Laura Marling Still Sad About Leaving Noah and the Whale: 'Carefree Days Are Gone'

Tight-knit music scenes tend to get a bit incestuous over time. Band members start offshoot bands, others go solo yet everyone manages to make guest appearances at one another's shows. Just ask the always-shapeshifting Broken Social Scene, now on hiatus, and their countless spawns and crossovers. Something similar went down in West London a few years ago and from that we got folk artists like Mumford and Sons and Noah and the Whale, and solo singer-songwriter Laura Marling, who's inextricably tied to them both.

"We don't get to play together anymore," Marling tells Spinner. "We're all from the same tiny bit of West London. We all bump in to each other all the time, but the carefree days are gone. It's all a bit pro now."

Marling dropped out of high school in rural England to move to London to pursue a solo career, and after sharing the stage with up-and-coming Noah and the Whale, she joined that band. She ended up dating their lead singer Charlie Fink, but that ended and she left the band to pursue her solo career. Then she started dating Marcus Mumford, frontman of the newly Grammy-nominated Mumford and Sons, and would occasionally join them on stage.

Then that ended (and Mumford is now engaged to Oscar-nominated actress Carey Mulligan), all the while Marling has released two Mercury Prize-nominated albums, picked up a Brit Award and an NME Award and garnered comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Whew.

"Everyone's doing what they hope to do, which is make a living out of it," says the 21-year-old. "The reason we were all playing together when we were younger is because none of us had any money. We were all sharing bills and sharing vans and sharing flats. It was really fun and it was really nice."

Things just started to get a bit hectic and it got to the point where Marling needed to make a decision. "Charlie [Fink] produced my album and then we made their album, back to back, in the same studio," she says. "Pretty soon after that Charlie was playing in my band and then we realized we physically couldn't be in two places at the same time. I was really sad. Doing Noah and the Whale was such a pleasurable experience. It was like being in my favourite band and not having any of the pressure of being the frontman. It was a big and very sad step for me -- and that still makes me sad now."

That's not to say that Marling longs for those days, or that she's somehow unhappy with where she's gone down her own path. "I'm very happy with who I am and what I do. I feel a little bit too tired all the time to do [what we used to do]," she says. "Those things were really fun -- touring in a car and sleeping on people's floors -- but I could only have done it for the three years that I did it. I really enjoy sleeping now."

Still, it seems she'll always be linked to her former bandmates and boyfriends regardless of how far she goes on her own. She sidesteps questions about her past relationships but is quick to dispel any of the nostalgia associated with her past affiliations. "It's easy to say, 'Yes we did all know each other then,' but I can't fan the flames of romanticism and say that we still get together in a lock-in in a pub every night, and tinkle away on our guitars. That would be lovely but that's not really the truth anymore."

"My only aspiration is to keep doing what I'm doing. I need to do what I do. It's as much a necessity as it is a career. As long as I keep doing it then I'm a happy bunny."

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