Some of you may recognise his name from being the frontman of Mattafix. Now Marlon has embarked on his solo career and has just released his 4 track EP, ‘Riding Home,’ which he previewed for the tough crowd at Yoyo’s in Nottinghill last Thursday. Shireen sits down with him in a coffee shop off High St. Kensington to talk to him about his time in Mattafix, St. Vincent and this exciting new period of his life.
Your parents are both in creative industries how influential was this to your music career?
It’s been very influential. Mainly because I grew up with the idea that expressing yourself is a normal thing creatively. It was never like I was rebelling against parents that wanted me to become a lawyer or a doctor or anything like that. At the same time they weren’t very heavy handed with it, so fortunately for me, that’s what I chose to do.
You were living in St. Vincent why did you decide to return to London at the age of 17?
Mainly for A Levels. I thought I’d probably have a better chance of making a living if I did film. I came back here and studied film and photography but I was working in studios at night. The music took over after a while, I got my first publishing deal and that was that. London is probably the best town to be doing it in. I love St Vincent, I escape home after a tour or to visit mum at Christmas and stuff. It’s a great refugee for me, but London I like big bad towns and for songwriting London seems to fit the bill.
How did this environment inspire your path?
Going backwards and forwards between the Caribbean and St. Vincent has been a huge inspiration. Tracks like ‘Riding Home,’ or ‘Brotherhood of the Broken,’ they all have a sentiment of not home sickness exactly, but the fact there is another location where you’re able to be creative. Two of the things the Caribbean has an abundance of are rhythm and melody. The tracks that make it there in the clubs are very hard judges of songs that move them. It was front-page newspaper headline when we got to No.1 in Germany the other day. The Prime Minister rang my mum at work.
How did it feel becoming an ambassador for Save Darfur and will you ever do anything like that again?
It was mad, they heard a song that I recorded in South Africa, and said ok we’d like to use it leading up to the UN Convention. We got on a tiny UN plane, and they dumped us in the middle of nowhere.. It was nerve wracking but incredible at the same time. Darfur people, Sudanese people welcomed us all, I was blown away by how they could go through something like that (genocide) and hold themselves together. It was an incredible experience.
How different is your sound now from being in Mattafix?
I thought it was loads different and I thought I’ve sold out to the demons of pop. I think feedbacks come back saying I’ve still got the same vibe really. Maybe I was more of a driving force of Mattafix then I thought I was. Mattafix was more political, there were a couple of personal songs, but it was mostly how we felt as young Brits going to war in the Middle East, having our tax money spent on the invasion. It was stuff like that that motivated us. Then I got my heart broken, and much more of a personal vibe ended up on the tunes.
You seem to have a big following in Europe. Where do you find you have the biggest support?
Germany is my biggest market. You can never tell why a record or an artist touches a nation at any one given time. It’s probably a culmination of reasons. We’ve had the best set up there in terms of labels, were on Universal Europe. It’s what they call an uber hit out there, 8 weeks at No.1, platinum straight away. It’s been absolutely mad. I’ll play a stadium TV show and come back here and get on the 52 bus, it’s a weird transition but it’s a great one especially for songwriting.
Read the rest of the interview here
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