H

You’re having your world tour at the age of 24, what are you expecting to see?

M

Umm… Actually, I don’t know what I’m expecting to see – I’ve never really put much thought before going anywhere. We’ve been around this part of the world last year too, though we didn’t play in Jakarta. This time, we’re playing different places like Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia, so I guess I’m expecting to see the city, meeting new people, making friends with the kids – just having a good time. I’ll take on whatever’s coming.

H

Do you still pay any attention to the opening acts?

M

Definitely! Yeah, I really like to check out on the opening bands. I knew a lot of interesting tunes that coming out from opening acts across the States or Europe, some of them are getting bigger as well. We usually bring our friends as our opening bands. But over here, we have no clue at all about the scene, we don’t know anybody or anything, but we played with local kids a lot, and they’re pretty cool.

H

You’re from Canada right?

M

Yeah, I am from Canada. I recently moved to New York, but yes, I grew up in Canada.

H

It feels like your songs are too warm to come out from Canada, where does the warm feeling comes from?

M

Emm.. I don’t know, maybe it just the state of my mind.

H

So, do you think that moving to Brooklyn is a definitive phase in your career?

M

Not really, I mean, I never think that living in New York changes my fate or something. I never really lived in one place for a definitive amount of time, so even when I live in a city I never feel like I’m a part of the residence, especially now that I’m almost never there. I really like New York, it’s a really cool place, but it’s not like I’m working on my New York accent. It’s cool, I really like it a lot. It’s an interesting place.

H

The raunchiness on your live shows, your appearance and attitude are a unique approach to the music scene, would you agree that somehow it is the kind of grunge from generation z?

M

Maybe it’s a little grunge, but I’m not entirely sure. To me, grunge has a lot of attitude – with the music as well. It’s about anger, and I’m not necessarily angry. I just think that a lot of indie rock bands do their thing-most of them are very serious on taking their selves to the music industry, and I’m just not a serious guy. And I don’t really give a shit if I’m not wearing nice clothes, I don’t give a shit if I’m a little bit overweight, and I don’t really give a shit about when I forget to brush my teeth in the morning, if that’s considered as grunge, then, yeah maybe I’m grunge.

H

You’ve been labeled as jizz-jazz, slacker, hillbilly, Brooklyn hipster and more. Personally, how do you perceive yourself?

M

Actually, what I’m trying to do is to make music that can be the representation of what I am as a person, instead of chasing some kind of image. That is the thing with music journalists, they’re always making terms like, “blue-wave”, “very pop”, “dreamy” or “wavy”. Personally, I don’t really know, you can say it’s a pop song, I guess. Poppy guitar music, like The Beatles.

H

Is that’s the reason why you cover some Beatles song on your previous set?

M

Yeah, sort of. I mean everybody likes The Beatles, but I think the main reason why we cover The Beatles is because every young man who learns to play guitar always learns to play The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” with all of its funny riffs. When you got in a band, you started playing it and the guys already know, and it just happens.

H

What about the Limp Bizkit songs that you also played several times, is it because the same reason, or is it more like an “ironic” cover? Or did you really dig them?

M

Definitely ironic, but the song has special meaning, specifically to my generation. Kids my age and most people will find our cover of Limp Bizkit a funny one. But to me, when I was 8 or 9, I really loved Limp Bizkit so much (Laugh). It’s seems funny now, but I bought all of their CDs!

H

Are you still doing your “The Wonderful World of Mac DeMarco 7″ Club Vol. 1 project?

M

I think the project is already done for now. It’s an interesting project that came out from the label, to release some of my ideas on 7 inch. Some of them are my old demos, and also live recordings. I’ve spent most of my time recording, so I have a lot of material; some songs that didn’t make it through the album are coming out through The Wonderful World.

H

How’s your relation with your record label, Captured Tracks? I read that you’ve experienced an uncomfortable moment when they asked you to make a “TV-friendly song” so that you could perform on a certain TV show…

M

Yeah, it was a little weird. I mean I gave them my album – I didn’t give anybody my album until it was finished. When I finished it I gave it to them, and both parties were excited to release it, no problem at all. But after that, they said, “We need another one or two songs,” they wanted me to rerecord some of my old songs that I’ve written in the past. I was kind of pissed-off at that time. But, not long after that, I understood why they wanted that. I don’t really give a shit about playing on Late Night TV shows, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Maybe it just pissed me off at the time, but to tell you the truth, I really enjoy playing the songs live. So, no harm done between me and my label.

H

Do you want to release your future albums on your own label someday?

M

I’m not really sure, I still have one album on contract with Captured Tracks, and I really like them. They are a good record label, they helped me out a lot. They are the one who brought me to where I am now, so after the next album is out I will still be with them. After that, we’ll see.

H

You receive a lot of good reviews on your albums – have you read them? How did you react to those reviews, and does that good reviews became a pressure for you making music in the future?

M

Yeah, definitely. But it is funny because my first album got good reviews, and my second album came out and also got good reviews, we started to get some big shows, that was the time when I got pretty nervous, like “Ooh, I have to make a good album to follow up that reviews”, you kind of drive yourself crazy thinking like that. But part of making “Salad Days” for me was like… instead of worrying about what kind of review it will get, I reminded myself about the main reason why I’m doing music on the first place, it is because I like to write music. Re-learning the main reason behind the music and having fun while doing it. But I’m glad it got good review, though (laugh).

H

So, why is “Salad Days” is a bit darker than your previous albums?

M

Yeah, I agree it is a bit darker than my previous albums. I wouldn’t say the main reason behind the darker tone of Salad Days is because of those pressures from the reviews. After the “2” album came out, I’ve been touring a lot, and my life just changed a lot as well. Everything went pretty fast. Compared to the old me-being at home, doing a lot of records, meeting the same people every day. Not saying that my life is changing for the worst or anything, it’s just overwhelming. So, I guess this is the sound when you make an album while your life is changing, it will contain so much emotions. But I think the album turned out just fine.

H

What can we expect from your future albums?

M

I still don’t have any idea, I haven’t made it yet. But I don’t think it will be darker than Salad Days. I feel like the album “2” and “Salad Days” are similar – not the same album by any means, but they has the same vibe. And I guess I’m done with that kind of formula.

H

More synth maybe?

M

Yeah, maybe more synths, and maybe a different song-writing style. To find something that feel stressed to me, and also feels right. I don’t want to jump on a whole different direction on the nearest future album.

H

You have a lot of songs about love for a slacker, do you consider yourself as a romantic person?

M

I wish I was more romantic as a person (laugh). But yeah, I feel like a romantic person a little bit (laugh).

H

Can you tell us a bit about the Canadian Music Scene? And who’s your favorite Canadian act that you’d like to recommend?

M

Canada has a lot of great bands, and it’s funny because, even though we’re right the side of the states, they’re not considering us as a good source for music. I toured back and forth from Canada to the States back when nobody gave a shit about me, and we played to almost nobody at the time. But fortunately, people are still doing it, and a lot of my favorite stuffs are coming out from Canada. I’ll do some namedrops to explain this better. You should check these bands; Homeshake, Sean Nicholas Savage, Each Other from Montreal, Faux Fur, Viet Cong – they’re really cool, The Courtneys from Vancouver are really dope, Sensei, there’s also a band called Johnny de Courcy from Vancouver that is really cool, who else, ah, I never remember anybody when I do this. Oh, and of course a band called Tonstartssbandht – I’m sure you guys saw them the last time they came here, and one more, Walter TV – the other band from my band mates.

H

We’ll definitely check them out, Thanks man!

M

You’re welcome.