Everybody has this question: what is home for me?
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Konzert und Interview am 14. Mai 2015 im Monarch
Fotos, Interview & Text: Corinna Sauer
Wenn man, wie Marius Ziska, von einem exotischen Fleckchen Erde wie den Färöer Inseln kommt, liegt es nahe, die Vorstellung, die man von einem solchen Ort hat, irgendwie mit der Musik des Künstlers zu verknüpfen. Als ich mich auf das Interview, das ich mit Marius vor seinem Auftritt im Monarch geführt habe, vorbereitete, nahm ich mir zunächst vor, keinen so großen Fokus auf seinen Herkunftsort zu legen, einfach aus dem Grund, weil es mir als zu naheliegend erschien. Ich stellte aber relativ schnell fest, dass Marius Ziskas Musik und das Konzept, wenn man es denn so nennen will, das dahinter steht, eng mit den Färöer Inseln verbunden ist.
Seine Lieder atmen Natur und Weite, seine Texte drehen sich um Heimat und das Gefühl des Ankommens und des Loslassens. So betitelte er sein kürzlich erschienenes zweites Album „Home/Heim“. Acht Songs schrieb er auf Englisch, die andere Hälfte auf Färöisch, der Sprache, die noch heute einzig auf den Inseln gesprochen wird. Wenn ich zuvor von „Konzept“ gesprochen habe, so meine ich dies aber nicht in dem Sinne, das ein bestimmtes Schema konstruiert wird, um dem Künster einen Stempel mit dazugehörigem Wiedererkennungswert aufzudrücken. Alles an Marius Ziska wirkt authentisch, so auch die Liebe zu seiner Heimat, die auf natürliche Weise in seine Musik, die melancholischen Melodien und die feinsinnigen Texte einfließt.
In ganz Skandinavien und auch den USA hat sich Marius Ziska bereits einen Namen gemacht, bespielt solo oder auch mit Band größere Bühnen und wird von namhaften Magazinen als „the next big thing“ vorgestellt. Im Berliner Monarch war jedoch sowohl die Bühne, als auch das Publikum überschaubar. Dies tat jedoch der Performance der vier-köpfigen Band keinen Abbruch und die Intensität der Musik traf zielsicher genau in die Mitte. Vor Allem die Stücke, die Marius in seiner Muttersprache, fast in sich gekehrt, vortrug, waren geprägt von vorsichtiger Melancholie und weicher Lebensfreude.
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Das Interview, das ich mit Marius vor seinem Konzert geführt habe, lest ihr hier:
Hey Marius. How are you today?
I’m fine. We drove from Munich today and arrived in the afternoon. Traffic was good.
Good to hear! So, how would you describe your own musical style?
It’s based around songwriting first and foremost. It all starts at home with a guitar, with singing and writing the lyrics. And then, when I’m really happy about those basics of a song, I usually start to think about a way to include the band and the other instruments. But this comes later within the whole process.
In the first place, you are a solo artist, but periodically you also perfom and work together with a band.
While touring I prefer to be with a band. But also I like the challenge of singing alone. It’s like a test, if a song is good enough. If just the songwriting can carry a song on its own, just the vocals and a guitar. Then you know it’s a good song, I guess.
I also think, it creates a different kind of energy, when you are performing by yourself or when there is a whole band to play together with.
Yes, it’s two completely different things.
You just released your new and second album „Home/Heim“. On one half of the album you sing in Faroese, which is spoken on the islands, on the other half the lyrics are in English. What was your idea behind this concept of dividing the album in this way?
Basically it wasn’t a concept from the beginning. Two years ago I made my first record, „Recreation“ it’s called, and then the following years I just made songs without thinking so much about making an album. Until I ended up with 17 songs and I found out, that I really wanted to make a record with these songs. And then I had to pick out, because I didn’t want to make a long record. I wanted to make a short one with eight songs, because I think that people’s time span, in which they wanna focus on something, is not that big today. They tend to just put the record on and skip. So, I picked out the songs that I liked the most. I had four songs in English and actually I had only three songs in Faroese, so I wrote another one for the album. That was just to keep it together. Also the producer of the record was thinking, that if we made an album, it would be a really great idea to have two sides. It’s not supposed to be an A and a B side, it’s more like an E and an F -side – English and Faroese. So when you take it out, you don’t know what’s the front cover. You just put it on and you decide for yourself. And also one part is more about relationships and the other one is more about me alone in the world, trying to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong and which way to go.
Which one is which?
The Faroese is more about seeing yourself in the big picture, roughly speaking. The English side is more about relationships, family and friends, ex-girlfriends,… stuff like that.
I see. „Home“ seems to be a recurring topic within your music. What would be your personal concept of „home“?
Hm, I can try to answer that…
Yeah, it’s a bit of an abstract question.
It is, but it’s a good one. For everyone it’s a very emotional thing, I think. For most of us. Because everybody has this question: what is home for me? For me it is the place where you can be who you are. It’s a place where you can stand and where you can always come back to. So, I think „home“ is really a big word universally and this is also why I decided to call the record that. When I go through the songs, I can see home in every part of them.
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Which kind of music did you grow up with and what inspired you throughout your musical upbringing?
My musical interest started, when I was a small kid and I’ve started playing music at a very early age. My father was a huge influence for me. He was always providing me with instruments, an old record player and many of the classics on vinyl, that I was listening to, when I was young. My father got me a drumset, when I was about nine. Next came the bass and then I got a guitar and I started singing. At the age of twelve I made my first band. After school, I just brought kids home with me and taught them how to play. I’ve always been very interested in being in a band and about the thing when a bunch of people just hang out and everyone is enjoying themselves. Today my interest is more the songwriting and other stuff like recording, but still I like the idea of creating something together.
I always think, that the two sides of being a musician – The one where you are mostly with yourself and you create from what’s inside of you and then the one where you have to be out there and present yourself and what you created to an audience. They must feel so different from each other. How do you experience that?
Basically, there are three things about being a musician, that I like. And I enjoy them equally. The first thing is creating the stuff. And you are really happy and excited about this new creation.Then you go into the studio with the band and you build more to this. Which again is fulfilling and exciting. You can do that for like two months, before you really want to go out and play it. Then you do that and you tour and it’s fantastic, but at a certain point you are like: Ok, now I really wanna go home. And then you come home and you start over again. So it’s like the perfect circle for me – those three parts.
It’s a nice way to put it.
Yeah, I thought about it a lot. I really love this about music. When you are in this flow, you can’t really get tired of it.
What are some of your plans for the future?
I would just like to keep doing what I’m doing and see how it goes. I want to try to be the best father and the best musician and do that as carefully and good as I can. I will have to see what I can bring to the world.
And your prospects for the rest of the year?
I’m gonna play at a lot of festivals on the Faroe Islands and I have a small Denmark tour coming up. I’m working on some new melodies as well and I am also a music teacher. Right now I’m doing everything at once, full programme. But most importantly, I have a three year old son and I’m trying to be around him as much as I possibly can.
Thanks a lot, Marius. I’m looking forward to your concert tonight.
Thank you, too.
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Fakten
Gründung: 2011
Mitglieder: Marius Ziska, Heðin Ziska, Brandur Jacobsen, Allan Tausen
Veröffentlichungen
2013 Recreation
2015 Home/Heim
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Von uns empfohlen und ans Herz gelegt: The Burning Hell und Gabriel Rios. Weil´s einfach gut klingt.
