Andrea Marini at Mono – An Interview

Contributor Alexandra Embiricos went down to Mono to listen to Glaswegian singer songwriter Andrea Marini and attempted to unpick his charmingly modest personality and hard work ethic.

Andrea Marini would appear to be more at home performing in a western than at Mono on a rainy Glasgow evening in September. But despite his name, inherited from his Italian father, Marini is disarmingly Scottish. What on stage sounds like Cash in one of his softer periods, becomes a charming Glaswegian chirp. Just in case there’s any doubt, when a musical admirer asks to buy him a drink, he takes whisky over water.

I don’t feel like a really confident salesman, I made a sale earlier on- I’ve sold one.” He jokes, “we made it mostly in peoples living rooms, the clock wasn’t ticking so it was good for us” he says about the three year period it took to record the album, compromised completely of original songs.

“A lot of the time was just spent with the recordings, listening to them over and over, getting them right, and it’s a luxury that you have with a debut album. The most important part of the three years is that you make a lot of material and you cut it down. If you listen to the record it’s got quite a lot of space to it. I don’t think that it would have the space that it does if it weren’t for the lengthy period it was recorded over”.

Citing some of his favorite artists as Lou Reed, Tom Waits and Scott Walker, as well as fellow Glaswegian Blue Nile, he says that influences aren’t something he really thinks about. “Its hard when you talk about influences because a lot of the music comes about just having other players play, so you can control the song writing but the moment you take it to a studio to kind of flesh out the vocals it becomes quite multilayered.”

When asked why he chose to write music, he self-deprecatingly replies “You can be funny with people or you can be a charming guy, but if you get up and play its such a great social activity, it’s a great way of meeting people, it’s a great way of getting things off your chest. I’ve never been into sports, and the people that I look at and think: ‘that’s a really good profession,’ are musicians and songwriters. And I can’t act, I was in amateur dramatics and I’m shit at it!”

Marini started singing at open mic nights around Glasgow five years ago, played solo and with various musicians. “But this is the happiest I’ve been with a band through the whole time” he says, “I recorded the album with our lap steel player, Ian, so we know the songs inside out together.”

Marini will next be playing (for free!) at on 20th  October at the CCA on Sauchiehall Street.

Author

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Leave a Reply

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments