[CULT TALK] Mac DeMarco On Taco Bell, Disney Princesses, And Coldplay

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Mac DeMarco is a simple man. He likes cigarettes, instant coffee, and denim clothing, but despite popular thought to the contrary, he does not particularly like smoking weed. Mac is the kind of guy who will headline a sold-out show at The Echoplex, then come to the after-party you invite him to with a shit-ton of Budweiser and generously hand it out while gleefully referring to himself as the “King Of Beers”. He will also get super drunk at said party and sleep in the closet on a pile of instruments, because he’s just that tight.

This interview would have been way more fun if I had done it at the party after the fifth of tequila I drank, but someone at the party stomped on my phone and shattered the screen so the fantastic conversations between myself and Mac at 3am about his recording process are forever lost. I’m sorry, world.

 

Hi Mac.

Mac: Wasserp.

 

How’s it going?

M: It’s good. I’m a little tired.

 

You been long run tour guy?

M: Yup

 

Do you like coming to LA?

M: LA is very cool, I like it a lot.

 

What’s your favorite part about coming here?

M: Last time I stayed in this neighborhood called Eagle Rock, it was very chilling.

 

Do you like Mexican food?

M: Yeah I do. You can pretty much only get Taco Bell in Canada.

What bands have you been listening to lately? What do you guys listen to the van?

M: We pretty much always default to Neil Young. If it’s not Neil Young, we listen to Anika. She’s sweet. That band Beak, we love a lot. We listened to this band called The Shes yesterday from San Francisco, and we listened to Tame Impala the other day.

 

Is it a democratic process? Do you guys take turns picking or something?

M: Just whoever is in the front seat. We usually just recycle, because we never get a chance to put new shit on there. But if most of us don’t like something, it kind of stops getting play.

 

How do you get over the whole eating shitty food every day on tour?

M: I used to enjoy eating fast food on tour, but then we got like $400 of Taco Bell gift certificates. So we started going to Taco Bell every day, and now I never want to eat there ever again.

 

What was your go-to item before you burned out?

M: I just liked the bean and cheese burrito. It’s like 60 cents. It’s chill. Yeah but now it’s like, I had the worst time of my life with it. We try to do grocery stores, but you can only really do that in the city, and we usually wake up late and end up in the middle of nowhere where you can only eat fast food.

 

What’s the most annoying or inaccurate way someone has described your music?

M: I don’t know, I think any way someone describes my music is kind of funny. I’m always like “Oh, they think that? That’s funny.” But the funny thing I get a lot is everybody thinks it’s stoner music. But I don’t smoke weed. Kids come to the shows like every night and give us a whole bunch of weed, and I don’t really smoke. And sometimes they get really bummed out.

 

Do you feel like you’re disappointing these fans?

M: Yeah a little bit!

 

What’s the weirdest thing a fan has ever given you as a gift?

M: Last night a girl gave me a picture frame with a printed up picture of two photos of me, but she had like taken this black guy’s face and put it on both of my faces. She didn’t really give an explanation, she was like “Here you go!”

 

That’s pretty tight.

M: Yeah it’s tight. Kind of weird though. A guy gave us a banana loaf. That was actually pretty sweet.

 

Literally (I’m funny). Were you not a little suspicious to eat it?

M: I don’t think I ended up eating it actually. My band did though. I don’t know, weed, baked goods. This girl gave me a heart-shaped pin of a bowl of macaroni and cheese with my face super-imposed on it. That was kind of weird too.

 

So people are into making art with your face on it. That must be kind of flattering.

M: Yeah I guess it is. At first it was weird, but now I’m kind of used to it?

 

What would you say your top three favorite cities to play are?

M: I love playing in New York. Fuck, I don’t know. I like playing in Toronto. It’s mostly just places where we have the most friends. We haven’t played LA in a long time. Now we have more friends here, so it’s cool. I love playing Chicago actually. I love Toronto because it’s a good show, lots of friends, but I get to go home after. Which is a bonus.

How well-versed are you on Disney princesses?

M: I think I’m okay, yeah.

 

If each member of your band was a different Disney princess, based on personality, who would be who?

M: Peter, the guitar player, is probably Sleeping Beauty. He sleeps all the time. Joe would probably Jasmine. Because he’s a little bit feisty and kind of sexy, and a little tough. Wait, maybe Joe would be Cinderella. No. Joe is a hard one to give a Disney princess to. I don’t know what I would be, but I would like to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. She’s sexy.

 

She kind of had the best songs too.

M: She totally did.

 

Would you ever cover a Disney song?

M: Yeah, probably. What would I do? There are so many options. Oh, I like that “Gaston” song. (Sings) “No one’s slick as Gaston, no one’s quick as Gaston.”

 

From Beauty And The Beast.

M: Yes! Joe would probably be Gaston. He wouldn’t be a princess at all.

 

Okay, let’s say you could tour with any band that has ever existed, living or dead, who would you tour with?

M: Shit. The Wipers. That would be sick. Because they fucking shred. Cause other bands, I would probably get bored of them. I just don’t think I would get bored of seeing The Wipers every night.

When you’re writing music, what is your process like?

M: I mostly just chain smoke in my underwear. So I’m sitting in my house all day in my underwear, and then I’ll go across the street, that’s the only time I leave, to get cigarettes and instant coffee. Nabob, in a tin. That shit keeps you awake. It’s really strong, really sketchy. So I just drink that all day and chain smoke. Then my girlfriend will come home, and hopefully she’s brought home a snack or something, because if it wasn’t for her I probably wouldn’t eat at all. So that’s how it goes.

 

Unfortunately for the fans, no smoking weed involved in this process.

M: Nope, doesn’t happen (laughs).

 

What’s the weirdest band you’ve been compared to, sound-wise?

M: I used to get a little bit of Chris Martin from Coldplay. Which was like, what the fuck? I think they thought my voice sounded like his? Which is very strange.

 

A little flattering though?

M: Yeah totally. Coldplay is like, my guilty pleasure.

 

I mean, they suck now but the first two albums are fucking good. “Yellow” is the jam.

M: Oh yeahhh. That’s a banger. So yeah, I like that comparison.

 

What’s coming up next for Mac DeMarco? Plug away:

M: We’re finishing this tour, sort of on our own, sort of with Phoenix. Then Europe for a month, then some more shit. I know we’re playing Pitchfork Fest. We’re doing Bonnaroo. We’re doing Sled Island festival in Calgary, and a bunch of other shit this summer. And hopefully somewhere between there, I’ll finish the next album. It’ll come out sometime around the same time of year the last album came out.

 

Now say something mean about Mish Way:

M: Mish! Ryan Smith and I cleaned his bedroom that day I was in Vancouver, so that he would impress you, when you came over to hang out with us, so he could make sweet love to you. And it just didn’t go down. So, maybe you gotta check your priorities, because Ryan’s a pretty sexy guy.

 

Fuck you Mish. Tease.

 

You can find Mac DeMarco on , , and sleeping in random people’s closets.