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Arts & Entertainment

Meet Molly Jean

Local songwriter (and Ferndale Patch contributor) finds her voice and puts out solo album "for fun."

Six years ago Molly Jean Schoen was happy-go-lucky, she said.

Two years ago she essentially had a nervous breakdown.

As this year comes to an end, she's in control.

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"People who don't know me are going to listen to this album and think I sound off-my-rocker-crazy," said Schoen. "But, then, I realize I feel pretty mellow these days."

Schoen, 25, hasn't been working on her own songs inside a recording studio since 19, when she released Valley of the Doll's House.

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"I'm proud of it, but I really had no idea what I was doing," she said.

Towards the end of 2009, Schoen, who spent a handful of years as a bassist performing and touring with The Hounds Below and The Decks, came quite close to quitting music entirely.

"I let one person's opinion take over my head," Schoen said.

She said she'd somewhat reverted into the shell and comfort of just being a bassist, inside a group, as opposed to the front-and-center spotlight-role of a solo artist. Schoen said she didn't have a full on nervous breakdown, but it felt close as this negative opinions manifested into a "demon."

Then came 2010 and she was again playing bass regularly with one group, backing up Ann Arbor-based songwriter Greg McIntosh -- formerly of the Great Lakes Myth Society -- whose new project does not yet even have a proper band name.

With friends' steady refrains of encouragement to get back to her solo work, she culled enough refreshed self-confidence to enter Backseat Studios (the recording HQ of renowned local producer Jim Roll, where McIntosh works as an assistant engineer).

"I just kinda snapped out of it, somehow," said Schoen. "My friends, not just from around here, but from all over, were very supportive. Once I got the ball rolling, I got more excited about it. By my third day in the studio, working with Jim and Greg, I thought: 'Why the hell was I ever even doubting myself?"

Her songs have evolved from Doll House's sunnier, jangling, Brit-pop-tinged waltz and flutter to murkier, indie/folk drifts, flumed with the atmospheric warbles of organs and more curious instruments like junky-banjos, a.k.a. the "tin-can-jo."

There's still a lot of pop to her sound, still drawing from her usual canon of influences: Beatles and Buddy Holly. But throw in Neil Young and Sleater Kinney and it explains the augmented heart-and-haunt stirring in her vocals, still with her characteristic mystic-wispiness, but much more barbed and emboldened than before.

Schoen arranged all these tunes herself, except for the opener (featuring the tin-can-jo-strummed accoutrements of Lightning Love's Ben Collins). She worked out the songs with one of her closest friends and perennial collaborator, Maria Nuccilli (of The Deadbeat Beat).

"She's just great, such a fast learner and really pays attention to accents; she's very intuitive," Schoen said. "There's two songs we recorded on the spot she hadn't heard before. There's definitely a different kind of energy on those songs."

Schoen started off as a songwriter, but became rattled by how nerve wracking putting yourself out there can be. And coming back to doing solo was a bit of a shock, she said.

Adding, "But I believe in this, now."

"What I feel like, now, is there's no point in worrying about anything," she said. "I just don't deal with drama anymore."

Though Schoen said she has no solid plans to play these songs live, yet -- after all, she said she did this album "for fun" -- she will be performing with McIntosh as part of his still-unnamed bad on New Year's Eve at this year's Mittenfest Music Festival in Ypsilanti at Woodruff's.

They go on at 4:30 p.m.

Find Molly Jean's on bandcamp here.

Mittenfest is a five day-long fundraising event for Ann Arbor-based youth tutoring/writing center 826 Michigan. More info from Mittenfest (including its line up, dotted with notable locals, including ObliskRevoirElectric Fire BabiesLegendary Creatures, and many more), go here.

 

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