After spending over ten years as a member of Milo Greene, Marlana released her debut solo EP, ‘At Least I Tried’ in July. She had been encouraged to try her hand at presenting her own individual songs for some time but a series of challenging events in her life served as a catalyst for giving it a go. Not only was she dealing with the anxiety from constant touring and working hard with Milo Greene, she went through the devastating deaths of her siblings who passed away at the same age of 33, all the while dealing with a complex relationship with a close friend. Marlana stated, “I started working hard on solo material after I had a complete mental breakdown,” she says. “I went home to my parents’ place in the Sierra Nevada mountains and wrote for a few weeks after my antidepressants kicked in and I started functioning again. For years in Milo, people kept telling me to go solo and it finally felt like the right time.” Songs like “I’m Good,” deals with the depression she suffered and the struggles of “pretending to be okay for the sake of everyone else around you,” explains Marlana. “After the death of my brother and sister, I changed. Those around me did too. People claim to like vulnerability, but in my experience, it just makes people uncomfortable. So I pretend that I’m fine even though I’m thinking about death 99-percent of the time.”
Marlana spoke with B-Sides host Pete Mar about writing the EP, the balance of getting too dark with her lyrics, struggling with self-doubt and more. Check out the interview:
