Marina Diamandis Self-Reflects

Hi Marina! Where are you right now?

I am on my couch in LA at home.

Well, happy belated birthday.

Thank you so much.

Are you someone like me who kind of gets depressed on their birthday, or no?

I feel weird the week before, because unfortunately I'm not someone who feels comfortable throwing parties for myself. It's just a really weird thing. I feel like humans are just split into two groups, and it's the people who love to party on their birthday. They don't feel self conscious about it. And then there's the other group, which feels weird, and then if they don't plan something, they feel sad. But I did do something and it was really nice. I'm just someone who's not a big party person for my birthdays.

I’m a Libra as well, and maybe that’s why I’ve felt so connected to you and your music for all these years.

Mmmmm. Let’s unpack that!

I feel like your music has always been about the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, balancing out every side of things. Are you into astrology like that? Do you find any Libra tendencies permeating throughout your lyrics and work?

You know, I've never actually thought about it, even though I am into astrology in a kind of average level way. I don't know a lot, but I know I'm a Scorpio rising Leo Moon. I do think those things have a bearing on your internal framework and how you approach things in the world. I've never really thought about it applied to my music, but now that you say it, I think the sense of what's right and wrong particularly resonates because it's taken me a long time to challenge that and be like, the world is not an ideal place, and to try and relax that part in myself. Because I so want it to be, and actually it kind of blocks you from seeing people and situations for the way that they actually are, which has taken me really up until this point in my life to be able to do that. So I don't know if that's a typically Libra thing, but something that I definitely encounter.

Reading this poetry book made me realize that all these years later, you’re still sort of writing about the same symbols and tropes: Hollywood, diamonds, etc. What was different this time? What made you want to make a poetry book versus an album?

I definitely had no intention to. I didn't even read much poetry at all before I wrote this book. The reason I fell into writing it was I had done a mushroom trip, because I do four or five a year for therapy reasons. And I was writing what I thought were lots of lyrics, and then I ended up looking at them a few weeks later, and I was like, these aren't lyrics. These are actually poems. Coincidentally, one of my good friends around that time had said, "You really should write a poetry book." And I was like, "No, no, I can't. That's not my path." But then actually, I started writing and found that the medium itself allowed me a huge amount of freedom in format that songwriting just doesn't. I think with the way that I write as an artist, I love to package things up so that concepts hit. So sometimes that involves adding a little fantasy to it, or imaginary elements. I think with poetry, that's not really necessary, and that was really freeing, because it allowed me to reflect on my life in a different way when I don't have the confines of, Does this sound like a pop song or is this catchy? It just felt massively creative for me. Like I said, it was definitely not something that I planned on doing, but it's something that has really enriched my lyrical world. And also, just from a healing perspective, it has been instrumental in shifting things in my life.

As a fan of yours, I’ve always loved your lyrics, so this book is like a goldmine. I mean, the volume of words is so much more than you would have in, say, a three-minute song.

Yeah.

I wrote one of them down that I loved: “I’m no lamb to the slaughter I can no longer falter.” Bars.

[Laughs] I just need a rapper to get on this!

It feels almost like an extension of The Family Jewels with a little bit of Electra Heart mixed in.

Yeah. That really makes sense, particularly with the LA stuff. But also, the focus of this book is relational difficulties, whether that's attachment styles in romantic relationships, or whether it's family. I think The Family Jewels really was the nucleus of that, because a lot had happened in my life around that time, like three or four years before I made that album. And it's not that it's taboo, certainly not for me anymore, but I think singing about that in music just feels slightly... I don't know. It's just different. And I think with this book, it's like being able to examine that through the lens, for example, of casual dating and why that has felt so challenging for me sometimes, or just dating in general. It’s interesting because I think a lot of us go through similar things, but we feel ashamed about how insane we feel in the moment. We don't want to share that with people. So yeah, the book is definitely exploring that and for sure links back to The Family Jewels and Electra Heart.

I saw in a post you said something about how if you’re a real fan, you would have noticed that something has been a little off the past few years. What can you say about that? What does that timeline look like?

To be honest, I would say it was from 2016 that I basically started to feel unwell. At first, it was bone-crushing fatigue that couldn't be cured by sleeping. I would sleep 14 hours and would still feel quite unwell in the morning, and it was kind of coupled with depression and very high anxiety, but I had had those in and out of my 20s. So it's very hard to determine, is this something serious, or am I making it up? You know, am I just being a weakling? This had all happened after an incredibly stressful period, not just of work, but family-wise. In a three-month period, two of my close family members passed away, and another one was seriously ill. I had to postpone a tour to go look after them. A lot of things happened quickly, and essentially, for seven years I had these symptoms. I wasn't diagnosed for anything. Nothing came up in my blood tests, but I started developing buzzing all over my body, like numbness. And it's only 18 months ago that I got a diagnosis for chronic fatigue syndrome. So I have been on and off struggling with it since 2016. I hadn't really known what it was like to be back to normal health up until recently, where I'm like 80% back to normal. But it's definitely been a really incredible year, because I'm like, Wow, was part of me, like, dead? [Laughs] Obviously I say that with compassion for myself, but it has been very confusing and difficult. Those types of illnesses, they call them invisible illnesses, because you kind of look fine, but your internal system is not telling you that.

“Living dead,” maybe?

[Laughs] Yeah! Not anymore.

You mentioned your shroom trip journey. So these were proper trips, right? Not like microdoses?

No, no. That doesn't really work for me. For some reason, [microdosing] kind of makes me feel odd. But yeah, the proper trips have really helped my life a lot.

What do you do during these trips? Do you listen to music? Are you out in nature? What’s the overall vibe, if you don’t mind sharing?

Yeah. I mean, I have to put a disclaimer that this is not something that we recommend doing, like for people to just start doing trips. But you know, I worked my way up from small doses to larger ones over about a year long period. I do listen to music sometimes, but sometimes also I just lie on my bed and put a blindfold on. That's kind of the way that they do it in medical settings. The John Hopkins University method suggests doing that, and they have a classical playlist that is online for people. But yeah, it depends what I'm feeling on the day.

In one of the poems, you mentioned his “Hinge profile.” Are you on Hinge?

[Laughs] Dude, not anymore! I hate dating apps so much, but it was the pandemic, so I gave it a go. But yeah, I was on Hinge. I was on Raya. They’re all kind of the same. I don’t know. I think they work for some people, but for me, it more so just gives you a chance to meet people that you might not regularly meet in your path in your life.

A Hinge profile can almost be poetry, in a way, with those prompts. It’s fascinating to analyze people’s different approaches to their bios.

It really is, because the people who are good at marketing are good on Hinge, but that doesn't necessarily lead to compatible connections. I think that's the issue with online dating. Obviously, the first thing is that you're just not in person. And so many things like chemistry depend on in-person interactions. But I also think we're putting out this idealized version of ourselves, not the actual real or authentic version. So how are you meant to really find compatible partners? I don't know how people do it. It's a miracle for the people who found their life partners on there.

Especially being a public figure, it must be an added mindfuck.

Yeah, but I think I’m lucky because I feel like straight men, well up until now, haven’t really been the big listeners of my music. It’s mainly women and the LGBTQ community.

Right.

So that was in my favor.

I love all the hotel symbols in some of these poems. It feels very Joan Didion-esque. I’ve always been obsessed with hotels myself since I was a kid, for some reason. Obviously, you’ve been a touring musician, so hotels are a big part of that. Can you expand on that?

No, I feel the same. I think it is because of my industry, but I'm very obsessed with hotels, and I've always been. Even when I was like seven, I would browse package holidays that we could go on. [Laughs] I love the idea of escape, I guess, and I think hotels offer this neutral space for people to unfold in, in whatever way they feel like on the day. I mean, Hotel Riche, based on the Madeline cartoons. That's my dream hotel. I don't know why. It just has a vibe. And the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. I didn't even think of Joan Didion. I'm such a big fan of hers. But yeah, it just feels natural to me, I guess because it's just a big part of my life. Living in hotels and living out my life in hotels.

What are you watching or listening to right now? Any shows or movies you’re obsessed with?

I'll be honest, I'm watching Love Is Blind at the moment. However, before that I was on a kind of little movie run where I was watching some random movies. I watched Freeway, which is one of Reese Witherspoon's first-ever movies. She was 15 or 16. I watched Blue Valentine the other night, which I'd never seen before, and it's a classic. I watched The Royal Tenenbaums last week, and The Graduate. Basically, my friends have been sending me lists of classic movies, because I'm quite uncultured when it comes to film, so I've been picking out the iconic ones off their lists.

Do you have any favorite writers?

At the moment, I'm reading Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest. She's a British writer. Miranda July is very compelling, but also quite uncomfortable at times. I read two of her books recently. Eve Babitz obviously has been a big inspiration for a while. Joan Didion as well, like you mentioned. And then in poetry land, one of the most inspiring poets for this book was a man called [Ardengo] Soffici who's from the 1940s world of Dadaist poetry, when they started doing visual poetry. That really inspired what the design of the book could be because not many people do it, and he was so forward-thinking for his time. It's kind of amazing to see his poems online. Who else do I like? Yeah, I like a poet called Maggie Miller. She did a book called Couplets a few years ago. It was really interesting.

You talked about never having done poetry before, and it reminded me of the transition from The Family Jewels to Electra Heart. I remember in interviews you were struggling with, Do I keep doing it all on my own or do I work with these big producers? I wanna be a pop star, but do I flip the switch and just go full throttle even if it might be cringe? Did that mindset apply at all when jumping into this new medium?

No, I was never worried that it would be cringe. I think my concern was that the creativity of my concept was going to be taken out of my hands, or that I was going to be diluted in the process. Because I think that is a real risk when you're working with multiple people, as opposed to one producer or one co-writer. Part of the reason that project was so visually rich was because I needed ownership over it in a way that went beyond the music. I was like, okay, if you want me to do this commercial type of album, I'm going to do it my way, which is conceptual and subversive, and has a wider message to be heard above, you know, ‘primadonna girl’ or whatever.

In terms of the poetry book, though, I don't know if this is what you're really asking, but I think I'm pretty fearless with trying new things I love. Having a do-it-yourself nature has always been in my personality. It's a family thing as well. I just think if you have an idea and it feels good, like you really trust your gut, then why don't you go for it? So many of us think that we have to be trained in order to be able to, A. explore something, or B. just be good at it. And I just so don't believe that, because everyone starts somewhere. Every incredible songwriter in the world did their first song that was maybe good or maybe not. I just think creativity is innate to human beings, and I would love anyone reading this to be encouraged to try different things. As you get older, humans typically lose that fearlessness, and I don't want that. I want to continue to grow and evolve, whether that's through music or writing or another field.

How do you think living in LA has impacted your creativity or your work?

I mean, it's such an inspiring city because it has so many contrasts and contradictions and extremes that it does make it quite a tantalizing place for a creative person. I mean, it's beautiful. You have this raw, rugged nature super nearby you, and it's like nothing I can really compare to in the UK. So on that level, it's inspiring. But I also think it's one of the beating hearts of pop culture and film. That gives a certain energy to the town. I think meeting new people here is really easy for me, and for some reason in London, it just wasn't. It's really strange that sometimes you can be drawn to moving to a city that you don't really have any business being in, but you do it anyway, and it ends up just being the right home for you. So yeah, it has definitely inspired me creatively, and I know it's running through this book a lot as well. It's hard not to be inspired here, though.

What are you most excited for on your book tour?

Honestly, I think having conversations like this. I have been really enjoying the press that I've been doing for this book, just because they're enriching conversations. It's not that the music interviews I do are devoid of that, but it's just a different level. I think we're talking really about our collective or shared humanity, and that just feels so good to me. So yeah, I really hope that these nights that I'm doing are kind of a combination of me sharing my experience, but also flipping it over to the audience as well and letting them share. These are very new kinds of formats of events for me, so I really don't know how they're going to go, but I'm excited.

Thank you so much for talking to me!

Thank you, Ivan. It’s been such a pleasure.

Buy Eat the World here, and find Marina this week on her remaining book tour dates in LA and San Francisco.

Photos courtesy of Marina Diamandis