“There was a lot of care for style at
my school,” says Marshall, who stud-
ied at BRIT School, whose musical
alumni include FKA twigs and the late
Amy Winehouse. “My rebellion was
to be like, ‘I don’t give a shit about it,’
but obviously I still kind of gave a shit
about it. My good friend is a seam-
stress, and we always talk about cuts,
fits,” he explains, tugging on his trou-
sers. “It’s not just about the piece, it’s
about how the piece actually attaches
itself to you—where it ends.”
For a while Marshall embodied
many of the decade’s menswear
touchstones, from Palace skater eido-
lon to bucket-hat stoner to skinny
U.K. trap lord. Around the time of
The Ooz, he was fixated on the uni-
form of the Chinese Communist
Party, rarely wearing anything but
Maoist blue, durable combat boots,
and berets to photo shoots. These
days he has zoomed in on how peo-
ple use clothes—not to raise a flag
but to subtly disappear. “Being a dad
has made me think of clothes a bit
di≠erently,” he says. “It’s allowed me
to tone my clothes down.”
The music, however, has not
toned down. Man Alive! is angry
and ecstatic. Existential dread looms
louder than in Marshall’s previous
work, and this time it isn’t particu-
larly inward-looking. Fatherhood
butterflies get tangled up in a murk-
ier, less tangible foreboding that even
Marshall can’t perfectly articulate.
“It’s been 10 years since I started pro-
fessionally, and it’s been a really inter-
esting time politically,” he says. “The
catastrophes across the earth, and
the conflicts, have been pretty excep-
tional—a lot of it is almost fiction.”
About halfway through Man Alive!
there’s a break from the punctured
jazz-rock that makes King Krule
so beloved with the song “Airport
Antenatal Airplane,” a melodic folk
tune written for his daughter. It’s a
new sound for Marshall, still with all
of the low fog and uneasiness that
has made King Krule one of the U.K.’s
most singular rock voices—but there
are also glimmers of light that sug-
gest he’s ready to move forward.
He finishes o≠ his two drinks—a
pint of Coca-Cola and a pint of
lager—and prepares to get back on
the train. He’ll soon return to the
suburbs, to his bright new life and
growing family.
jack mills is the print features
editor at ‘Dazed’ magazine in
London.
Jacket by
Dickies.
Shirt by
Slazenger.
Pants,
vintage.
APRIL 2020 GQ.COM 33
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