![\"Marian](\"\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Marian-Hill-New-Press-Shot.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSamantha is responsible for the sweet howling and Jeremy for the flawless production. The pair met in middle school after getting into musical theatre, they went their separate ways when Jeremy headed to college and Samantha learnt more about songwriting in New York, then came full circle and formed a band.\u00a0‘Got It’, one side of their double A release, exhibits a rather more sultry and seductive side to Samantha’s layered vocals, whilst the infectious melody flickers back and forth hypnotically marked by a soft bass synth. ‘Lips’, the more recent release is fresher and cleaner but no less exciting, with a staccato squeak of synth punctuating the track.\u00a0The duo take some time to tell us about what inspires them, what they think about the other and what they enjoy most about being musicians.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/marianhill\/got-it<\/p>\n
What does the name Marian Hill mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n J+S:<\/strong>\u00a0For the past year and a half we\u2019ve been coy about the origins of our name, but we\u2019re finally telling people! We met in a production of the ‘Music Man’ in eighth grade. Jeremy was Harold Hill and Sam was Marian Paroo. And the rest is history.<\/p>\n The story of how you formed is like a musical fairytale, how would you describe how you\u2019ve changed (or not) since those days in middle school?<\/strong><\/p>\n S:\u00a0<\/strong>Haha. As anyone would, I would say that we\u2019ve both matured (if only slightly) since our middle school days. As you get older, I think confidence learns to run with you instead of behind you.<\/p>\n J:<\/strong> I’ve certainly gotten a lot more confident. I went through a definite shy stage. Oh and I used to want to play in the NBA when I grew up. So that’s changed as well.<\/p>\n What inspires your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n S:<\/strong> Relationships (esp. complicated ones), life, disappointments, sex, colour, music, dance, jazz, New York, Hollywood, cities, travel, love, The Great Gatsby, 20s, happiness, horses and a plethora of other things.<\/p>\n J:<\/strong>\u00a0Everything Sam said (except horses), memories, the specifics of human behaviour, emotions, other forms of art (stories, theatre, visual art, and I’m absolutely obsessed with television dramas…there’s a lot of ‘The Affair’ in some of our recent songs haha), and perhaps most of all, music – I’m always looking for new artists to inspire me and spark me creatively. And also looking back at the great tradition of songwriting – everything we write begins with an idea from one of these myriad inspirations but then goes through the filter of songwriting form and finds its focus.<\/p>\n How do you divide the input to your music and do you ever find it difficult to translate to each other what you want?<\/strong><\/p>\n S:<\/strong> Jeremy handles production, and we both write melody and lyrics. I would say for the most part we\u2019re on the same page. Of course we have disagreements here and there, but we don\u2019t usually have difficulty translating our musical ideas. That only happens when I\u2019m trying to describe something in production to Jeremy and I lack the proper vocabulary. One day I\u2019ll learn \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n J:<\/strong>\u00a0Haha yes every now and then Sam will make a production suggestion and I’ll be like “I don’t think that means what you think it means” but we’re always in a dialogue about music and lyrics so there’s a pretty incredible level of understanding between us.<\/p>\n How would each of you describe the other?<\/strong><\/p>\n S:<\/strong> Jeremy\u2019s very driven. He\u2019s incredibly smart, well-read and hardworking, and always takes the time to create not just the best track, but the best song. He\u2019s romantic and sensitive, and I joke that he\u2019s a bigger feminist than I am. He also stays up every\u00a0night until 4am<\/a>\u00a0on average making music.<\/p>\n J:<\/strong> Sam is the best vocalist I’ve ever worked with. There’s an ease to the way she sings that I haven’t seen in anyone else, and people are always amazed when I reveal that I never tune her vocals. She’s got sharp pop instincts, a tendency to fall into fits of laughter without warning, and holds herself to a very high standard. And with just a little coaxing she’s always down for an adventure.<\/p>\n