Martha Johnson, lead singer of Martha and the Muffins of “Echo Beach” fame, reflects on her music career, her life with partner Mark Gane, and their new album, Delicate, which comes out in early February, 18 long years after the release of their previous album.
NS: About your latest album, you’ve said, “Delicate is so personal. I feel like my skin is transparent, and I’ve invited the whole world into my head.” How is this album more personal than past efforts?
MJ: It’s not necessarily more personal but, since our last album, some monumental things occurred that changed my everyday life and my view of the future. As Mark has said, there was a lot of death, disease, sex and high drama surrounding the making of Delicate. Any protective walls I might have had came crashing down around me. I tried to convey the emotions I was experiencing without being too specific. One of the song titles, “Life’s Too Short to Long for Something Else,” pretty well sums it up.
NS: The music of the Muffins has always mixed pure pop (like “Song in My Head”) with ambient soundscapes (like “Three Hundred Years/Chemistry”). Has it been difficult to balance this mix of the pop and the experimental?
MJ: It always seemed like a natural thing for us because of the wide-ranging musical influences that all the original members brought to the early band and that continued on with Mark and me. I, like everyone else my age, grew up in an era of great pop music with the Beatles, Motown, etc., and Mark was immersed in experimental and new music through much of high school and art college. This combination of tastes gives us that unique character.
NS: Why is there an 18-year gap between Delicate and your previous album Modern Lullaby?
MJ: Even though Modern Lullaby was literally done in our bedrooms (Bath, U.K. and Toronto), we put a lot of effort and our own money into it. It was very discouraging when Intrepid Records completely bungled the release and very few people ever heard it. That put us off the music biz for years. Our daughter was born that same year, and I just wanted to enjoy the experience of being a mother. I decided to do a children’s album, Songs from the Tree House, and spent several years performing in schools, libraries and children’s festivals. The children’s music scene was far more civilized, and I met a lot of really wonderful people. But Mark and I never stopped writing throughout that period. We just put things down roughly on cassette tapes and threw them in a drawer. Eventually, we both felt the need to get those things out into the world as a new Muffins album.
NS: I think that your voice is also suited to jazz. Have you ever considered doing a jazz album?
MJ: I’ve always imagined if I did something in the jazz genre, it would be composed of my original songs rather than old standards. I’ve already written several songs in this vein and hope to have enough to record a simple voice and piano album soon. Whether or not it would be a “jazz” album per se, I don’t know, but I crave the simplicity of that pared-down approach.
NS: You and Mark have been making music together for decades now. Were you a couple from the very start of Martha and the Muffins or did your relationship develop over time?
MJ: We met each other through David Millar, who actually started the band with Mark in 1977, but we weren’t a couple until 1981, just before the recording of This Is the Ice Age. Now we’re the “two-headed monster,” as our co-producer Leo Valvassori has called us.
NS: When your other albums came out, you didn’t have to contend with Facebook, YouTube and MySpace. How has the Internet changed your approach to marketing your work?
MJ: It’s totally liberating. Much of our career has been spent battling our former record labels, which, at times, seemed more intent on burying us rather than getting our music out to the world. With the Internet, there is no barrier between you and your listeners, no middle person, no gatekeeper, no bean-counting CEO. It’s up to you as an artist to find the money and the people to help you get the attention of your potential listeners. It’s harder in some ways, but it was far worse having a record company compromise or sabotage your work. It’s a great time to have an album out.
For more information, visit the Martha and the Muffins website. At present, the group has scheduled two shows in Toronto in early February. They are working on additional shows in other cities, including Montreal.
