Public Menace #3: Married With Sea Monsters Discuss The Mary Janes, Spider-Gwen, & More

As one of culture's farthest-reaching icons, there's no medium that Spider-Man hasn't influenced—and that includes music. And thanks to the punk-rockers Married With Sea Monsters, the world of Spider-Man has a new anthem to prove it. Inspired by Spider-Girls fictional band, The Mary Janes, Married With Sea Monster have adopted their super hero identity as our universe's iteration of Gwen Stacy's garage band.

And what a sonic web they've spun. Operating as The Mary Janes outside of their normal Sea Monsters work, the group has captivated comic and audiophiles alike. With songs inspired by the events of Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez's Spider-Girl,  their first hit, Face It Tiger, earned praise from Marvel elite like Nick Lowe, Dan Slott, and more. Now Marvel has given their unofficial blessing, the band is on a roll with more tunes like "Paper Doll" (based on Mary Jane's abduction from villain Paper Doll)., and more to come. 

With Spider-Girl #3 on stands this week, comicbook.com chatted with vocalist/guitarist Kat Dixon and guitarist Ryan Hull about their new Spider-Personas. Below, the two (of four) band members discuss how they turned one line of dialogue into a hit single, what Spider-Gwen's popularity says about the Spider-Mythos' power, and what they'd do if they gained Spider-Powers

What got you into comic books, and why have they been such an influential part of Married with Sea Monsters? 

Kat: We were pulled into the comic book universe through Robbie Rodriguez, our old friend and amazing artist on Spider-Gwen. He introduced us to comics through his self-published comic, Frankie Get Your Gun. We created an album to go along with his comic, because we thought it really needed a soundtrack. 

But I've personally been a comic fan for quite a while. Mixing media just seemed to make sense to us. Song writing is a visual art-form. 

What do you think music adds to a comic book? How do the two media intersect in your opinion? 

Kat: I think it's cool because either of those pieces; either the comic or the music, can be taken separately. When you listen to the music, and think about the comic, you reach a whole new depth from it. You can take it as a theme. It can relate to life personally. You know how lyrics can mean something on several different levels. That's all we really had in mind: Creating something to be consumed either in the context of the comic or universe it is portraying, or alone. 

Ryan: It's something to set the comic's mood. 

What inspired you write"Face It Tiger?"

Ryan: Frankie started telling us about  the Edge of Spider-Verse series and Spider-Gwen story he was doing. He explained how the story's Gwen Stacy plays drums in a band, and mentioned how there was a whole page in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 were the band was performing a song called "Face It Tiger." We started bouncing ideas for what the song would sound like, then Robbie said that we should cover the song, to help set the mood and build the hype a little bit more. He explained what he thought The Mary Janes sounded like, so we did the best we could to convey that. I think we did a good job.

I was actually curious about how you took one lyric, "Face it Tiger this is your shot/Face it Tiger it's all you got," and grew it into a full song. Can you explain the process behind that?

Ryan: When we read that lyric, Robbie said that it was probably the song's main chorus. We just hashed out the rest pretty easily. We got together and threw out ideas, and threw out guitar lines. We were able to piece it together pretty quickly. Robbie told us that he wanted the song to have a garage, punk-rock style, so we went with that. We didn't want to overthink it or anything , we just wanted to make it raw, like a garage band. We just took it from there.

Were you expecting the song to become such a hit?

Ryan: No (laughs). We just thought it was going to be a cool song to go along with the comic.

Kat: We were really taken aback by the response. We're hoping that continues. 

Ryan: We keep writing songs, so hopefully those will come into play too. 

What was the coolest response you received?

Ryan: Probably the mentions from guys like Dan Slott and Nick Lowe. It was cool seeing important people from Marvel Comics talking about the project. Catching their ear was probably the biggest complement. 

Kat: When we saw Nick Lowe reference us in the letters page in Spider-Gwen #1, we were like "Woah!"

What type of comics do you generally read? Who are your favorite superheroes?

I have a pretty big collection, but I take an usual approach to collecting. I just look at whatever's on the wall, and the covers that jump out at me are the comics I start reading. I'm really getting into Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Unwritten, Lady Killers, stuff like that. I like the really visually arresting stuff. 

So what do you think of the new Spider-Gwen ongoing series?

Kat: I think that the art is gorgeous, and the story is really wonderful. Of course, Rico Renzi does an amazing job on colors. It's just a visually arresting comic, and that's pretty hard to come by. 

What do you think of Spider-Gwen as a character? What do you think she adds to the Marvel Universe?

Kat: She's one of the first female heroes, or villains for that matter, that doesn't have her boobs hanging out all of the time. She has a practical outfit that you could actually fight crime in. I think the fact that she's more real and down to Earth, and with a real attitude on her, makes her a really human character. You can relate to her. Robbie did a wonderful design on that costume.

Cool. What specifically makes her so relatable to you?

Kat: Honestly, just how real she is. She doesn't hold these loft ideals about herself, I guess. She's really realistic about the kind of superhero she is. 

Awesome. And what do you think it says about Spider-Man as a concept when a writer can take the basic idea of Spider-Man, transfer it over to a new character, and create a knockout comic?

Kat: I think it's wonderful. All of the Edge of Spider-Verse stuff, shifting the Spidey mantle to all these characters and bringing them all together, is great. It's like using multiple theories, in seeing how this Spider-Man would do this ,or that Spider-Man would do that. 

It's especially great that it's Gwen Stacy who's making this so successful, too. Nobody wanted her die! Gwen was a cool character, and I think turning her into Spidey is avenging her.

Now that we have a  Spider-Gwen series off the ground, do you have any more Mary Janes song planned? What are you looking to adapt for the music medium next?

Kat: I try to keep it pretty cannon. It's pretty easy since there's so many storylines that the Mary Janes could write about, especially MJ herself. Our second Mary Janes song we have, "Paper Dolls," is about Dan Slott's super villain Paper Doll, who kidnapped Mary Jane. If I were MJ, I know I'd write about being kidnapped. But we're just looking to make songs on what Mary Jane or Gwen would want to write about. We plan to keep writing as many songs as we're allowed to. 

So are the Mary Janes a side band for you? Should listeners consume your Mary Janes songs separately from your Married with Sea Monsters work?

Kat: There's absolutely a separation. Until we're told to stop, we're "Married with Sea Monsters As The Mary Janes." It's our theory of what that band would sound like in real life. It's almost like we're cosplaying the Mary Janes. 

Awesome. So to wrap up, what would you do if you were bitten by a radioactive spider?

Ryan: It's tough, because it just seems like being the hero gets you into so much trouble. But, at the same time, you're also helping people. So I don't know—maybe I'd be a little better about being a little more discreet about it 

Kat: I think we'd play a show from the ceiling at least once. We'd have to (laughs). 

Cool. Before we head out, is there anything else you wanted to mention?

We were told that the Mary Janes band gets back together in issue #4, so we're going to write a really deep song for book #4. We're going to release it online during Heroes Con in June. We've been asked to play at a lot of Comic Cons, actually, and it's been really rad. We love doing it. 

You can find out more about Married With Sea Monsters on their Facebook page.