[Music]
Hey everybody, welcome back to Phantom Power Artist Hour.
This is a listener supported value cast
with no ads, no commercials, no sponsors.
And if you like it, if it brings value into your life, I would ask
that you give some of that value in return, be it with your time,
your talent or your treasure.
As in little pieces of Bitcoin, otherwise known as Satoshi's,
that would get sent to me and are split with today's guest,
who is Marina Oshk from Iceland, an amazing jazz singer,
pianist, composer, guitar player.
We have a great conversation about her educational background,
about doing gigs full-time in Iceland, as well as her recordings
and new projects and the challenges that women face,
not just in this genre or music in general, but in any career,
it's a lovely conversation, lovely conversation.
And at the end of the show, we're going to debut a new song
from her.
And the title is in Icelandic and I'm not going to say it
because I'll probably just destroy it.
I'll probably screw it up.
So let's start off the show with one of my favorites.
This song is called "Hey Love" and then we will bring on,
I'm not going to name it, for the conversation.
You ready? Here we go.
[Music]
Hey Love, you caught me of God, hey Love, I took it quite hard.
Oh Love, you got me good, while the streams aside
I never thought I'd ever admit it, but hey Love, I'm doing alright since Love,
my head is all fried, but Love, I like the fact you stumbled my way.
I used to visit gay places and all the time what made places seem so charming and swell,
but since that fateful day I've been trying to stay away, hey Love,
I'm not used to this thing, oh Love, it's your ain't no fling, but Love,
I like the fact you stumbled my way.
[Music]
Hey Love, I'm not used to this thing, oh Love, it's your ain't no fling, but Love,
I like the fact you stumbled my way.
[Music]
And that is Hey Love by Marina Oshk, and I think I pronounced that correctly from Iceland
who is nice enough to join us on the line today.
Marina, thank you so much for joining us, how are you?
Thanks for having me, I'm well, how are you yourself?
I'm good, it's a sunny day here in Nashville, I'm actually wearing shorts I think for the first time this year, so that's good.
Wow, lovely.
I'm just such a fan of your writing, your voice, and I've said it a million times,
Jazz is my favorite genre and I tend to finish up the fan of power music hour with Jazz tune.
So I'm thrilled that you're in the value verse that we were able to get you over here, but I want to start with your background.
I know you have a bachelor's and jazz vocals from the conservatory and Amsterdam, and then you've got a master's in music and jazz from the Royal Conservatory in Stockholm, but there you are in Iceland.
Let's go all the way back to the beginning, where did you start playing music? How did you get the music bug?
Well, my dad actually plays the accordion and I saw him play like ever since I was like, I don't know, born.
And my mom used to play the flute as well, and when I was about, I don't know, two and a half years old, she handed me a recorder.
It's kind of little flute thing, plastic that you can play like very simple songs on, and she started teaching me.
And when I was old enough and large enough to hold a real life flute, I started studying that.
So I was like, I don't know, seven or something.
And she enrolled me in the local music school.
And yeah, I studied flute for like, I don't know, 20-something years. And at some point I added in saxophone, trumpet, piano, a couple of different instruments.
And eventually I started learning how to sing as well. And I think that's where I found my real passion.
I don't know, it made me kind of happy. So I decided to go from there and just focus on that.
So how many instruments are you proficient at? Could you play a gig on?
I could definitely play a gig on the piano and the guitar, especially if accompanying myself.
And I've been experimenting a little bit with playing duo, with bass player and me on piano, which is really scary because I'm really not a jazz pianist, but it's kind of...
I'm surprised.
Yeah, I don't know. For some reason, my right hand doesn't really want to play melodies. It just wants to play chords.
It's difficult to take a solo.
That's interesting, because I worry more about my left hand when I'm playing in a jazz combo.
Because I don't want to step on the bass player's toes.
Exactly.
So you've got piano, as far as doing gigs. Piano, guitar, sax.
I could play it in a big band. We could negotiate that.
Third chair.
Exactly. And of course, flute. I've been playing flute for many years, so I could definitely swing that a little bit.
That's cool. Yeah, the recorder is actually... I think every kid in America, or at least I hope they do, probably not anymore.
But right around third or fourth grade, every kid gets a recorder.
And they have to play like... In music class, they play like hot crossbuns and all that kind of stuff.
Now we have the same thing in second grade.
As I mentioned earlier, you studied abroad, but you were born and raised in Iceland, correct?
Yeah, correct.
What prompted you... Tell us about your journey from Iceland and Reykjavik over to Amsterdam to get your bachelors in jazz vocals?
Yeah, well, I had been living in the northern part of the country for about two years.
I was born in Kafft, Reykjavik, which is if you've been to Iceland, it's where the airport is located.
It's the other side of the country, but I moved up north to Akkurete.
That's been living there for two years. And that's really where my career as a singer kind of took off, and I was playing all over.
But at some point, I felt like, "Okay, I need more. I've been teaching. I've been conducting choirs."
Like I said, playing all over, but I was like, "I need something else, something more, something to... to people my interest and help me grow a little bit."
So I started looking at schools, and I applied for two schools in Holland, so both in the Hague and Amsterdam.
And managed to get accepted at Amsterdam.
So why Holland? I honestly don't know. I'm not saying anything negative about Holland, but is there not a good conservatory in Reykjavik,
or did you not look at London, or maybe even Juilliard? Why were you drawn to Holland?
Oh yeah, well in Iceland at that point, and kind of still today, you can't really get a bachelor's in jazz, let alone masters.
So the highest you can get is like pre conservatory exam at this moment.
Yeah, up until this moment, but at that point, I was checking out like schools that I had been recommended to me.
And one of my teachers actually said, "You should definitely look at the Netherlands."
So I did that. I also checked out a little bit in the Nordic countries. I did check out Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music, and a lot of other options.
But at that point, I thought like, "Okay, I don't know what's going to happen. I'll just apply for two schools and just see what happens."
So that's kind of what happened. I would have wanted to have more entrance exams and maybe be able to choose, but I'm quite happy I chose some of them.
So where, you have a bachelor's in jazz vocals, where did your love of jazz come from? I mean because your dad on the accordion, your mom on the flute.
Okay, so where does the jazz come from?
Yeah, this is a very weird thing. For some reason, Big Bam music always made me super happy and jiggly-ish.
I was drawn to it. And when I was like, I don't know, 19 or 20, I was actually asked to learn how to play the saxophone because there was a Big Band in my school, and they needed a saxophone player, and I played a flute.
And to be honest, it's not that different, like the fingering. All the blowing is a bit different, but the finger sounds are the same.
Yeah, all you're really doing is you're going from horizontal to vertical, right? I mean it's exactly.
And you make the notes the same with your fingers, so it was quite an easy switch.
And that's when I really get into it. That's when I started listening and studying it a little bit.
Then I started singing with the band as well. The conductor was like, hey, do you make one a single song? I was like, okay, sure.
And then I was studying classical singing. And at some point I said, no, you know what? I love this, but I don't like when somebody is on the piano playing the melody with me.
I really want to control that thing on my own. So they just, my music school, kind of, hired a teacher for me, and she taught me jazz.
Yeah, I have a lot to be thankful for.
Yeah, so is this like your quote unquote high school music teacher at this point?
Sort of. So like in Iceland, you don't really have this kind of high school music way.
And you do it in America. It's a little bit different. So we kind of just enroll in music schools. And that's kind of a out of school thing.
You can definitely connect it, but it's not interconnected at all.
It's more of like a, like a trade school type of thing, or is it more of like an actor school activity, just, you know, cultural type of thing?
Yeah, definitely an after school thing.
Yeah.
Okay. So big bands, huh? Like that's cool.
Yeah, I wish more, I wish more musicians understood just how cool.
And how cool and compact those big band arrangements are like when you've got three chairs of sacks and three chairs of trumpets and three chairs of bones.
And they're, and they are on the money. Man, those arrangements are so great.
Yeah, exactly. I don't know why, but it kind of it just gets to me.
It just takes me away to another level. And I just feel the swing in my body. It's ridiculous. I can't really explain it, but yeah.
Yeah. And it's such a cool, it's such a cool feeling to be sitting in the pocket of a big band when it's when it's tearing it up.
It's a, it's in some respects, I think it's more powerful than being in a rock band because, because it's all acoustic, right?
Because everything is, is natural, you know? Yeah, exactly.
Okay, so, so we're in Amsterdam. You do the jazz vocals, the, the, the undergraduate degree.
So to speak.
And then you're like, okay, like this is cool, but now how, how do we go from Amsterdam up to Stockholm to get your master?
Well, I have to say, I didn't really think I would do masters, but at the end of my studies in Amsterdam, I was thinking, yeah, I'm not done yet.
I definitely need to continue a little bit more.
So in my fourth year in Amsterdam, I decided to do an entrance exam in Stockholm and in few other schools as well.
And you know how it is, like with, with entrance exams, they tend to be kind of scary. They tend to be like, you go in there, like really nervous, you're really prepared, but you don't really know what's gonna happen.
The people that are listening are like, either judging you or looking at you funny or, I don't know, that's my experience, at least.
So I felt super nervous, but when I got into the entrance exam in Stockholm, I felt so calm because they were so lovely. They were so sweet.
And I had never experienced that before.
And at that time, I didn't, I didn't even get in, but I walked out of that entrance exam. I was like, holy smokes, that was lovely.
I didn't think that was possible. So I decided like, okay, even if I don't get in, I'll apply next year. And that's what happened.
So I took a year off in between my bachelor's and master's, moved to Iceland. I was teaching a little bit and kind of molded the idea of my master's project a little bit or at least found a direction.
And also one of the reasons I wanted to go closer to home was even though Amsterdam is such a beautiful city and the school is amazing.
The culture is quite far away from me and I never felt like I was at home. If that makes sense, I always felt like Amsterdam was the city that I studied, but not a city where I live.
But I kind of felt like, okay, I need something that's a little bit more, a little bit more in my area somewhere that I'm a little bit more relaxed and I understand the culture a little bit better.
And Sweden was definitely the right way to go.
I can understand that. There is a vast cultural difference between Holland and Stockholm, Holland and Sweden, Holland and the Nordic countries.
They're both lovely, but you know this better than most. Culture varies differently, vastly in Europe.
I guess when you drive 100 kilometers, 200 kilometers, right? I mean, you could feel like you're on another planet.
Exactly, exactly. It's all different countries, of course. So it's like they all everybody has their own kind of upbringing and their own traditions and just their way of life in a way.
So in that way, Sweden definitely harmonized with me a lot better than the Amsterdam.
And Sweden really has a massive jazz culture.
Yeah.
You know, so many Americans don't realize, I mean, it's really based upon two things.
Number one, post-World War II, a lot of GIs being over in the region and big bands coming in and U.S.O tours and whatnot.
But also for a lot of African Americans who were on the jazz scene over here, it didn't matter if it was Dizzy Gillespie or Monk or anybody, they go over here.
They're treated like crap, but they go over to Europe and they're treated like kings because they're such a greater appreciation for art form.
And you can't blame them for going, "Well screw that, I'm going back to Europe and going on tour."
I mean, Europeans have always treated American jazz, especially African American jazz players. A hell of a lot better than we have.
Yeah. And I mean of course, like in the 40s and the 50s and the 60s, I mean a lot of, like you say, a lot of American jazz musicians were traveling over and Europe kind of became and love with jazz music and that's kind of how it all started.
And I mean, like in Sweden, for example, there was this amazing jazz singer called Monica Settelund.
And she did such an amazing album with Bill Evans. It's one of my all-time favorites. I listened to it like back and forth like a gazillion times.
Yeah.
And it's kind of like, it kind of tells you like, "Okay, so those two were working together like, were the odds? Like how did that even happen?"
Yeah. Yeah, she really is exceptional.
Yeah.
And I've written, I think I mentioned this in maybe one of the blogs. I kind of like, your voice kind of reminds me of her but not really like you have a knife.
You have your own softness. You have your own diction, of course. But yeah, I mean Monica was and is still a queen in Sweden with respect to jazz.
Yeah, I mean, there was even like an award that like one young and promising jazz musician in Sweden is awarded every year called the Monica Settelund Award.
That's how big she is. She is like their star.
Yeah.
I would say, yeah.
So, when you got done with your master's degree in Stockholm, did you stick around Stockholm or did you go back to Iceland for first? What would you do next?
I decided to move back home to Iceland.
I love Sweden.
But I definitely felt drawn back to Iceland.
Yeah, it's always been like that no matter where I go. I was in Amsterdam for four years and then actually during my master's studies, COVID kind of hit.
And funnily enough, I had just released my debut album like October 2019.
And I had decided to take like a semester off from my masters and spend a semester in Iceland teaching and following up on my album.
And, oh my, COVID hit hard.
Yeah, holy cow.
Yeah, so I didn't really manage to fall up my album and I didn't go back to Sweden.
So, I kind of just stuck around and did everything over Zoom.
Yeah.
Online, and that worked out.
Wasn't that many lessons or anything, so it was just like me studying and researching.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I kind of just lingered on in Iceland and that was always a plan, you know, to come back home and make life here.
Yeah. And then COVID put the breaks on a lot of it.
Let's talk about that 2019 release.
You got 11 songs on there.
I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of it as most Americans would do.
And then, you know, I'm going to say, "Affarth, how do you pronounce it?"
Nice, nice try. Like, A for F first.
Okay, thank you. Right, I'll take it.
It would be pronounced "Affarth."
Oh my lord.
Yeah, it's a tricky one because the H, yeah, "Affarth."
The H in this, in this, this time the H is a K.
A T K and then the V is an F.
At Kvarth.
Okay, yeah, that'll take me about an hour to get it.
So, so, are, now, is all of this in Icelandic?
Yes. So, that album is completely in Icelandic.
Okay. What was the inspiration behind it?
This was your debut record. What, what, what, what is it about? What, what are the topics?
What was your inspiration?
Well, the word "Affarth" means shelter.
And to me, music has always been kind of a shelter away from David's life.
I am somebody who is an anxious person.
And I have a lot of feelings that need to be contained and managed.
And sometimes that's just, it's hard.
It's difficult in day to day life.
Everything is so fast and everybody expects you to do stuff.
When I was a kid, I would just lock myself away in my room, my very own.
At Kvarth. And just listen to music.
And that's the inspiration for the album.
And my lyrics on the album all kind of connect to nature.
So, there's, there's a song about my happy place.
It's called "Je xe et hier ikrasse ne"
I believe it's song number three.
And that's about my happy place, which is,
I stand in nature, midnight, like 23rd, 24th of June.
It's still bright.
You're out somewhere in nature.
It's completely quiet and it's still bright.
That's something we have in Iceland.
We have bright 24/7 over summer.
And I also wrote a song about the rain and the sun,
and it calmed me down and affect me.
But musically, the inspiration was,
I started tuning my guitar in open tuning one day.
I'm trying to do that.
Yeah.
She said, "I just try open tuning."
So I tuned my guitar in an open E.
So, E, B, E, G sharp, B and E.
And, man, oh man, did things start happening then.
I managed out to play a few chords,
and then just songs poured out of me.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
That was the beginning.
That's one of my favorite topics.
Yes.
I, oh, alternate tunics.
I completely agree with you on that.
You change a couple of things on your guitar,
and your fingers don't know what to do,
but your mind goes,
"Oh my god, what did I just stumble upon?"
Exactly.
And you have to go for it.
Yeah, and it's such an easy trick.
When I was a songwriter in LA,
I'd keep them all in different tunings.
Yeah.
Because you're like,
once you figure out the magic and the beauty of it,
you're like, "Oh my god, I always..."
You never know when inspiration is going to strike,
so you want to be able to grab one and...
Exactly.
You want to be ready.
You know who you should look at.
There's a guy over here.
His name is David Wilcox.
Have you ever heard of him?
I don't think so.
So there's a Canadian David Wilcox who is a blues guy.
And then there's an American David Wilcox
that you should check out.
He was the one who really opened up my thought process
to alternate tunings.
And I'll send you an email on him just so you can check him out.
He's kind of like a James Taylor type of dude.
And he's still out there touring.
He goes out and does all of these gigs pretty much solo.
And he's like everything is in different tunings.
And he's a master of it.
He even did Bach in an alternate tuning on his guitar too.
Like it's just...
Yeah, it's the coolest thing in the world.
And he's one of those guys where you're like,
"Why is this dude not as popular as James Taylor?"
Or like, I mean, his storytelling and his voice
and his guitar playing are just perfect.
Oh, how exciting.
But the world is not fair.
So we've got the record called Shelter.
See what I did there.
Oh, well done.
And then we go to the next LP that came out in 2022,
One Evening in July, which is where I found you,
which is where I first started hearing your music
and just blown away by it.
Like to talk about that one, where did you record it?
The inspiration behind it?
I know there's a couple of standards on there,
but what was the thought process behind it?
Well, now we have to go back to Sweden.
Ah!
Yeah, so...
Miki braw.
Well done.
You're Swedish.
Pretty good.
I'm pretty.
Wow.
Well, during my studies over there,
I met some amazing people who I still keep in contact with
and played with a lot.
And amongst them were two brothers who were called Ehrlich and U1,
and their last name is Ting Holm.
And they are a Trumpeter and a bass player.
They are one of the most amazing musicians I've ever met.
So after my masters, I...
No, let me rewind.
During my masters, I decided to contact them and ask like,
"Hey, would you guys want to meet up and play some tunes?"
And jam a little bit.
And they were like, of course,
because every Swedish person is like, "Yeah, let's do that."
There's some positives.
Yeah.
And at that time, I was dating this guitar player called Mika Malny,
an amazing guitar player, who is now incidentally living in Amsterdam again,
but we were living in Sweden together,
and he was also part of the band.
And the four of us got together, we started playing,
and something just happened.
I mean, something just clicked.
And I tried out like one or two songs that I had actually written before,
going to Sweden, which were kind of like,
this sounded like standards, but...
Yeah, I didn't think they fitted on my first album,
so I kind of kept them from my next one.
And we started jamming, and there was just magic.
I was like, "Okay, I have to do something with this."
So as a part of my masters,
you actually got to go into the studio in the school,
and you could do like a recording day,
and you actually got two days if you were a master's student.
And this is something I cashed in.
Yeah, so this is your master's thesis, basically?
Well, almost, almost.
It's part of my masters, kind of,
because my master's project was actually like studying my musical personality
and like, "How do you go there?"
And through that, I studied a lot of like melodic,
how do you say it?
Like, melodically improvising musicians like Chepp Baker, for example.
My, my idol number one, two, and five hundred.
And Cole Desmond and Lester Young,
kind of this instrumentalist who were like playing solos,
like they were creating new melodies,
and that sparked something in my head.
So I started just composing kind of standards.
And all of a sudden I was like, "Oh, shit, I have an album ready."
Yeah.
What's your opinion about that?
Well, hey, love is just as, I've said this before,
like put, "Hey, love in the fake book, man."
It's right there.
It's so good.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's one of my favorites, actually.
But yeah, at some point I realized I had,
I had a lot of songs that were recording ready,
the band was ready, so we just booked a date in the school in Stockholm
and we just went to record.
And voila, we had an album.
Voila indeed, I mean, man, it's such a beautiful record.
I mean, we--
Thank you.
Yeah, I just adore it.
And as I wrote on the blog that I put out a couple of years ago
about the moon and the sky, we got to get you.
Like if you ever come over here to Nashville,
please let me know.
And I'll bang on the door of Rudy's, which is the jazz,
like the "Own" unfortunately.
The really only jazz club in town.
But, and the best of the best play there,
and you would fit right in.
So, okay, so we've talked about Shelter and then one evening in July.
And you've got a new record coming out right now.
Do you not?
Yes, indeed.
Like a week ago I finished recording my third album.
Nice.
Yeah, I'm really excited about this one.
So what's been happening actually is,
I've been going kind of back and forth from being like a pure jazz.
A singer and experimenting a little bit with like,
like, Nor Jones and Eva Cassidy kind of music as well.
Because they also have like, these kind of very jazzy roots.
But their music is not necessarily like pure jazz.
It's not like, like jazz standards jazz.
It's a different kind of jazz.
And this kind of music really like got to me.
And I remember listening to Nor Jones's first album in like this
deluxe kind of version with like all these demos and stuff.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, there we go.
That's where I want to go.
I want to go somewhere there.
So this album will be more guitar based more,
no, that's not the right word.
Country blues jazz pop.
Really?
Yeah.
It's more of a mixture truth be told.
I've been playing a lot more of like pop and rock gigs for the past year than I have jazz gigs.
And this is kind of, I wouldn't say mess with my head,
but definitely like,
oh, my brain is stuck now.
Yeah, that's okay.
Yeah.
So this has definitely been an influence in my writing.
And like in January, I, in January 2024,
a friend of mine loaned me his studio.
And I just locked myself away for two weeks and had an album.
And it was nice.
It's more, yeah, like I said, it's less jazz.
It's more country bluesy kind of music,
and I'm really excited about it.
I can't wait to hear it.
Is that the project that I see with Ragnar Olowsson?
Is that the project?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So the thing with the Ragnar is he has this amazing band.
If you haven't checked it out already, it's called Alsteevitch.
They have, they had a viral video a couple of years ago for one of the oldest kind of songs.
The one that I sent has called "Hey, him, not me, this."
And they sang it in like a train station and that made them viral.
So definitely check them out if you have the time.
But Ragnar and I, we are like co-heading a house band who plays like every night downtown
in a day-care week for a house full of people.
And we only play like cover songs like Hotel California.
Like Sweet Child of Mine, you know, all those big songs that everybody knows
and they're singing along with.
Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second.
Did you just tell me that you sing Sweet Child of Mine?
Yeah.
Oh, all the time.
All the time.
Oh, the things we musicians do, right?
Indeed, but I have to say, I love it.
Do you?
Good.
I do.
I mean, to be fair, like before I went into like the music academy way before I moved to Amsterdam,
I was doing a lot of like, pop gigs, so I was playing in bars and playing Wonderwall like night after night.
And I was kind of fed up with it.
I was like, nah, this is not really for me.
But after being a jazz singer for like 10 years and somebody offered me like this gig,
like you want to try out?
I was like, sure, why not?
Let me dust off my Jolene chops.
Yeah.
That's respectable.
Exactly.
And now I'm going to love Wonderwall again.
I said, well, I think I got two thoughts there and reminds me to give you my arrangement idea on Wonderwall.
But if jazz is your day job, it's understandable that you know, to go out,
and do pop and rock and covers, you know, for fun.
It's understandable that you would like it.
It's like that balance, right?
Yeah.
Like if you know, if jazz is your day job.
And then here's my, here's my Wonderwall trick.
Yeah.
You know the number system, like the national number system, right?
Not really.
Okay.
Well, don't raid me, Fosola, Tito, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Yeah.
All right.
There's the Nashville number system.
So, so here, so next time you play Wonderwall on the verses, start on the one.
Okay.
Two days is going to be the day that the next day will affect you.
Right?
One, three, four, five.
Play the verse like that and see how people respond to it.
Oh, my.
And then, and then go back to the chorus, the way you normally would, right?
Yeah.
This is kind of a, like, a fun little neo soul way to do it.
Yeah.
And then, three, four, five, that's my, that's my, uh, Wonderwall trick.
Have fun with it.
All right.
I'll check it out.
Yeah.
Have fun with it.
Let me put this back.
Hang on a second.
Um, how, we talked a little bit about the, the, um, culture of jazz in Sweden.
Um, Iceland has a very unique music culture itself.
I mean, of course, um, people, uh, you mentioned Iceland and people automatically think of Bjork.
Yeah.
But tell us about, um, some of the other, um, musical heroes or celebrities, I, I hate to use that word, um, in Iceland.
And, and, and the culture of, of, uh, music and playing gigs in Iceland.
All right.
So a couple of big names that I could definitely mention besides Bjork, which everybody knows is, uh, Segurost.
They are really huge and, uh, of monsters and men.
Oh, yeah.
And Paléo as well.
So, and also if, if, uh, if you're into like, uh, acoustic piano, kind of, uh, relaxing piano playing, all of our art, it's also quite huge.
Ooh, um, so yeah, we have a lot of, we have, we do have a lot of, uh, musicians who go far and they go abroad and they tour and some of them are even more famous abroad than there are in Iceland.
Um, but in Iceland, it's, we are a weird country.
I can just say that.
Um, it's a, a small, well, they got about, you know, 390,000 people, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Um, I sometimes describe Iceland having kind of like a, a small man syndrome, you know, you kind of just have to make sure everybody knows you're the best at everything.
You have to be in the center of attention and just be loud because otherwise people are gonna forget about you.
Um, this is kind of what we do.
So we kind of go all in and, part of, of like the musical success that people have in Iceland is.
The fact that we have amazing music schools and the system around that.
And like, Louis, I forgot to mention, of course, like an idiot, uh, Louis, one of the stars of Iceland right now, she's brought up in a music school.
Her mom plays in the, the National Symphonic Orchestra and she was raised there.
And this is what we do. So we kind of go all the way. We, we make things as good as possible. Or at least we try.
And it's kind of like go big or go home in this country is Louis.
You said, yeah, Louis.
She based, I mean, I know she's from Iceland, but did, did she, like, record her stuff out of Stockholm?
Like, what's her big single that I, I think I know they're talking about.
Yeah, she had a very big, uh, single called Valentine and from the start.
Oh, yeah, yeah, she's pop singer. She's pop singer, right?
Yeah, yeah. She won Grammy the other day for traditional pop, album of the year, I think.
But she is, she's raised in jazz as well in classical music. And although she's not like, maybe not considered like purely jazz, she's definitely bringing jazz to a very young generation.
And that is kind of a spectacular thing that she's doing. She's on social media and she is owning it.
Like her faces on Spotify, like, like on, on, like, lead playlist on Spotify, her face is there.
It's like, yeah, she is a force of nature, like York, I would say.
There's a lot of talent coming out of, I mean, 390,000 people.
Yeah, but like I said, it's, we have a very good music school system.
And we kind of, we fight for it and we fight for the, for the right to study music and you just do it.
And, um, yeah, so that's kind of what's, what's happening, like educational wise, but gig wise is quite different.
Because we're a very small country.
Um, there's not a lot of gigs.
Well, that being said, of course, it's up to you. Like you kind of have to make your own success.
So if there's anything I've learned being an, I'm a student in Iceland, it's that if you don't sit down and you don't send out that email or you don't make that phone call, you're not going to get the gig.
And nobody's going to know who you are until you have really laid down the groundwork and earned that reputation.
Because that doesn't happen. It rarely happens overnight.
And there's so much work to be done, of course.
And it's taken me years to be able to be a professional musician only doing gigs and occasional vocal teaching lesson as well.
But now I only do gigs. Yeah. And it's taken me years to get up to that.
But the thing is, this is what it is. You kind of have to like, you have to do the work.
It's so hard sometimes. A lot of people just like give up after some time.
And I get that like, I get that. It's, yeah, it takes up so much time.
And it's, it's the job that you're not getting paid for, right?
All the emails you have to send out, all the phone calls.
You have to be your own manager as in like, you're 9% your own manager, your advertising agent, your publicist, your record label, your everything.
And then you're like 10% the musician is ridiculous.
But yeah, let's not, let's not talk negatively.
Well, that, that's said, that being said, like in Iceland, there's a lot of like, there's a big music tradition.
And although like the jazz scene is quite small, I would say jazz musicians are one of the busiest, or at least one of the, one of the few that really work hard to get their gigs.
And there are so many like small concert series. And like this, we have a jazz festival. We have a jazz club.
They pop up like every five years, there's something you're happening. And there's always jazz. I think that's, that's really amazing.
It's like such a small country, such a small scene, but everybody is just still playing. Everybody's playing. It's amazing.
It's, it's so wonderful to hear that you're making your living from playing gigs.
And yeah, I know how hard it is. I mean, even the guys, you know, my, my buddies here who are making a living playing gigs, like it is, everybody thinks it's so glamorous.
And it's like, man, like nine times out of 10, if you're making a living playing gigs, you're still, you're still just eating by.
You're still just getting by, right? I mean, you really, you really have to love it.
And I agree with you 100% like you are your own label, your own promotion, you are your own everything. And it's, and yeah, it's hard. It's not easy.
Yeah.
It's not easy.
We have been, we've been talking now for about 45, 50 minutes. And I just, I just love the conversation, man. I just, I mean, I can sit here and go along for hours.
But let me, let me ask you a couple of, a quick, a quick questions before we get to the last song.
Yeah.
How, I know you're still early into this whole value for value world and getting paid with, with Bitcoin, with your music.
And, and you're an interesting case too, because like your Spotify numbers are pretty good, you know?
And I don't know what it's like for artists in Iceland in terms of the payouts for Spotify. But like, what, what, what's your take so far?
What's your impression so far of this whole value for value and getting your music up into these Bitcoin podcasts?
Or, you know, these music podcasts that pay you in Bitcoin, like, what's your take on?
I think this is such an interesting quiz.
I didn't really know that this existed up until like, yeah, very recently.
And you know how it is like, with the streaming platforms and all that, they pay out like so little as opposed to how many streams you're getting.
I mean, it's ridiculous. And it kind of feels like a jungle, like this kind of streaming thing.
Like Spotify, for example, you don't really know what's happening. You don't understand anything.
The algorithm is just like, it has its own life and its own opinions.
Yeah.
And it's like, it's, it's very difficult to maneuver and understand that world.
But this value for value thing is a lot simpler in a way. And it feels more genetic.
It feels more like, yeah, how do you win?
Why haven't we been doing this all along?
Yeah.
Why isn't Spotify doing something like this?
Like, if you stream something, why isn't your, your subscription money?
Why isn't that going to that artist that you're listening to?
It's like, it doesn't make any sense, but with his value for value thing, that's kind of what it is.
So it's like, of course, why, yeah, why have we not been doing this all along?
Yeah.
Hello.
Yeah, it's, and it's still so early.
Yeah.
It's still so early, right?
And it's going to be fascinating to see where this whole thing is in just a couple of years within a year or two.
I think it's going to go mainstream.
I really do.
Yeah.
I think to do.
Yeah.
But I agree with you.
I mean, it's, it's like value for value is more genuine.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It makes more sense.
It's like, I don't know, you're a musician.
It's like, you put your music out there and you don't know what's going to happen.
But at least this gives you something like, okay, this person actually listened to my song and they appreciated it.
It's like, it's a very different kind of approach as to what's really popular today.
And as a musician, I've been really sensing around me that other musicians are getting really annoyed.
Yeah.
And this, this, this, this dreaming algorithm stuff and the way that it's set up and like, it's almost like it's ranked.
And it's just, it's not fair.
It's, it's not nice.
It's not fair and it's not cool.
You know what it is?
But when you know it, it is, it is pay to play, man.
Yeah.
It's pay to play.
Yeah.
Like I don't, it's, you know, if you, if you and your band want to come over and play the, play the whiskey at go-go in LA on the sunset strip, you can do that.
Yeah.
You just got to pay, you know?
Yeah.
It's the exact, it's the exact same thing.
Yeah.
It's the exact same thing.
Yeah.
You know, but tell all, look, man, you got more buddies over there that, that are interested in this.
Like there's a, there's a community value from value folks such as myself and the other show hosts.
Uh-huh.
Who will, who will answer any question and help any way we can to get more people in here.
Yeah.
And I would even, I would even say like if, if there's a Bitcoin meetup over in, in Reykjavik or like, you know, go, go, go over to one of those meetings and hang out with those guys for a while.
Yeah.
Cause you'll, you'll, cause I know, you know, you and I have had questions offline about wallets and, and nocturnals kind of stuff.
Yeah.
You know, it might be easier for somebody to explain it in, in your native Icelandic than some knucklehead in Tennessee trying to tell you about how all of this works.
Well, at least up until now it's, it's, uh, I'm, I'm slowly starting to get it.
Um, it's like, yeah, it's, it's becoming more clear.
And I have to say this is a way easier thing to learn about than algorithms.
Oh, I can say that very honestly.
Yeah.
And a more fun thing to learn about.
Well, and it, it does take a long time.
You know, it's not easy to, to figure all of it out.
It's, you know, and, and musicians in, in your spare time, you know, you guys don't have a lot of, especially working musicians.
I mean, you know, it is so important to be dedicating just, you know, just about damn near all your time towards writing or rehearsing.
Yeah.
So it's, it's hard to find the time to really grasp something like this.
Um, yeah, exactly.
You kind of have to sit down and just be with it for a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
Do some study.
Yeah.
Sure.
I'm, I'm getting more familiar with it.
And so far, I think it's, um, yeah, it, it, it must be the next step, um, in like what, what will be popular or what will be mainstream, um, because it just makes sense.
And in one form or another, it's going to happen.
Definitely.
All right.
To wrap it up, first of all, I want to thank you for mentioning Chat Baker.
Chat's one of my all time favorite jazz singers as well.
Um, I, for me, it's, um, now King Cole.
Yeah.
Chat Baker, Ella.
Give us your, um, give us a couple of, of your top jazz influences.
Um, from, you know, from, from your career.
Um, Chat Baker, number one and 500, like I said before, he is my number one.
Um, I've studied him so much.
Um, blossom theory has been a big influence as well.
Awesome theory.
Theory.
Sorry.
Blossom theory.
Okay.
I'm going to, I'm writing this down.
She's amazing.
Um, I would have to say, uh, Ella Fitzgerald, of course, uh, Frank Sinatra, I'm just going, um,
just pulling out the big men, big people now.
Um, nor Jones, nor Jones, definitely top 10.
But one of my, like, biggest influencers ever would be Evacacity.
Um, yeah.
She, I, I don't know why, but when I was like during my pre conservatory studies, um, as a vocalist,
I was just listening to Evacacity back and forth.
Such an amazing singer with such, like, uh, such open ears, such a jazzy approach,
because she made every song her own.
She made new melodies.
She made new phrasing.
She, she kind of adapted everything to fit her message.
And that is going to be in my, my mantra, like throughout my career.
And also the way I teach is like, make this yours.
Like, how do you tell your story?
Don't just repeat what somebody else has said.
And to me, Evacacity was a genius at doing that.
Yeah.
I can hear, I totally understand why you would identify with her and what a heartbreaking story.
Oh my gosh.
Um, yeah.
I hear that with her voice and yours.
Yeah.
I'm dang it.
I'm kind of bummed.
I didn't pick up on that.
Wow.
Okay.
By the way, you want to get, you want to get a fun fact as well?
Yeah.
A couple of months ago, I was watching her live at Blues Ali recordings on YouTube.
And amazing recordings.
I was sitting there mesmerized by her ability and just her, like her musical approach and it was
magical.
Then she sat down to play a song playing a guitar.
And I was like, okay, what is that guitar?
That's super interesting because it looked like an acoustic guitar.
It was very narrow.
And it looked also like it was an electro guitar.
So I was like, oh, yo, yo, yo, what is this?
What is this?
And it sounded so good.
So I went online and I googled it back and forth and I found which guitar it was and it was
a gild songbird, a model they made in like 1990 and I think the latest version is 1995 or something.
It was like a short period kind of model and I was like, I have to get that guitar.
I cannot live my life without that guitar.
Or at least some version of it.
So I went online and I found it and I bought it.
I ordered it online from Italy.
Incidentally, I found it there and got it sent over.
I didn't even try it.
I was just like, yeah, I'll buy it.
And this is my main guitar today.
A gild songbird, just like Eva.
Yeah, it's got the crown headstock on there.
Yeah, yeah, love that.
It feels like an electro guitar which is perfect for me with my small fingers.
And it's very like petite and I'm quite small.
So I can't really handle a big tailor.
Yeah, is it a thin body?
Is it a thin body?
Yes, it's a very thin body.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's beautiful instruments.
Yeah.
So Eva Gassidy has influenced me in a lot of ways.
Yeah, oh yeah, and I see a picture of Clapton with one too.
By the way, I will give you a very unpopular opinion which will give me punched in the face whenever I go to New York or New Jersey.
Frank Sinatra is overrated.
All right.
I'm sorry.
No, I'm not going to apologize.
I don't, I can't, like the more I listen to Chet or Nat King Cole, the less I like Frank Sinatra.
My personal, my personal feeling is for any guy that wants to sound like Frank Sinatra.
Mm-hmm.
Stick your lower jaw forward.
You know, and sing like that and overpernance everything.
Yeah.
That's just me.
We all have, we all have our opinions.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, I definitely, I, I hear what you're saying and I, it's some ways, I understand it.
I mean, he was not, he was definitely a lot like a jazz singer.
I would definitely say he's more maybe a traditional pop.
Yeah, he's a pop singer.
That's what, that's what pop music was.
Yeah.
Exactly.
You know, but now we just call it jazz.
Yeah.
To me, like, yeah, I can understand why, why Chet would be your number one.
I get it.
I love his phrasing.
He's so simple.
Like even something like my, like his interpretation of my funny Valentine is stunning, right?
Yeah.
And everybody loves to make fun of that song.
But I find that female jazz singers, like it is so hard to kind of like put a ranking system together, because, you know,
Billy holiday could never sound like Ella Fitzgerald.
Yeah.
But Ella could never sound like Billy, right?
Yeah.
And then you've got Nina Simone, but you know, it's, I think it's very easy to put male jazz singers in a line.
You know, you can kind of line them up.
But female jazz singers, there is so much more diversity in their voice and in their catalog.
It's almost like you have like, you've got like four or five greats that the world revolves around Ella, Billy, Nina, Sarah.
Yeah.
Even even even Aretha Franklin, you know, exactly.
You know, and I, but anyways, we could, we could talk about that for hours, right?
Yeah.
I actually, I have a phone on that.
I hit it.
Like why that is.
Yeah.
Like over the past few years, there's been a lot of talk about like, like, females and, yeah, females in music and, like, how, how the pressure is different and how we're treated differently.
And I myself experienced this like over and over and over again, being treated very differently from other singers who are male.
Yeah.
I have a feeling that like these, these females that you were mentioning, the reason that they kind of stick out is because as a female, as a woman in music, you kind of have to have everything tip top.
You have to master what you were good at and not give anyone a chance to give it critique.
You kind of have to, if you have something that's good, you have to master it as opposed to a man.
Like for example, I could definitely put Frank Sinatra and Natkin Cole, like in some ways, like they sound similar.
They have similar traits.
So although I don't want to offend you.
No, no, bring it.
But it's like they definitely don't have this kind of like unique niche that female singers that you mentioned have.
Absolutely.
I think this is something that females, and especially I can only imagine like slightly how African-American females have dealt with this through the years because I cannot for the life of me understand it.
But as a female, I have experienced the fact that people are like, okay, so this is not like spectacular, okay, then I don't really want to hear it.
But if a man would do the same thing, they would be like, huh, very interesting.
That's just this.
That's good enough.
Yeah.
Exactly. This way more pressure on female artists.
And I'm sorry, that's just a fact.
And I agree with you.
Yeah, you don't have to apologize. I agree with you 100% and that pressure created better, more diverse artists.
Absolutely.
Period.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Like you do not have the same diversity in male singers that you do in female singers.
No, period.
And I think your, I think that whole theory that you laid out there, I agree with it 100%.
I think personally, and I've said this many times, female artists in country music are the only ones that are pushing the boundaries.
They are the only ones that are not, not only in terms of music production, but lyric topics.
Like they're the only ones out there that are really kicking country music in the shins and asking, forcing, begging it to change.
Case in point, Beyonce.
Yeah.
Right.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I find female singers much more interesting in any genre to listen to.
Yeah.
But yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
And then, but, and it's so hard.
And there's just so much diversity in there.
Like in all the different genres, it's, it's really hard to like, to kind of like choose one that then like rises to the top of everything.
I think, yeah.
I think if you had to pick one as the greatest, somebody who just hit all of the genres, I think you'd have to go with a wreath of franklin myself.
Yeah.
I mean, gospel, blues, rock, jazz.
Yeah.
Opera.
Seriously.
All the way.
Yeah.
She stood like, go look at that, like, like, like, pop a rotti, it was supposed to sing at the Grammys or something like that.
Yeah.
And he got, he got sick.
Of course he did, right?
The king of high c.
The guy, guy canceled more gigs than, than the actual rose from guns and roses.
But she stood in for him to sing opera.
Yeah.
I think a wreath that might have been the greatest of all time.
That may well be.
Yeah.
I think I agree with you there.
Yeah.
Just as a little side point on, on this whole discussion is that like, for some reason, female singers and musicians kind of get like lined up and compared.
A lot.
Yeah.
And I have a feeling that these, these five that we mentioned earlier, they kind of, you can't really line them up and say this one is better than that one because they all have this kind of unique thing going on.
I think that's the reason it's like, yeah, because we are compared to each other like all the time.
Yeah.
And she does this and she does that. Oh, you must not be friends then.
So we can coexist.
Come on.
Yeah.
This is, this is a slightly thing as well.
Such an interesting, such an interesting discussion that maybe better for another time.
Yeah, but well, hey, this, this is a discussion that happens in my household all the time.
Right?
It's good.
It's healthy.
And I think more, more guys need to listen to it, need to just shut their mouths and listen to it.
Yeah, just recognize that it's a problem.
It's happening.
Don't say anything.
They don't want you to say anything, but for God's sake, just sit there and listen first.
Exactly.
Just listen.
Don't try to fix it.
Don't come up with solutions.
Just listen and recognize that it's a problem.
Yeah, it's a problem.
Just recognize it.
Yeah.
I have to, yep, I've, I've, I've had to, I've had to learn a lot of lessons in the last 20 years.
Yeah, so, yeah.
Hey, thank you so much for doing this.
I know we're, we're going to wrap it up here with a, with a new song that you're dropping
in the value verse, but Marina, thank you so much for your time.
This was a wonderful discussion and I look forward to talking with you again.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
It was, it was super interesting and super fun.
Yeah, sit, sit, stick around and we'll, and we'll keep talking.
Yeah.
Successful.
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