TEXAS, NYC MUSIC & “HOURS OFF”: A CONVERSATION WITH MER MARCUM

Marisa Whitaker: I want to dive into Texas, “Hours Off,” and all that. The song is so beautiful. Off the bat, I want to say I relate so hard to something I read about your feelings about Texas and moving here. I can relate all too well, being from Dallas myself, and I want to hear all about it. 



Mer Marcum: Honestly, if we had had this interview last week, I think I would have had different things to say than I do this week. Literally last week to this very day. I'm just gonna transport myself really quickly back in time, and just say my positive thoughts, because I'm having lots of negative thoughts as of this week. I always tell people that when I was growing up in Texas, I really resented it. I felt really misunderstood and different from people. I remember one of the worst insults someone could come up with to call me was “alternative.” And I was like, “What the hell?” Because honestly, I'm really not, you know, but to them, I was just so different because I was, like, dyeing my hair.



MW: Totally, totally, get that. Everyone's like, 70 pounds and blonde. I got bangs, and it was the end of the world.



MM: Literally, I know. I box dyed my hair black for so long, and I was like, “I listen to Nirvana, and y'all could never get it like I get it.” [We laugh.] I always was telling people when moving here and watching people romanticize the South, and I'm sure you know the whole Bushwick cowboy trope — about how everybody in Bushwick wants to be a cowboy. It's everywhere. That's honestly really LA too. But I feel so different about Texas now compared to when I was living there. Once I left, I was like, “Y’all don’t get it like I got it!,” because then everyone was loving it, romanticizing it. And I was like, “That's mine,” and I felt like some sort of weird pride for having to claim it. The things that weren't cool when I was there became really cool here. 



MM: I'm often very grateful that I got to get out. I just celebrated my three years in New York, and that's not a huge milestone, but when you think about where you came from, and I see my friends who can't reasonably leave for whatever reasons, like family, jobs, money, anything, and they are just so sad and stuck there, it makes me really grateful that I got to leave and experience a new perspective, of even looking back on my hometown. I tell my friends who are still in school or about to leave, I'm like, “You will come to love what you had, and you just don't realize it yet.” You know what I mean? I feel like everyone goes through that when they leave any hometown, especially a small hometown. This week, I'm like, “Damn, I would not want to be in Texas right now.”



MW: I want to get into the song since we’re talking about Texas. You sing about going home to Texas to take a break from everything. I’m curious to know what changed for you in that sense, and I guess maybe in the last week things have changed. But you wrote the lyric, which, maybe, at one point in your life, you never thought that you would be saying that. In what ways is going back to Texas a break off for you from what’s going on here?



MM: Texas is the antithesis to New York. They could not be more different, especially where I'm from in Texas. But there's something nice about that radical difference, in so many ways. People taking the subway everywhere versus driving everywhere. Wide open spaces versus the more cramped lifestyle we live. The types of people you see. The fact that bars close at 10 p.m. there, and then you can go all night here. However, Texas is really familiar; it has my family there. It just feels, ironically, like a safe place, emotionally, I think, now, which I wouldn’t have said growing up. When I was in Texas, I was always held by being in school and being on a guided path. I did college in Texas too. So when I left, I left, and it was like, now you're an adult with no structure and all this control of your own life. My associations with the two places are like, are just that, if that makes sense, you know? So when I want to take time off and I go home, I feel no pressure to be anything in Texas. 



MM: I did a lot of identity forming here in New York, and allowed myself to be really confident and figure out who I am. And yes, you’re right, I took that back to Texas, and now I don't care the same way that I used to because of the work that I did here in figuring out who I am. What you’re saying is exactly right. I've gotten really confident in who I am here by doing all this work on myself in New York, in this environment where I could be more free thinking and open minded. When I go back now, it's not like I go back to who I was. 



MW: I want to get more into the song too, and something that stood out to me. I was recently hanging out with this musician, who was talking about herself and saying that she never stops talking. And it's so reflective in her music. It's just constant words, there's no chorus, there's no repeating bridges. That's so similar to what I've read about you, and it’s also reflected in your two songs. I love that free flowing, not-sticking-to-a-structure approach. You're not trying to make a song in the sense of, like, you need the chorus and whatever. I can appreciate and respect any song, and especially yours, that is just telling this little story. I love that. Have you always approached music in that way? 



MM: Damn, you're great at these questions. You're asking me some of my favorite stuff to talk about. I was a late bloomer in the music scene. I was doing music, but in a completely different way, not like the current project I’m doing now. It was an advantage and a disadvantage because I had no basis or rules for what I should do. I wasn't trying to get anywhere. There was no like, “I'll write songs to get on the radio,” or “I'll write songs to get a Grammy,” or to get them picked up by someone else and bought off of me. I was just like, I'll just write songs that feel reflective of my emotional state. A lot of my early songs did start as poems. I don't do that anymore, but it was helpful in the beginning, when I could separate lyrics from poems and think about them in that way. I've continued on that same thought process, that there's no prescribed structure to a song if you don't want there to be, because it's still a song, no matter what it fits into. I was just writing things that felt true to me. Someone, one time, was like — because people love labels, you know — “Oh, you through-compose your music.” And I was like, “Oh, what? Okay, cool,” and they kind of put that label on it. I don't want it to be labeled. I don't want to be in a box. I think I was always trying to not do something that has been done, which is impossible, and now I know that. But when you have an individuality complex, you're like, “Well, I'm gonna make something that's never been made before, and I'm gonna discover something.” I wasn't actively trying to do that with every song I wrote. I wasn't not writing a chorus on purpose. I was just seeing what would happen as I wrote music, and oftentimes it would turn into something a little left of center, which is still how I approach songwriting, even though I can now appreciate the idea of a repetitive chorus or a bridge. I'm dabbling more in that territory. But yeah, even in this song, there's a structure to this one, but no repeating words, which was just also how I was feeling while I was writing it. It is very chronological of the year I took off from releasing music, the “hours off” idea or whatever, and so I was just cataloging that through a song, and that's how it came to be. Like you were saying, it's just telling a story. And I just really rambled. 



MW: No, I love it. That's what I'm here for. I'm always down for a ramble. I could definitely tell that you were talking about different events and different happenings. I can relate to not having much money of my own and spending money on a stupid man. And I can also relate to “all my friends are in a race to get famous.” I want to break that down. That also kind of ties into my wanting to ask you about your arrival onto the scene. Who did you first start meeting? How did you enter? I came in because I had a friend who was like, “I met these guys in the corner of a party. You're gonna love them. They're all in bands.” So when I moved here, I quickly became friends with a bunch of music guys, but didn't really start leaning into the scene, as in actively going to shows as I do now, for the last five months or so. And the more you stick around, you start seeing these kinds of negative things. Not that I could or want to call somebody specifically a phony, but there's a lot of people out here just putting labels on themselves. Calling themselves something and wanting to be a part of it. And I sometimes wonder: who's actually here for the music? Who's here for the clout? Does it even matter at the end of the day? And all these realizations. The idea of “being famous.”



MM: Oh, such a good question. Like I said, when I moved here, that's when I started doing music. It was maybe two and a half years ago. I came in with this chip on my shoulder that I was really behind everyone else. I love New York music history, and that's a big reason I moved here. I like the DIY spirit of New York in a way that other industries are much more polished. I was super attracted to the griminess and the spirit of the New York music industry, without really knowing where it was at currently. I was basing that knowledge off of the history of New York music. Then I got here, and my first attempt at joining any kinds of scenes was on Facebook, which is like not it. I was in all these musician groups and not getting anywhere. My first job in New York was a really wacky one.



MM: It’s on Chrystie St. When I moved here, that bar was so fucking cool. Someone was hosting an event in the basement there called In Spite of Ourselves. It was a music round, where like four artists would play sets, and it would alternate between the four, and everyone would play two songs, and you’d go in order. I went to that, and I was like, “I feel like this is something I could do,” because it was super chill. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that this was Ray’s, a very iconic spot or whatever. I went up and talked to some guy who put it on, and I was like, “Can I do one of these?” And he was like, “Yeah, for sure. We have one coming up in April, we'll just add you onto that one.” Mind you, because I never played a show in my life, and because I was not a musician, I had this insane imposter syndrome about it. Looking at it now, as someone who's played lots of venue shows, it was basically an open mic. It was not serious at all. 



MW: I love the initiative. I love that so much.



MM: It was really sweet. I embroidered hats for the show to sell as merch. I did a photo shoot to promote the show. I think back and cringe for sure, but it's sweet. I've been thinking a lot recently about the idea that success is scalable. That performance was so successful to me at the time, just as this interview is also a huge marker of success to me because someone cares enough to interview me about my music. I'm not jaded to these milestones in my career. It’s not cringy. In perspective, it’s sweet. 



MW: Are there other pros and cons you’ve come across? I was with a guy the other day, and he brought up this point about the scene, and when you're in it for a minute, you kind of break through this, like, mythological headspace of “this is amazing” and “there's so many kids making music.” And how on a commercial and national scale, bands here, unfortunately, haven’t really yet been nationally appreciated as this grand, amazing rock band. What's different between now and the “Meet Me in the Bathroom” era is that The Strokes made music that the masses and the world love. That’s yet to happen today. I feel like everyone's figuring it out. I'm figuring it out. You're figuring it out. I was in the studio with a band the other day, and they were trying to figure out how to use the recording equipment. And I'm in the room trying to figure out and fix my shitty camera. I don't call myself a photographer. I enjoy taking photos of my friend’s bands and following them around. I'm sitting there in the studio feeling like a putz trying to figure out my camera. But it made me feel better to take a step back and think about it all in another way — that we're all a bunch of kids in our mid 20s, and we're all just trying to figure it out. We're not being taught by anyone. I call myself a band manager. I manage my friend's band. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but there's this essence of faking it till you make it. Going back to the scene, it's a bunch of kids figuring it out. But with the way that the press is writing about it, and the way people are uplifting it, it all might be in a bigger sense than what it actually is sometimes. 



MM: Literally, yes. There is so much exclusivity to the scene, and it promotes a ton of imposter syndrome, and that is a big part about exactly why I wrote that lyric. It was about me not being able to be in the scene for a second. Well, I was, but in a different way. I was not releasing music, and I had no artist project because I was starting over. It took me a year to launch this artist project, and that year was my time off in a way. I wasn't in it in the way that all my friends were. When you get to zoom out and look at everyone who's in this race, who's in the trenches of releasing music, just figuring out how to get to the next stepping stone, be recognized by the next outlet, or go to cool parties, or be in a scene — all these things that feel like success, there's very little appreciation for how to get there. It's just like, “How do I get there?” I was seeing that as someone who was sitting on the sidelines, and I was like, I just want to tell everyone that they're gonna make it and it's gonna be fine. When I wrote that lyric, I was like, 90% of my friends are artists, and I feel like people might take some offense to this line, but I don't mean it in a derogatory way at all. I just mean that that's the product of being an artist right now. Feeling like you need to have overnight success, have “the moment,” have your “big one” that is promoted by outside influence. That's the business, the industry, putting that pressure on the artists. I really respect artists who don't give into that, who don't feel the need to do that. Also, to your point, I can't remember who said it, but someone was like, “Artists just don't know music anymore. They don't know music history.” To further your point about the band who didn't know how to use recording equipment, I think really great artists love music. They know a lot about it. I started with learning about the beginning of music history and worked my way into where we are now. I’m still a very passionate reader of music media outlets. I just got my master's in audio engineering. Knowledge is a lot of power in this industry. Artists get taken advantage of a lot, especially on the business side. I worked as a booker for a little bit, I've worked in various roles in the music industry as well, and seen artists not knowing stuff to their disadvantage, and not knowing how something should work. 



MW: I think if more people leaned into it — leaned into their confidence of themselves and their art — there could be some really great stuff put out by artists and photographers and managers, and, of course, musicians. I think if a lot of musicians really leaned in, even just a little bit, they would see some results, in whatever shape or form they come. 



MM: I think you're so right. I talk to my friends about this too. People take you as seriously as you take yourself. A big thing for me is I don't have a ton of followers online, so it used to feel really weird or contrary to my nature to post about music. In the way that, like, maybe a famous person would post about their music. I used to be a really ironic person. I would hide behind this veil of irony, so that it would keep me safe from anyone thinking that I took myself too seriously or that I wanted it really bad. And then I was like, “Damn, that will not get me anywhere.” It started to creep in and make me not take myself seriously. People just minimize themselves all the time. 



MW: It's such a weird concept. I also should take a note out of that book for myself. The people out there, the figureheads, whoever, are just doing it, and nobody's questioning it. So yeah, it's like, why should we be questioning ourselves?



MM: Yeah. People believe you when you tell them who you are, and they're not gonna look into it too hard because why would they exactly? I used to not consider myself a producer, but I’ve literally been producing my music. I was like, “I’m not Jack Antonoff and producing for all these big artists,” but I’m still a producer. It’s all this scalable idea, and the only way to minimize your success is to compare it to someone else’s. Going back to playing that show at Ray’s, that show wasn't Madison Square Garden, but that show at that time was really successful to me. It doesn't need to be minimized just because it's being compared to someone who's playing MSG. You know what I mean? I also feel that a lot about age. As a woman in this industry, I often compare myself to people who are younger than me or had more at the age that I am. I think that's one of my biggest hurdles that I'm jumping over right now, is not being like, “Well, Clairo is my age and is nominated for a Grammy.” Clairo has been doing this for a long time, you know, so it's just hard. It's hard not to do that.



MW: Absolutely. We're going to run out of time soon, but I want to dive in a little bit into what you were saying about your past experiences within the music industry. I've been working for corporate music magazines since 2021. Early on I was interviewing people like Billy Strings, Glass Animals, Wallows, these big commercial acts, and I loved it. For whatever reason, I have recently felt more jaded with it. I don't really want to do that. I don't really care right now to write about such big artists. I'm literally a part of something in real time that is so cool — the scene — and that's kind of why I started writing for Disaster. You're my first article, and they're letting me pretty much write about anyone in the local scene. I want to write about the people around me who I think are fucking cool, and I want their name out there. I'm not gonna wait around for some corporate magazine to not pick it up, and the waiting time can be so long. I love Disaster and the space that they're offering — I can write about these local kids at whatever fucking pace I want, and that's what I love. I just want to uplift you guys and put stuff out there. You also have this background of working for commercial music, but you are preferring the DIY. In that same sense, a lot of what you were just saying is feeling these pressures, maybe because you've worked and been associated with commercial music. I don't think a lot of the kids feel the same way you do. I think you have a unique perspective in that sense, because a lot of these DIY kids don’t. A lot of them haven't worked in the music industry, like you said. They don't know how this thing is working. They don't know how it's operated. I love that you post so much on social media. I can’t say the same for other DIY bands and artists. But you and I know that that's unfortunately how the industry runs. You have to put yourself out there on social media these days. I hate TikTok. I don't go on TikTok, but I was scrolling through your TikTok a little bit right before this call. What do you make of that, the commercial versus the DIY, and also putting yourself out there in the way that you have on social media? You're really putting yourself out there — which I have nothing but respect for — as an artist, because you are, and you should be doing that.



MM: It's a battle. This is the over-drinks conversation with any artist friends. Somehow, we don't get tired of being like, “God, I hate social media. What should I post today?” That conversation is always in rotation. I realized it's not like this thing is not that old. Before TikTok took over music discovery, there was YouTube, and that's what we grew up with. We were the YouTube generation or whatever. And it goes back and back and back, right? We're now in real time, learning to adapt to this thing. Anything that's new that feels contrary to how you've grown up or what you think totally feels cringy. I recently realized the kids who are growing up today in this world, they don't really think it's cringy. We’re older Gen Z I guess, so like the younger Gen Z and then the one below that, Gen Alpha, or whatever it’s called. 



MW: I have no idea. 



MM: They're really vulnerable. They're so comfortable with putting themselves out online. I feel that people who are my age, we cringe so much at ourselves, in a way that can really hold you back. But it's like you're saying, when you're an artist, everything is an extension of your art. Everything you do — your clothes, your decoration of your home, the way you post on social media — and the music you make, obviously, is the most pure form of whatever your artistry is. Everything you do with that music, the videos you make and the way you promote it, it’s all that world that you're making. That was a big switch for me with social media in specific. Now I have a really healthy, good relationship with social media. On TikTok, I just throw stuff out there, to see what's going on. But with Instagram, I've taken a lot of pride and joy in curating an aesthetic that feels like world building. Weirdly, that feels like a pretentious term, but it's true. I have this song at the center of it all, and then I get to build out visual representations of that song through a color palette and imagery. I love music videos. I'm always watching music videos. I’ve always loved them. Each song in each project, as I'm working towards releasing singles and then larger projects, those are all new opportunities for a new world to be built around your song, and then to get to invite people in. I love artists that have such a strong visual identity. They have such a strong performance style on stage, and they know themselves, so therefore I know them. It feels like you can feel that authenticity from your favorite artists. It's how you approach content that can be as serious and as artistic or as silly and as menial as you make it. Any artist who I talk to, I encourage them to find a way to like what they're posting, and then they'll be able to keep doing it. Because if you hate what you're doing, the way you're promoting your music, you will ultimately stop, you know, and then you'll hate the music, right? 



MW: Dude, everything you just said, I love it. We're about to run out of time, but I love what you’re doing and I’m so excited for you. 



MM: Oh my gosh. Let’s definitely be in touch and hang out soon. 



MW: Thank you so much for talking with me!



MM: Thank you so much! You said the thing about wanting to scale down. I know you’re coming from corporate mags, and that’s a crazy level, but you wanting to do this because you want journalistic liberties and to write about what you like, I think that was the dopest thing I’ve ever heard. 



MW: Thank you! You’re so sweet. I so appreciate that, and everything you said.

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