Kiwi crooner Marlon Williams keeps bullies and tipsy Catholic cougars at bay
New Zealand native Marlon Williams admits that singing in his artsy high-school choir was a mixed blessing. On the upside, teachers always allowed him to skip class whenever he had recital practice. On the downside? You became an instant target for schoolyard bullies.
“But I found a way to use singing to my advantage and turn it into a positive thing,” says the 25-year-old, who—after several career detours—just released his eponymous, folk-rocking debut. “And being self-deprecating about it—basically punching yourself before someone can punch you—is a good way to go.”
Whenever Williams was cornered, he adds, “In a conciliatory tone, you’d just say something like, ‘Aw, you don’t want to beat me up—you’ve got no time for this!’ You’d life-coach them out of doing it.”
Undeterred, he kept right on vocalizing, in the Christchurch Cathedral Ensemble, then in a twangy duo with Delaney Davidson, for three volumes of retro covers-themed albums dubbed Sad But True–The Secret History Of Country Music. Then he moved to Melbourne and started acting, in Aussie TV series like The Beautiful Lie and upcoming feature film The Rehearsal.
Williams was also spotlighted in a recent Down Under documentary, The New Face Of Country. But his Maori-descended father was a punk-rock musician who turned him on to artists like Gram Parsons and Johnny Horton at an early age—hence his own lonesome, loping originals like “Hello Miss Lonesome” and “Lonely Side Of Her.” His bow also features personal takes on obscure folkie Bob Carpenter’s “Silent Passage” and Nina Simone’s “When I Was A Young Girl.”
But Williams has sworn off choirs after his Cathedral experience. “Because drunk, older Catholic women are much harder to deal with than bullies,” he says. “They have a few wines, they get a bit bubbly, and you’ve really got to watch out!”
—Tom Lanham
