitely songs that have been on the chopping block just because they don't work right now. It's a good way to gauge things like what should we chuck on the next album or what should be our next single because we get that live feedback from the crowd. It's good having a whole catalogue that we're sitting on having only released one song. We can workshop things.

And what is the writing process like for you, because there are a lot of you! Five is quite a big number! Is there a particular person that drives that process or do you all write individually? I know that you have some solo projects as well. When you are writing a Marmalade song, does one of you bring something to the table or how does that work? 
Liam: Actually a lot of our previous songs stem from when we were living together.

Classic flat band. Such a New Zealand thing. Liam: Yeah! It was great, because Jem would be like “hey, I've written this thing,” and we’d be like “oh, cool,” and finish something in an hour. And then sometimes I'd come and be like, “I wrote this riff in uni two years ago,”
Koen: or “I’ve got this lying around,”
Liam: and that's how songs came together. Nowadays we'll just email or message and sent it to everyone, but most of the songs that we've actually been working on have been from literally last year, even the year before. We've had to take the time to come back to some of these ideas. 
Jemilah: We’re playing two brand new songs tonight though.

Oh, that's exciting. 
Jemilah: And their writing process was different as it was post us living together. It’s still very collaborative. We bring it to the band and get them to add their parts to it. But since we don't live together anymore, it’s more like we schedule either a rehearsal or creative practice and Liam might be like “I wrote this verse and chorus,” and we’ll go away and do our thing. 
Koen: And we didn’t always have that [creative time]. We started doing that this year because we had these shows that were high priority but then we also had music that we really wanted to release. So, splitting up the creative practice and rehearsal practice has been amazing because you walk into a space with a different head, a different mindset. 
Liam: You don't have to get anything done in creative practice. You could muck around for an hour and not come up with anything and that's totally acceptable. 
Koen: At one point Liam said, “I just want to have a bit more fun” because it ended up being like work. We just had rehearsal after rehearsal and three days of straight shows. We were going way too hard, way too fast. It was really good when he pointed out that we just need to bring the fun back. Then when we sort of got back to those creative rehearsals and that's why we've got new songs now. 

So that's how you found that balance by having more time just to play together. 
Jemilah: When you don’t live together you have to schedule that time. You have to be conscious about being like ‘I'm actually gonna set time aside.’ Because I think all of us individually, even Dean sometimes, will have an old song and be like, let’s change it up. Like for tonight we had an old song, which in the end we decided not to play, which Koen wrote and Dean was like “why don't we just flip it completely on its head.” We all think in our own little worlds and come up with creative ideas, and then reach out to somebody else to develop those ideas. 

So with ‘Bright,’ debut single, how did that come to be? Was it the same thing where one of you brought a verse or a chorus or you had a particular idea? 
Koen: It was one of our very first songs.
Jemilah: It was one of the first songs I wrote for Marmalade. I was like, “oh my gosh, how do I write a song for a band? I’m used to writing vocals and more pop music, can I even do this?” And so I just wrote this verse and some version of the chorus which probably isn't how it is now, and then brought it to the lounge, like “hi! Hello! I wrote a thing!” And then Koen helped write the verse and chorus and Liam jumped on the guitar and we finished the song, I think, at that point.
Liam: Yeah, I remember I came up with the intro part. It's funny how it develops though. All the slide guitar that you hear in the song - 
Koen: - came out super last minute.
Liam: Literally as we're recording it in the room. It's just like it's just funny because the process is so like...
Koen: Sporadic?
Liam: Sporadic, yeah.

Let's talk about what the song is about. I think as an outsider listening, it does speak to quite a universal feeling, especially for people who may be pursuing something creatively in a public way. Is that what it is to all of you or is there a secret deeper meaning that maybe I've missed when listening to it. 
Dean: I think you've hit the nail on the head at least where I'm concerned. Trying to tackle this music thing is tricky and you're gonna get a lot of naysayers. It's just a matter of like, keeping your head down. The thing that I've learned in my however many years in the industry is that the grass isn't always greener. I think there are lines in that song that really speak to that. You think you want it and then you're there and you're like, ugh I dunno. 

You think want a paddling pool… and then you get it…. 
Liam: And your friends don’t think you’re cool. 

It’s too cold… there’s a leak… 
Jemilah: I think with the underlying theme, there are few things that contribute to it. The obvious meaning is wanting get somewhere or achieve a goal and feeling like it's really difficult to get there or that everything around you is making it difficult to pursue that thing. And there's another layer that’s about self doubt and insecurity. Like, I don't know if I'm going to be good at this thing, will I actually like it when I get there? It’s sort of tied to this feeling of ‘if I were to change myself would I be liked more?’ Which is kind of in that creative avenue but also just in general life! Like, if I were to buy a paddling pool would they think I was cool then? 

The answer is yes. 
Jemilah: Hah. One of my favourite lines is “I've got no time in my mind,” and that nods to when you're on this whole journey and whatever, sometimes you get so overwhelmed by everything that you kind of feel like you actually don't have time to pursue that creative thing. It's often just something in your head, like when things get overwhelming and it's like you don't even want to start doing something. Yeah, like for me it’s nod to how sometimes it feels like it's easier to give up so hard and I don't have any time to do it.
Dean: But don't give up. 
Jemilah: Don't give up! No. It’s still hopeful!

It does have a very hopeful sound! If you had to sum up the Marmalade sound, how would you? Is it possible? Let’s just say that it is because that would be a more interesting answer. Heh. 
Liam: Yeah, nah, I think that's why we chose ‘Bright’ as our first single as well, because we've got lots of other songs that kind of spear off a little bit into one genre or the next and they're all kind of relatively similar, but I feel like we all collectively kind of agreed on ‘Bright’ as being our single because we were like, “what does marmalade have to bring to the table?” and what it is, is that all of our skills are shown off in a great way that just binds our sounds together. ‘Bright’ does that. 
Jemilah: Mmm. I like to describe it as ‘clean-indie.’ We’ve got the indie buzz but we place a lot of intention on everything. There's a lot of intention that goes into every bassline, every guitar solo. Every little piece needs to be heard and to sit in the right way. That instrumentation combined with a meaningful but maybe slightly light-hearted way of telling a story, that’s what we aim for. 
Dean: Yeah. It’s cool, this band, because we have such a wide palette of things that we're into. Like, I wouldn't class myself as an indie drummer. You know what I mean? 
Liam: He doesn’t even know why he’s in this band! 
Dean: I do! I do! I do it for the viiibes. But yeah, I wouldn't class myself as an indie drummer, I don't think Chelsea would class herself as an indie bass player. I don't think any of us would put ourselves in that box and I think that's what makes us so special. We're just a wide colour palette that are pouring influences into songs and taking them in certain directions. I think there's something in Marmalade for everyone. 
Chelsea: Period. 
Dean: Yeah, like we've got a couple of punk rock songs. 
Koen: We've got some more funky stuff. Some folky things.
Dean: I think that's a result of all of us having different colour palettes and going “okay, here’s a song,” and I’ll be like, “sweet, let's crank the distortion,”  or “let's make it funky instead of folky.” I think letting everyone be themselves in this band is also what’s made us, maybe, stick out a bit.
Jemilah: It's funny because it fits in like an indie box. 
Koen: Anything fits in an indie box. But it is hard to slip a genre, even on ‘Bright.’ But it definitely has the sound. There’s a common theme through all the songs in the feeling and sonically. 

So, what's next? After this gig, after the single, are you just enjoying it? Do you have plans for an album? EP? Second single? What's happening?
Chelsea: We’re working on another single coming soon and hopefully another tour towards the end of the year, fingers crossed, once the big project is out into the world. But yeah, we're excited to show you more colours. 

Nice! Alright. Final question. It's a real curveball. It's really hard-hitting. Do you like marmalade? 
Dean: Like the actual product? 

Well, yes! I assume you like your own band! 
Liam: Nah, I hate these guys! 
All: [Laughs]

Purely the spread! 
Liam: We’ve actually had two roast sessions where we just roast the shit out of each other. It keeps the band going to be honest.

Oh my god. But marmalade the food, yes or no? 
Dean: No. 
Liam: Disgusting
Chelsea: Not a fan. 
Koen: No. 
Jemilah: Like, twice a year. I would never have it everyday. 

I literally thought you were all going to say yes. 
All: [Laughs] 
Liam: I want to rename the band the Marmite. 
All: No! 
Jemilah: My Nana makes good marmalade! I can have that. Actually on release morning we had some marmalade that someone gave us at our debut gig - 
Koen: - which is now two years old! It was vile! It was so bitter. 

Oh my god. 
Dean: That’s not going to be in the thing, is it? 
All: [Laughs]. 

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Check out Marmalade’s new single ‘Bright’ on Bandcamp, Spotify or Apple Music!
Interview by Zoë Larsen Cumming (@zoe.larsencumming)
Photos by Joe Nicholson (@joe.roy.nicholson)