a conversation with best ex's mariel loveland on her new musical direction
Interview by Sophia Denison
Discovering her new direction as an artist, Mariel Loveland of Best Ex was inspired to make a shift from her previous sound. In turn with this musical change, she changed the name of her musical project from Candy Hearts to Best Ex, reflecting a complete overhaul of her creative process. Now, producing music true to herself, her new song, “Bad Love”, is only a sneak peek of what is to come for this uprising musician. I recently had the chance to ask Loveland about her journeys in finding herself, her sound, and her new inspirations.
Ease Up: You’ve been in the music business for quite some time now, what have been the biggest changes to the industry that you’ve experienced?
Mariel Loveland: That's so hard to say. When I first legitimately entered the music industry as an A&R intern for Columbia Records like a decade ago, absolutely everything was about MySpace plays. To be honest, it felt really discouraging, like the only way to make it enough to get a decent record deal was to already be famous. And if you're already doing that well, why the heck would you sign your rights away? What's a label going to do for you at that point? I don't think I played music for an entire year after that, but sometime along the way, the music industry started shifting towards this DIY space and labels are starting to get with it with modern deals. It became a space where major records could be recorded in a bedroom. Even now, Billie Eilish recorded her entire record in her brother's bedroom. I recorded my upcoming record in a kitchen. Taylor Swift owns her masters. The DIY spirit is alive and well. I suppose it always was in the world of punk, but now it's for everyone.
EU: When did you first start writing music? What have you learned since then?
ML: I first started writing music in high school. Since then, I've learned how to play guitar. I started writing songs by just pressing my fingers on the strings to kind of find sounds that weren't offensive. That's how I accidentally taught myself an A chord!
EU: What inspired the shift from Candy Hearts to Best Ex?
ML: Candy Hearts was a source of major anxiety to me, and the scene we were in felt exceedingly lonely. Most tours I went on didn't have a single other woman, and I could count on one hand the number of tours I went on where something annoying, bad, discouraging, uncomfortable, or soul-crushing didn't happen because of my gender. I knew the particular scene I was in had a lot to do with how I felt. The DIY scene was a lot kinder, but that sort of Warped Tour pop punk world has never been inclusive, and though I think it's more inclusive now that it ever has been, at the time I decided to shift away from Candy Hearts, I felt completely on my own. I didn't feel like I belonged at all, and I felt like I was pushing this wildly feminine body of work on fans who wanted to punch each other in a mosh pit. I just wanted to do something different that wasn't automatically compared to where I'd been at.
EU: With the release of your new single “Bad Love” what direction (musically) are you hoping to take?
ML: I think you hear the direction in "Bad Love" itself, though that's the most pop song I think I've ever written.
EU: How have fans responded to your new direction?
ML: They're being really nice about it. I think I was really nervous because "Bad Love" was such a departure, and I know our fans hold some of our old music so close to them. The people who started listening to "The Best Ways To Disappear" in middle school or high school are in college now. The music you hear at that age is something you hold so close to you, and I didn't want to betray that, but people seem to be really embracing it. I was hoping I could grow with our fans and not away from them.
EU: If you had to describe Best Ex in three words, what would they be and why?
ML: Acceptance of loneliness. I think the body of work I've created so far really reflects this sort of acceptance to always being lonely and living in spite of it. Existing in spite of constant crap happening -- whether Donald Trump is going off the rails on Twitter, our planet slowly dying because the people in charge are denying that climate change is legitimate, or no one's texted you in three days and you're starting to wonder if the world has become 28 Days Later. If the bands I grew up listening to were a big middle finger to the establishment, my work is more like a sigh or a shrug. But you can still fight the good fight while you're perpetually sighing and rolling your eyes.
EU: What would you say to a reader that has never heard your music before?
ML: I hope that it helps you in some way. I know that's corny to say, but I really wrote a lot of this music when I was feeling really alone and pretty torn-up, so I'm hoping that it can help someone out there feeling that way in the same way it already has helped me.
EU: Who are your musical/aesthetic inspirations?
ML: I'm super inspired by 90s alternative. I love that so many of the female rock bands from that era are as playful as they are biting. I'm totally obsessed with stuff like That Dog and Hole. I also really am inspired by modern day pop artists who embody the same sort of attitude. Taylor Swift, for example, takes this serious emotions and makes them sort of funny in so many of her best songs, but she also has these deep, gutting tracks like "All Too Well." I love artists that can cover the whole spectrum of emotions.
EU: Where do you hope to see Best Ex in a year from now?
On a magazine cover in a drugstore (but hopefully not a tabloid reporting on something awful I've allegedly done. I don't think I want to be that kind of famous).
Loveland has lots of new music lined up for the future, but for now, be sure to check out her newest dark-pop single, "Bad Love"!