We were lucky to catch up with Nick Marlow recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nick , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My band

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Knoxville native singer/songwriter and Pianist. I’ve been playing piano since I was a child and I began to write my own songs as a teenager. During this time I was very heavily fixated on blues music and that wound up inspiring most of my musical style and aesthetic.

In 2021 I began to frequent open mics in the Knoxville area and that was really when I began to pursue music as a serious livelihood. I made new friends, participated in several local collaborative projects, and in late 2022 I founded the band “Marlow” with my friends Nicholas Horner and Max Miller. We have played together publicly a handful of times now and the reception has always been great. There hasn’t been a very notable piano driven 3 piece rock band since Ben Folds Five, so I think that’s a niche genre that we can bring a fresh spin to, especially in the way we blend sounds like blues, pop, and rock. In May of 2023 we recorded a full live album and have been mixing and arranging these recordings in our spare time since, with plans to have the entire album completed by spring of 2024. In the meantime, we are releasing intermittent singles from the album.

This is probably my proudest achievement with the band yet. We really came together as a team and locked this project in in very short order, and I’m very pleased how the songs are turning out for how experimental and DIY the recording session was. I had never participated in live recording session before, so it was really great to not only be able to acquaint myself to that process but to help in the setup and breakdown of it all as well. I have learned a lot throughout the making of this project.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

As a songwriter I always feel incredibly rewarded when people say they enjoy my music, but the thing that really drives it home for me is when someone tells me they resonate with one of my pieces emotionally. When I write songs, it comes from an emotional place, so having the opportunity to share that with my audience is easily the most satisfying part of doing it. As a pianist, it just feels really good to get into the groove, and every now and then when you hit a lick just right and the crowd goes crazy, it just can’t get much better than that.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m in the middle of a pivot right now. I don’t do music for a full-time living just yet, I still have a day job. The thing I’ve learned about myself personally is that I can be very good at one thing at a time, so knowing when it’s time to set music aside and work on other projects has been a big lesson for me. I generally go on hiatus in the winter months to focus on honing my techniques as a pianist and to write new songs while I focus on advancing my career at work. This allows me to avoid creative burnout.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: marlow_music_productions
• Youtube: marlow_music_productions