The following article was originally published in Wonderland in November 2009. See the original article here.

Wonderland - Marina and the Diamonds A serial college dropout and self-made musician tipped to be one of the music stars of 2010 - John McDonnell talks to the solo artist behind Marina and the Diamonds. It's been an erratic path that the 23-year old singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis has walked to where she finds herself today: signed to a major label, on the cusp of releasing a much-anticipated debut album. A half-Welsh, half-Greek chanteuse, she spent most of her youth in a tiny village in rural Wales, came to London at the age of 18 and lived alone in a council estate in the suburbs, attending a dance school, but soon dropping out. The next few years saw Marina sign up for, and quickly quit, numerous music courses around the capital, including a classical music composition degree. This may have been compounded by the fact she couldn't really play any instruments. "I swear they just let me in because they wanted the money," she tells me, slightly embarrassed. But the enigmatic solo artist persevered, and began writing songs and playing intimate gigs under the deceptive moniker Marina and the Diamonds. It wasn't long until her music - piano-led pop songs, such as the yodelled-squawk-peppered 'Mowgli's Road' (which channels the spirit of a youthful Kate Bush) and more upbeat new wave numbers like 'Seventeen' (which recalls Kaleidoscope-era Siouxsie Sioux) - led her to be discovered by an A&R at 679, the label which she is now signed to. JOHN McDONNELL: What kind of music did you listen to growing up? MARINA DIAMANDIS: Oh nothing, I mean, my mum listened to George Michael, Annie Lennox, Enya, ABBA - you know, mum stuff. And then my dad listened to a lot of Greek music. I never had a huge interest in it. I remember liking No Doubt, but I'm sure everyone else did as well. JD: What made your interest in music change? MD: When you're an outsider and you come to London it's either great or it's awful. For me it was really awful because I wasn't in uni or anything. I had no friends here, literally nothing. I think it was actually because I was really depressed that I got into alternative music. I lived in this council estate in Rotherhithe for six months, went to a dance school, dropped out, then decided to go to music college. I went there for almost a year and then dropped out because I was really depressed. JD: Depressed because you didn't know anyone? MD: It wasn't even that. I met nice people there but I think I was just really lost within myself and I knew that I wanted to do this. I thought I had no talent and I couldn't sing and I couldn't write any songs. Then at home I would keep honing my craft. I would never play songs to people - mainly because they were shit. I also went to music college, but it wasn't really for me, it was for session singers. I did really well on all the music theory, anything that was more academic, and then singing I hated. They'd make you do covers of 'Disco Inferno' and Scissor Sisters - which is great if you want to be a covers singer, bit I didn't. So things only really started happening two years ago when I threw myself out there and started doing gigs. Then about a year and a half ago I got a laptop and started recording my stuff on GarageBand. JD: Do you fell fortunate you haven't had Little Boots-esque hype and therefore don't have lots of pressure to do well commercially? MD: Oh my God, it must have been very hard for her because I don't know how I would've reacted. I'm really not good at having expectations put on me because I just wanna do what I want and then I get all angry. It's good because I've had a nice amount of press so it's allowed me to be encouraged that people like what I do but also to make the album that I want to make. Bands don't have any time to develop anymore. Once someone's leapt on something you're expected to have an album out in six months. It doesn't happen sometimes. This album's taken almost a year and a half. JD: How have you found the festival circuit this summer? I've seen your name on loads of the line-ups. MD: I counted this morning and I've played 28! It's been really good. I've only started feeling a little bit annoyed the past two weeks - like, I'm sick of this now. We really cut our teeth doing a hell of a lot of gigs and that's the way to do it. JD: How do you feel about being constantly lumped in with lots of new female singers in the press? MD: I don't really feel anything. It's irrelevant to my cause and what I'm doing. All you can say is at least most of those girls are good. I wish I was a boy though. It would be so much easier. It frustrates me that the fact we are females gets more press than anything to do with the music. I went through a phase of looking crap and wearing pyjamas on stage because I wanted to, like, boy myself down. Once, a stylist said to me, "You have to look good all the time, marina" and I was like, "No I don't, I'm not a supermodel!" So yeah, that's the key: to make yourself look ugly and boyish. Photography: Jonas Bresnan Fashion Editor: Abigail Sutton Hair: Kenichi at Caren Using L'Oreal Professionel Make-Up: Mell Arter at CLM Using M.A.C Photgraphic Assistant: Ivan Shaw Black Jumper: by Marc jacobs from Browns

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