Marié Digby's girl next door image packs an unexpected punch

There’s no denying that Marié Digby is a nice girl. She is all smiles as we move in to greet her, shaking our hands firmly before requesting for some “honey lemon tea, please”. Trust us, she’s not the kind of girl who forgets her “please”s and “thank you”s, two terms that she uses frequently during our interview.

Marié is the quintessential girl next door, so sweet and accommodating that you can’t help but warm up to her. In fact, she’s so nice that she sat through an entire radio interview earlier without even correcting the DJ, who kept mispronouncing her first name. It’s not Marie, but Mah-ree-yay. “It’s a complicated name,” she admits. “I’ve become lazy about correcting people and I don’t want to embarrass anyone. They eventually find out.” The 25 year old porcelain beauty has been doing endless interviews for days for her Asian promo tour, courtesy of GAP.

Marié is, of course, the sensation whose cover of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ has been viewed over seven million times on YouTube. While those numbers alone are impressive, it doesn’t compare to the story of how Marié got to where she is now. Contrary to popular belief, Marié isn’t a complete YouTube discovery, certainly not in the way Esmée Denters is. She was already signed to Hollywood Records and had cut an album before she started posting her YouTube videos. But as industry experts will tell you, being signed doesn’t necessarily equate to being marketed and promoted. After all, Hollywood Records already have their hands full with other teenybopper royalties like Hilary Duff, Jesse McCartney, The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus. Needless to say, Marié’s brand of heart-on-sleeve pop didn’t take top priority. She was pushed to the backburner, with an album she thought would never see the light of day.

This is why she describes her YouTube postings as a desperate attempt to promote her music, since she couldn’t get publicity anywhere else. If someone had told her that her videos would make her the eighth most subscribed-to musician of all time on YouTube, she would’ve laughed at his face. But even after the ‘Umbrella’ hype faded, more and more people tuned into Marié’s channel, proving to everyone (label included) that she wasn’t just a one trick pony and that her songs resonate with audiences worldwide.

“It’s not because I have a phenomenal voice,” she says when asked about her success. “I feel like my voice is a very simple one; it won’t blow people away. But when people are able to see me sing, they can really see that I feel those songs and they feel it too. That’s powerful. The whole point of music is to share this energy together and I think that is what people react to.”

Writing and singing songs that hit home with many listeners seem to be one of Marié’s strongest points. Her debut album Unfold is filled with bittersweet melodies, many of them autobiographical in nature. It deals with the typical but nonetheless painful themes of growing up: being misunderstood, being treated like an outsider and falling for someone you don’t have a chance in hell with.

The now self-assured Marié tells us that high school was a terrible experience. “I felt like I was always kinda angry or depressed or lost. I just didn’t have friends and I never met anyone I could relate to. I didn’t know where I stood and what I was meant to do. I just felt insignificant.” So the young Marié drowned herself in music from the likes of Elliott Smith, Fiona Apple, A Tribe Called Quest and, believe it or not, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot and Metallica. Never figured her for a fan, did you?

Thankfully, Marié turned her sob story into veritable songwriting material. Her song ‘Miss Invisible’, based largely on those experiences, went on to win the Pantene Pro-Voice Music Competition, giving Marié her first taste of fame. In February, her talent as a songwriter was acknowledged once again when she was handpicked by GAP to be part of their Sound Of Color online campaign. Along with acts like The Raveonettes, Dntel, Swizz Beatz and The Blakes, Marié was assigned a certain colour (i.e. yellow) to interpret into a song, which will then be turned into a music video by emerging directors. The result is ‘Paint Me In Your Sunshine’, a warm, laidback acoustic number reminiscent to the works of Jack Johnson.

While she finds these challenges rewarding, Marié still cites that the best part about doing what she does is how her music can move people. “On my MySpace account, I got a comment from this girl about the song ‘Miss Invisible’. You can tell from her profile photo that she’s a beautiful girl, probably a popular girl in school. After listening to it, she said she was inspired to talk to one girl who always sat by herself at lunchtime and had seemingly no friends. I was so touched that my song could move her to see things differently and change something in her everyday life.”

Despite the constant admiration and growing fan base, Marié maintains that she sees herself as a regular girl. She tells of an awkward and embarrassing moment she had when she bumped into Trent Reznor, where she greeted the NIN singer timidly before running away. Likewise, Marié is surprised by her own star power every time she meets a fan. “I did a signing recently; a girl sat next to me and she was shaking! She couldn’t even look me in the face.”

Obviously that sort of modesty didn’t prepare her for the crowd that greeted her at her Malaysian showcase. Held at 1 Utama, fans swarmed the entire concourse with many more watching from the floors above. In a YouTube posting after returning from her Asian tour, Marié described the show as insane. “No one expected that kind of turnout! It was chaotic,” she admits before adding, “But I’m so grateful that so many came to support me and see me play in a mall, of all places.”

She might be too modest to recognise her own star power, but we think that Miss Digby has what it takes to be huge. With talent in buckets and humility firmly in check, Marié’s story is one that is empowering to struggling musicians. Signed but ignored, she took control of her own career and made it work for her. Hers is truly a modern story of success, one employing the use of the internet, YouTube, viral videos and DIY methods. “I’m surprised by how it all turned out, but I feel like it had to happen like this or else I’d have lost my chance. It was just the right timing and it’s what I always wanted.”

Words Sarah Photo Shermen Mukhtar

Marié Digby visited Malaysia and Singapore in May, courtesy of Gap. For a chance to win RM250 worth of GAP shopping vouchers, check out our Free Stuff section.