Press

"From her role as Lucy Hatcher on TV's Emmy-winning "The Practice" to parts in the teen comedies Whatever It Takes, Dude, Where's My Car?, and Sugar and Spice, 21-year-old Marla Sokoloff has made her mark in acting as a Hollywood up-and-comer. Now the San Francisco native is ready to duplicate that feat in the world of rock 'n' roll with Smittin, the quartet in which she fronts and plays rhythm guitar.

"It's very annoying when people don't take our band seriously or even me seriously because I'm an actor," Sokoloff says over lunch at a Ventura Boulevard sushi bar close to her San Fernando Valley home. "This started out with the guitar player[Mike Levy] and I; we're a really homegrown band."

Watching Smittin a few nights later at The Gig in Hollywood, it's evident that Sokoloff's words are true. Sokoloff, Levy, then bassist John Krupp (who has since been replaced by Jake Policky), and drummer Jepson Steral work their way through a 45-minute set that, if still a little raw, shows true chemistry.

For Sokoloff, it's the culmination of a long-running dream, one that even predates her acting work. "I think I got my first guitar when I was 12," Sokoloff recalls. "I always used to play instruments when I was little. I played the clarinet for a while, and I dabbled in piano. And my mom was like, 'No, its going to be like everything else. You play for a week....' And I said, 'Well, I really want to try.' So I bought some $50 crappy acoustic and wound up really liking it. So a year later I was allowed to get a pretty decent-sounding guitar."

Today, Sokoloff can't tell you what that first acoustic was. But her first real guitar was a Fender Strat.

"For about six months I was convinced that I could teach myself, and I would write these really stupid songs, putting my hands wherever it felt right, and then finally I was like, 'I should really start taking lessons,'" she says.

Sokoloff, who started lessons at 12, still takes them from the same teacher. She says of him admiringly, "He's really, really good." So much so in fact, That Sokoloff says she's still a little embarrassed about their first meeting. "The first song I learned when I started going to my guitar teacher was 'Doll Oarts,' by Hole," Sokoloff recalls. "He said, 'I can teach anybody any song they want to know.' I was like, 'Do you think you could teach me Hole?' Little did I know how easy it was. I thought that it was like Led Zeppelin. I was so impressed that he could teach me Hole."

After nine years of lessons, Sokoloff has moved from Hole, though she's still a fan. (It was also her first concert at the Hollywood Palladium.) Now she's tackling the more involved guitar work of Joni Mitchell, her favorite songwriter. "I think some of the biggest challenges for me have been some of the Joni Mitchell songs, because she introduced me to open tunings. And she does really intricate things on the guitar that I wasn't used to. It was so frustrating for me, because I remember going to a lot of guitar lessons, learning a song, and actually being able to go home and play it. But with Joni's stuff you actually sit down, figure it out, work, and play it," she says.

That dedication to Mitchell serves her well, though, when it comes time to writing for Smittin. "I do all my writting on acoustic," Sokoloff says. "I think that actually works best, because if you write a song on acoustic, when it comes time to play it on an acoustic it still stans on its own." She usually shares the writing duties with Levy, adding, "Mostly what happens is I'll either come up with a little melody and give it to Mike or... I write the lyrics and melody."

Their musical kinship dates back to when Sokoloff was 14. It's somewhat ironic that acting, which can place unfair burdens on an aspiring musician, is twice responsible for the most important musical relationships of Sokoloff's life. "Mike went off to college, but about a year ago I was doing this movie, and they wanted to use one of my songs in the film, so I called him 'cause he was the co-writer, and I said, 'Can we use this song?' He was like 'Yeah, and by the way, I'm coming home from school.' He came over, we started playing, and now we're Smittin." Smittin is an appropriate name indeed. "Mike and I have had a billion other bands. But this one feels the most right of any of them."
--Steve Baltin (from the December 2002 issue of GuitarONE

Us Weekly (April 2000)

Marla Sokoloff - The Actress from The Practice gets ready for a big night out

In 19-year-old Marla Sokoloff's profession, hot is good. But when you've got a regular gig on a hit TV series(she plays legal secretary Lucy Hatcher on ABC's The Practice)and a fledging movie career (Whatever It Takes), burnout always looms. How can Sokoloff be true to her career and still have fun hitting the premieres with her boyfriend, James Franco (a star of the late, lamented NBC sitcom Freaks and Geeks)? The answer: Make like a cell phone and recharge those batteries. She starts by turning her San Fernando Valley apartment into a spalike retreat--setting the mood with candles, incense and soothing music (Joni Mitchell is a favorite). Then she runs a bath, soaks a while and gives herself a pedicure. By the time her nails dry, she has gotten her second wind. "When I work all day, sometimes I don't feel like going out at night," says Sokoloff. "but if I take time to treat myself right, I feel energized."
--Maria Speidel(taken from the April 17th, 2000 issue of US Weekly) .