The Marsh Family: From Viral Sensation to Original Music-Hope,Heart & Harmony
Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville
The episode features the Marsh Family, a UK-based musical group that transitioned from viral COVID-19 lockdown performers to professional re
Key takeaways
- The Marsh Family's fame exploded overnight during the pandemic via viral videos reaching millions.
- Their debut album, 'Hollow Chapters', draws inspiration from Greek mythology and contemporary politics.
Main topics
- Viral success during lockdown
- Transition to original songwriting
Notable quotes
It's better to sing than to cry.
Conclusion
The episode serves as an inspiring testament to the power of music to
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville, where music, entertainment, and great conversations come together. If you haven't already, tap follow. This way you stay up to date, never missing the great conversation and guests coming your way. Speaker 1 (0:17) Today's guests are unlike any we've had before. What started as a family singing together in their living room during one of the world's most uncertain times turned into an international phenomenon. Their viral videos reached millions, earning appearances on Good Morning America, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and praise from artists and actors around the globe. Behind the harmonies and the headlines is a family with a much deeper mission. They've used their platform to support important causes, bring people together, and prove that music can still be a force for empathy and positive change. Now with their debut album, Hollow Chapters, the Marsh family is here to talk about the journey from a family living room in Kent to millions of screens around the world, the stories behind the music, and why authenticity and kindness matter now more than ever. Thanks for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you here. Speaker 3 (1:08) Not at all, it's great to be here. There's four of the six of us. The two girls are still at school, sadly, so they're missing. Speaker 1 (1:14) Okay, all right. For those who are discovering you for the first time, tell us who the Marsh family is and, of course, your musical journey. Speaker 3 (1:24) So the Marsh family is a group of six musicians, two parents and four kids based in the UK who were hobbyists up to the pandemic. And we started sharing some of our videos like everyone. when people were bored during lockdowns and to our surprise people were interested and amused by them and that gave us a kind of bit of an incentive to keep going and put some extra time and effort in and over the past six years we've moved from hobbyists to something a bit more than hobbyists and yeah we're excited to have released a first album not long ago. Speaker 1 (1:55) When your video started reaching millions of people around the world what was the moment you realized man our lives have changed forever what are we going to do with this? Speaker 2 (2:05) I mean, weirdly, I think we realised it awfully quickly because people talk about things happening overnight, but for us, it really did. And it was literally we went to bed and everything was normal. And the next morning, a million people had watched our video and suddenly there were people outside during lockdown, which was absolutely terrifying. In a strange way, although it happened overnight, because we were all in lockdown, we could only see into people's living rooms in the way that everyone was watching us through these little screens. So it allowed us to feel a little bit separate from it. I mean, we got amazing messages from all over the world and we still have people who, in those very early days, messages from Australia and Canada who kind of check in all the time. But it allowed us to go back to school and life when things opened up and not feel completely strange and not feel like people were looking at us in a different way. So we were lucky, but it did really happen overnight. Speaker 1 (2:55) With all this happening, you've appeared on shows like Good Morning America, Jimmy Kimmel Live. What stands out the most to you from all those experiences? Speaker 4 (3:05) I mean, it's obviously crazy hearing stuff like that back because it all happened in such a weird kind of bubble of time. Definitely the one that stands out the most for us was we were on Comic Relief in 2022, I believe it was, which was huge for us. It was a very weird experience again because rather than the usual crowd being there, they were sort of filtering people in and out, socially distanced. But yeah, the experiences and the shows and the people that we've gotten to talk to from making our Music in our living room, which is where it started is crazy to think about. Your Speaker 1 (3:34) work has been praised by people like Hugh Grant, Spike Lee and many others. Has there been one compliment or message that really touched you as a family? Speaker 2 (3:44) I think, I mean, obviously the famous people are. Pretty jaw dropping. And we get very excited about that. But I think the first message that I got from a nurse who was working in an intensive care unit at the beginning of COVID, who messaged and said, your video made my day a little bit easier. Like that, that was kind of what prompted us to keep going, even though it's been complicated. And as life has changed, obviously, we've had to be flexible. Speaker 1 (4:07) Those Speaker 2 (4:07) kind of messages were the ones that meant the most to us, I think. Speaker 1 (4:11) Now, we've got two of the four siblings that are part of this today. What is it like doing this as a family with your parents? Because lots of times that disconnect happens as you hit your teens and you want to have your own lives. So how does it feel now to have this family unit working together? I Speaker 5 (4:30) think in some senses, it's definitely a benefit. I think there was always like a close understanding that we had with each other, you know, that wasn't really going to change dramatically with the music. And so far, like the balance of how we've done anything has always felt really comfortable with how everyone's feeling about the music. Like we are constantly kind of negotiating and there's always kind of elements that are somebody's frustrated on any given day as there would be in any house. And so I think... It does add like a unique spin to some of the songwriting dynamics at times. But overall, I'd say it's actually a really, really nice way of kind of making sure that everyone still stays in close contact. I'm now, as you can tell, I'm in a different place. I'm at university. And yet the music is still a very good way of kind of like making sure that we stay in touch, stay together. Speaker 1 (5:22) Good, good. Now, you brought something up, which I think is really interesting, is the family dynamic. So it all sounds good when people say, oh, you're doing it as a family. That's just great. But it's not always easy. I mean, music isn't easy. Just life isn't easy. So I've got a couple, three questions here. Who's the perfectionist? Who's the comedian? And who's the one that keeps everyone on schedule? I think the Speaker 4 (5:47) perfectionist is the easiest answer there. Dad is by far the most perfectionist, especially since we've started being more professional about things. He's very hard on himself, but equally if you're recording some vocal line or some harmony, especially because we normally have the issue that part of our music is we layer lots of harmonies on top. So whoever sings a harmony first, however they do it, everybody else has to... copy that so there's always people complaining about why has he done that stupid timing but yeah dad's definitely the perfectionist but I think that's that's how we get our kind of unique sound okay in Speaker 2 (6:23) terms of comedian I don't know I think that that that hat gets passed around it does tend to affect you know who's who's in the best frame of mind I think Thomas is often quite positive and will be an entertaining but keeping people on schedule I mean if it's if it's a feeding schedule probably me Speaker 1 (6:41) Okay. All right. Well, I would say that's probably not surprising. The mother's usually the anchor, right? Speaker 2 (6:49) Yeah, I think that just naturally happens. We just have to work to all of our schedules and I