If you haven’t already immersed yourself in Home, the debut single from L.R Marsh, stop what you’re doing and go listen to it now. The track is a rich, textured slice of blues-drenched alt-rock, and we’ve had it spinning on repeat ever since we first laid ears on it.
So, fresh off the track’s release, we caught up with L.R to chat all about it, musical influences, and what the future holds.
With an incredible debut single fresh under his belt, we caught up with South Australian singer-songwriter L.R Marsh to chat all about it.
HAPPY: Hey, how’s it going? What are you up to at the moment?
LR: It’s going great, thanks! Incredibly busy in the lead up to the album release, my manager and I have been flat out! Happy to say we’ve just shipped out the first run of pre-orders which is awesome.
HAPPY: We’ve been loving Home! How does it feel having the track out there in the world?
LR: Thank you so much! It feels amazing. It’s so good to finally be able to stop and see how far everything has come, and to see it making the rounds on radio and Spotify etc is so humbling. I really can’t believe the response we’ve had from the first track I’ve ever released for this project. It’s a great feeling.
HAPPY: Could you tell us a bit about the song?
LR: Home was the very first song I wrote for the album. It came about almost by accident – I was at home and feeling a bit lost with my music career and needed to try something different, so I decided to write whatever came to mind. Almost like a stream of consciousness. I wanted to write something for myself, that actually told a true story and had meaning to me. The song ended up being about the time shortly after I met my partner, when I was overseas sailing and living on a boat with my sister in the Caribbean for two months (as you do!) and how that amount of time and distance brought us closer together. It’s about how I felt coming home from such a massive trip, returning to a familiar environment and most importantly to my partner.
HAPPY: For a debut release, it feels like you’ve got a really strong direction with your sound. How long have you been writing music for?
LR: I’ve always been interested in writing music since I was a little kid. I started playing the guitar when I was 9 years old after my dad taught me a few basic chords, and even before that I was always sifting through cassette tape booklets and studying lyrics. The first album I ever got was The Offspring’s Americana, which really kicked things off for me with wanting to pursue guitar and songwriting. There’s a VHS somewhere in existence of the first song I ever wrote, which consisted of me (probably about 4 yrs old) strumming a toy ukulele indiscriminately while standing on the front porch of my parent’s house singing “give me some money” over and over! It never hit the charts, unfortunately.
HAPPY: This is the first taste from your upcoming debut album. Did you have any particular mission statement when starting this record? Anything you set out to achieve?
LR: I didn’t actually intend to write an album at all. I was in a bit of a rut with songwriting for my other band Filthy Lucre so I decided to take a break from everything and just sit down and noodle on the guitar, just playing whatever came out with no judgment or vision in mind. I started playing the opening riff to Home and it all kind of just happened, right there on the spot. I decided then to hastily gather all of my home recording gear and lay it down, to see what it sounded like in recording. That very same recording of Home is the one that ended up on the album. All of the songs on the album were written and recorded like that, most of them were written and recorded on the same day. I was actually a bit nervous releasing the album as it’s so raw and imperfect, but I grew to like it that way. It comes across more authentic and true, rather than if I sat on the songs for months and worked on them in a studio. I wanted to keep everything raw and genuine.
HAPPY: Are there any artists that you were listening to while recording the album?
LR: Most of what I was listening to while writing and recording the album was blues and country albums, I was really getting into a guy called Tyler Childers from the States after stumbling across his OurVinyl Sessions. He does a great job of writing true and honest songs about his life and his surroundings, I really love that about some country artists. I was never a fan of country music but he definitely changed that for me. I also got back into sifting through Johnny Cash’s catalogue, but also discovered some really cool blues-rock artists like Blues Saraceno, Brother Dege, and our own Jeff Lang.
HAPPY: Who are some other artists you’re loving right now?
LR: You know, I’ve found myself just reaching straight for albums that my friends and fellow local musos have put out there, back-and-forthing between Claude Hay, Deathbeat, Rick Dangerous, and from my hometown Wanderers who are absolutely killing it at the moment. It’s so good to be surrounded by such amazing artists in this industry.
HAPPY: What’s next for L.R Marsh? Any other exciting plans in the works?
LR: I’ll be touring the country over the next few months supporting the release of the album, working my way up the coast towards Queensland where I’ll be relocating myself permanently in Brisbane from February onwards. It’s a very exciting but very hectic time! I’m hoping to start work on the next album right away, it’d be great to follow this one up with a release next year.
HAPPY: Cheers for the chat!
LR: No worries, thanks for having me!
Home is available now. Listen above. Pre-order L.R Marsh’s debut album The Ghosts Of here.
