“I heard some of the Deftones were at our San Francisco show,” says Clari Freeman-Taylor, guitarist for melodic experimentalists Mary in the Junkyard. She and bandmates Saya Barbaglia and David Addison have spent the last month on a bus supporting Wet Leg on their mammoth US tour.
After such a meteoric rise, it’s not surprising that Chino Moreno and co were keen to clock the Isle of Wight band in action. But, as Freeman-Taylor admits, their setup is still fairly modest. “Wet Leg has a huge sound and production team. We were tiny in comparison to their epic show!”
The trio are no strangers to the live circuit, though, having notched up around 40 gigs at Brixton’s Windmill venue, along with a summer of festivals. “Those shows were how we learned to be in a rock band,” Freeman Taylor explains. “When we started we were quiet. I was plugging straight into an amp – no pedals.”
The band is part of South London’s buzzing scene alongside sprawling seven-piece Man/Woman/Chainsaw and mosh-pit maestros Fat Dog. But Mary in the Junkyard’s sound feels warmer, rooted in Freeman-Taylor and Barbaglia’s classical past – the pair met aged 14 at a string-quartet rock camp.
Her guitar of choice, a Gretsch G5122DC Electromatic DC, reflects that early entry to performance with its hollow body and wood-stained finish. “I was a cello player, Mum was a violinist and Dad played guitar.“ An older neighbour taught her fingerpicking, and how to play melody and bass simultaneously.
Those intricate rhythms ripple through tracks like This Is My California and recent release Midori. “I learned a lot from Leonard Cohen and Elliott Smith,” she says. “Smith’s song Ballad of Big Nothing is in the tuning I use for nearly everything now; C-G-C-E-G-C. If I’d never learned Big Nothing, I wouldn't have written half of the songs I have!”
This alternate setup finds Freeman-Taylor leaning on a capo for slick key transitions – but, as she explains, it’s not always as slick as she’d like. “We have a running capo curse! Every show, like 10 minutes before we go on, I lose the capo. The amount of money we must spend on capos…”
Her shift from classical to electric came after discovering Big Thief. “They showed me you could emotionally play crunchy guitar,” she says. Before forming her own band, she played bass in indie outfit Second Thoughts with drummer Addison. “I tried fitting my songs in, but they wanted pop bangers and mine were weird. That started Mary in the Junkyard.”
Freeman-Taylor’s unconventional writing faced the world on debut EP this old house. Produced by XL’s Richard Russell (Damon Albarn, Bobby Womack), the four-track release features swirling guitars and ethereal vocals. On goop, Freeman-Taylor’s basslines entwine with Barbaglia’s eerie viola, fed through a Chase Bliss pedal.
Her own setup is modest, though; she uses an EarthQuaker Overdrive and MXR delay after losing two pedalboards to public transport. “I stopped buying pedals after leaving the last one in a Lime bike basket,” she admits. “Hopefully someone started a band with it!”
The latest prize in her live rig is an emerald green Epiphone 150th Anniversary Wilshire, chosen after a supernatural encounter. “My phone died when I was in Denmark Street. I was pretending to be in the market for a guitar in a shop and I started playing the Epiphone while my phone charged.
“Then I cut my finger – I got some blood on the fretboard, and it felt like the guitar had chosen me!”
Freeman-Taylor says the band’s current focus is sound expansion. “We were at Third Man Records in Nashville and I was playing with the Triplegraph octave pedal. We’re always thinking about how to make a bigger sound as a three-piece. Maybe we’ll even bring the cello this time.”
- this old house is out now.
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