Doctor’s Hate Him: The Secret Trick to Machinery of the Human Heart’s Genius – Part 1

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Photo Courtesy of Marvin

Author: Kate Watanabe

Have you ever wondered what My Chemical Romance would sound like if Elton John joined The Black Parade? Well, you should check out Machinery of the Human Heart, with breathtaking baroque instrumentals behind visceral lyrics which tug at your heart strings. This is the first of two parts of my interview with Marvin, the pianist, vocalist, and songwriter behind Machinery of the Human Heart. We discussed their upcoming first album Surgery and various influences on his unique musical style. 


K: What made you choose the name “Machinery of the Human Heart?”

Marvin: So, I chose this name a really long time ago, it was about 2014, I had just discovered the world of zines through Kathleen Hanna, the singer of Bikini Kill, and Gerard Way, who published a comic called “Hesitant Alien” alongside his debut solo album. I was delighted by both of these people’s zines and art so I decided to make one of my own and I just looked up how to make zines through the internet. So, I was sitting there with one of those free photo editing sites and I had the font ready, it was one of those horror-movie-esque fonts, and I was trying to type whatever came to mind and “Machinery of the Human Heart” just kinda came out of the ether and onto the computer. It was a very natural thing, and it made sense to me because a lot of the work that I’ve done in my life has been emotional, so when I think of the phrase “Machinery of the Human Heart,” I think of the emotional work we do as humans to survive in this harsh life. 

 

“When I think of the phrase “Machinery of the Human Heart” I think of the emotional work we do as humans to survive in this harsh life” 

 

K: You mentioned Bikini Kill and Gerard Way, who are some of your other musical influences? 

Marvin: I tend to enjoy a wide variety of music, including Iron & Wine. One day I went with my then boyfriend to this record store in NYC and I found the album The Shepherd’s Dog by Iron & Wine. I was really struck by the album cover, it’s this beautiful striking painting of a dog with a big yellow eye against a yellow background, so we took it home. We popped it in the cd player and it was really gorgeous, it was sort of my introduction to softer, more acoustic music. The majority of my high school years were spent listening to really loud, grating stuff and this was my first time getting into something softer.

Right now, Mazie is an artist I love, her song “dumb dumb” has blown up on TikTok recently and I was delighted with that. Also, My Chemical Romance, I absolutely love them and their use of religious imagery. I really love Bright Eyes, if you haven’t listened to them it’s really emotional gut wrenching stuff in the best way possible. Just amazing poetic lyrics. And also, Elton John, who’s a more recent discovery despite people asking me the entirety of the time I’ve been writing “Is Elton John one of your influences?” and I used to say, “Actually, no.” However, I actually got into him a few weeks ago and I get it now. I actually got to see him live in concert and it was an amazing experience. 

K: I’ve noticed a very theatrical sound in your music, so I was wondering if you were into musical theater at all? 

Marvin: I kinda grew up around musical theater but was never directly involved in it until high school, but even then it was more of a one-off situation where I was part of a musical once but I never did it again. I grew up around musical theater because both of my parents work as music teachers and my dad was the sound guy for all of the musicals that were put on at the school so I grew up going to see the musicals. One of the ones that really stuck with me was “Little Shop of Horrors,” I thought that the song writing was just excellent and I enjoyed the gigantic prop of Audrey with the mouth opening, I thought it was really fun. So, I have a vague musical theater background but I feel that more of the musical theater sound comes from listening to other bands that were influenced by musical theater. 

K: I can see that! So you mentioned that your parents were music teachers, is that how you started learning piano? 

Marvin: Kind of, on a whim when I was like 6 or 7 I was like “You know what, I want piano lessons” so I walked into the kitchen and I just asked, “Hey can I have piano lessons?” and they were like sure. It was that easy. I started piano lessons and sometimes I hated it and sometimes I loved it, I was always putting my own creative spin on whatever projects I was assigned. That’s how I went into writing. I was unknowingly training my ear by picking up on my favorite Disney movie soundtracks. That’s another part of the theatrical sound, animated musical songs.

 

This is the first part of a two-part interview. You can keep up with Machinery of the Human Heart on Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, and Patreon. You can listen to his music on Spotify and Bandcamp.

 

KATE WATANABE | White Face, Black Eyes | KXSU Music Reporter

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