Marblemouth- Demo’ing at home, finding new purpose in the studio

by Andy John Mendosa

Ev Pacheco is a 23-year-old gender-queer multi-instrumentalist from Providence, Rhode Island. Pacheco began writing songs for their own band Marblemouth releasing their first EP Nest in 2019

How would you say influence plays a part in your songwriting and musicianship?

“As a person who considers themselves not really a songwriter, my approach to it has been constantly writing and recording little tiny parts that subconsciously appear to me in a moment. I’ve found they’re always an emotional reference to someone musically or someone in my life, or bands I’ve known or played with. Like, my cousin showed me metal at ten years old, I loved the heaviness and speed of it, and I sort of absorbed it. I think young creatives are really just amalgamations of their environment and the stuff that they love, I think you sort of start out by imitating and then once you get far along making your own stuff you get to your own style.

So people and social life plays a large part of that?

Yeah, I mean, the times I’ve been really really, like, genuinely excited about music were with people. But it’s kind of this split thing where that happens but sometimes in my head I’m like absolutely screaming, but yeah, the uncomfortable, anxious experiences where I have to force myself through are always the ones I feel grateful of. 

You’re anxious about social interaction, but your music is about people? 

[laughs] I try not to make my lyrics extremely obvious or explicit, you know, I’m not trying to lay it all out for the world. But yeah, so many of my songs are a point of learning for me in what I have been able to understand about myself through certain situations. Me really thinking and really obsessing about those situations and cataloguing that. 

You’re blueprinting your thoughts in a way? 

Yeah I am, and I wouldn’t say songwriting is like therapy, you know, because people should just go to fucking therapy, in my opinion.

[laughs] 

And it’s not to say it isn’t, but you can unpack your emotions within a piece of art as much as you want, but looking outside of it through another’s perspective, even if it ends up not being the one that fits, is why therapy exists [chuckles].  

Sorry but COVID-related question, has the lack of social interaction led to lack of inspiration? 

I think within quarantine I was only really able to turn out two songs, and they’re based on experiences from the past, but other than that I didn’t really have any urge to make anything new. More recently I started having a lot of fun branching out into more electronic sounds with these silly fake-drum noise metal songs with my USB mic and laptop. My approach was just to keep messing with things I wasn’t used to. I probably said “this sucks” more often than not. One song I made from sampling Blake Sheldon vocal lines and then made a fast, harsh noisy break beat song called “Break Sheldon”. It will never see the light of day... or maybe it will? 

So is music more of a distraction than a release in this time for you? 

I mean, I obviously did get a lot of inspiration through working and promoting shows, playing my stuff live, playing with and for other people, and not to be “this has been really good for me blah blah blah” whatever-the-fuck, but I’ve genuinely found new things I love in music, new ways of expressing myself through music; just generally discovering musical things I didn’t know I was capable of. I’ve found ways I can go about expressing myself that’s not just guitar or drums. 

How did recording the new album go? Heard you went down to D.C.?

Yeah it was the first time out of NYC since lockdown started, my friend Eric from Tosser has a little basement studio. He was so nice and helpful, like, he let us know that he and his girlfriend got tested for COVID, we got tested before going. It’s an old friend scenario, first day was doing all drums on the tracks. 

Was it more surgical or ‘let’s see what we get’ kind of deal? 

Oh it was definitely the most planned and focused record I’ve done, but once it just feels so much more confident and realized, Eric came in with so many great ideas while we were laying stuff down. “Let’s do it again just to get another take” y’know not to beat it to death but just feel later what fits the nuance. That was really exciting to me for some reason. He just brought these ideas I never would have thought of and they made all the difference.

Did you learn anything else in terms of your creative or production process? 

I had this strange moment where, like, I’ve never necessarily felt like my band was a real band or I was a songwriter, but I had a moment after tracking vocals or guitar harmonies and it felt like I was laying my shit down. I wasn’t dicking around. I’m genuinely excited for my own piece of music for the first time in my life. When it was done I was like “Oh my god” [laughs]. It was such a burst of joy that I’ve never necessarily experienced. There was a confidence there I’ve never had when I’m writing music.

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