Photographed by Cheryl Georgette and interviewed by Raffaela Kenny-Cincotta for Issue #4
Everybody has their vices. For some it’s booze, for others it’s coffee or a big ol’ slice of cherry pie. For Mac Demarco it’s cigarettes. After all, “Ode to Viceroy,” a standout ditty on DeMarco’s debut album 2, is a swirling, trippy love letter to his preferred brand of Canadian smokes. A love letter, DeMarco says, that was originally intended to be tongue-in-cheek. “People in Canada were like ‘Oh, Mac wrote a song about shitty cigarettes, that’s funny,’” the 25-year old tells me in his Far Rockaway, Queens abode. Despite the song’s irony, or perhaps because of it, fans of the singer’s laid back aura and brand of breezy guitar rock began to glorify Viceroys, some even going as far as importing them into the U.S. Following 2 and last year’s popular Salad Days, it seemed teens and twenty-somethings across America were idolizing everything Mac DeMarco, even his love for shitty cigarettes.
My first sight of DeMarco is, in fact, not really him but his cigarette. Walking up to his house, my editor and I spot a hazy figure in a side window. His face obscured by smoke and shadow, his arm and hand dangling into the sunlight with a cigarette nestled between his index and middle finger. That, we say, must be DeMarco. Who else could it be?
Later, I trail behind the Canadian singer as he leads me through his single-story home. After he kicks off his signature red sneakers by the front door, we make our way to his bedroom. He makes himself comfortable, leaning back with his feet perched on a small desk. Today his cigarette of choice is a Marlboro Red, or more accurately, multiple Marlboro Reds. We are surrounded by keyboards and drums, guitars and production equipment, cartoons and flyers made by fans. A T-Shirt hanging in the forefront of his closet is adorned with a picture of Bart Simpson. It reads “Mac DeBarto.” This room, DeMarco tells me, is the new home of Jizz Jazz studios, his jokey production company of which he is the proprietor and sole client. It is here that his newest mini-LP, Another One was recorded, mixed and mastered.
Bedroom recordings are the foundation of every Mac DeMarco record, and listening to the singer’s detuned, fuzzy compositions it’s obvious that this is the ideal format for his music. Meandering guitar solos are laid between thumping basslines, psychedelic jazz chords, and lyrics that are meant to be sung with either stoned disinterest or the occasional falsetto. Due to the success of Salad Days it would have been easy for DeMarco to hire a producer, and session musicians for his new mini-album, out August 7. But instead, he opted once more to record in the comfort of Jizz Jazz Studios, and play every instrument himself. “I’ve tried going to the studio a couple times when I was a little bit younger, and it never worked out the way I wanted. It was like there was some flavor gone,” he says. Recording take after take, the self-taught producer prefers to let inspiration take hold. “Usually when you go in the studio you’re supposed to have everything done and ready to go,” he adds, “but I [write] as I’m recording.”
After Salad Days peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Alternative chart and number 30 on the Billboard Hot 200, DeMarco spent much of 2014 touring. He played concerts all over the world and even made a late-night appearance on Conan. Fans packed venues and music festivals to hear the Canadian preach optimism, praise procrastination and navigate the ways of love. “If you don’t agree with the things that go on within in my life,” he sings, “Well honey that’s fine just know that you’re wasting your time.” It’s precisely this kind of shoulder-shrugging mentality that has made Mac DeMarco one of the most relatable and uninhibited artists in indie music.
Read the rest of Mac’s Alt Citizen interview in our latest zine.
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