Mac DeMarco

I played a show in the Bay Area in mid-January, a make up for this other show that got half rained out a couple of months before. The plan after that was to start driving north, and not go home to Los Angeles until I was done with a record. I didn’t really have anything too specific in mind as far as where I was gonna go, but had some people I wanted to see and some places too, if I could swing them.

I figured I’d just start driving, stay in motels or hotels or people’s houses or wherever I could sort out, record in these places too, and if something wasn’t working I’d just keep on driving. Kind of like being on tour, except there aren’t any shows and I’d just be burning money.

I’d spend a bit of time putting together a portable recording system that I had packed into my Toyota before the San Francisco show, eight channels max. I had my guitars with me, a bass, a weird little drum kit with a kick drum we sawed in half in Golden Gate Park, all the stands and cabling I’d need, a couple of mics, an old model D, and a TX7. I wound up picking up a bunch of stuff as I went as well, trying to keep it as travel friendly as possible though.

Maybe it’s the last couple of years, or maybe it’s my age now, but the idea of forgoing any sort of normalcy or comfort and making my entire life, for a segment of time, completely insane feels very inspiring to me. I stayed out on the road doing this for almost four months.

All the songs on this record were recorded and mixed at the variety of spaces I stayed, in the corresponding city from each song title. Every track is also in chronological order. I tried to record something every day while I was out there. I kept audio and written journals and took photos and videos as well. A lot of this stuff will remain just for me for now, but I’m happy to be able to share some of the music with this record.

Some places I stayed longer in than others, some of them I knew from the past, others not so much. I tried to keep things bus yall the time. If I didn’t know what was up in a city, I’d just walk around ‘til someone recognized me and go from there. I met a lot of interesting people this way and had a bunch of cool experiences. That being said, many places I wound up weren’t really conducive to just figuring things out or running into people, and in those cases, I spent time alone, sometimes for pretty long stretches.

Near the end of my trip, sometime in early April, I planned to drive from New York City to Salt Lake City, and planned on staying in Salt Lake for a month or so, until the band was supposed to play a festival there. I also decided to quit smoking right around the beginning of the drive. I had horrible withdrawals all the way to Salt Lake, and they kept on going once I arrived too. I had trouble finding somewhere long term to stay in town, so I wound up in a small lake community called Panguitch near Zion National Park. I rented a cabin out there; it probably could have slept about 20 people, but instead it was just me withdrawing from nicotine with a bunch of taxidermy animals all over the place. No other humans for probably 50 miles in any direction. Horrible idea. I lasted one night and went back to Los Angeles the next day.

When I first got back home I felt as though I had given up on my idea and failed to finish what I was trying to do. But that’s all dog shit.

The nature of ripping around and recording and traveling in this manner doesn’t lend well to sitting around and planning or thinking about what it was that I was setting out to do. I didn’t ever have a sound in mind, or a theme or anything, I would just start recording. Luckily the collection of recordings from this period all shake hands, they have a present musical identity as a whole. I was in it while I was in it, and this is what came out of it, just the way it was.

This record sounds like what rolling around like that feels like. I hope you enjoy.

Mac

News

Hot 100 First-Timers: Mac DeMarco Debuts With 2019 Track ‘Heart to Heart’
Billboard

“Mac DeMarco has already tallied Billboard chart accolades, and now he’s also a Billboard Hot 100-charting artist, as his song “Heart to Heart” debuts on the Jan. 28-dated ranking at No. 98

The track, from the Canadian singer-songwriter’s fourth studio album, 2019’s Here Comes the Cowboy, debuts almost entirely on the strength of 5.8 million U.S. streams (up 7%) in the Jan. 13-19 tracking week, according to Luminate”

Stream Mac DeMarco’s New Album Five Easy Hot Dogs
Stereogum

“Ultimately DeMarco spent four months in this state of creative transit. The result is a rewarding abundance of vibes and textures, less a collection of songs than a state of mind to be explored. It’s as chill as you’d expect — as chill as you’d hope. Stream Five Easy Hot Dogs below.”

Best New Albums: This Week’s Records to Stream
Paste Magazine

“DIY pioneer Mac Demarco found solace in solitude as traveled the U.S. and abroad to record his newest instrumental record with his makeshift mobile studio. Five Easy Hot Dogs isn’t his first rodeo with instrumental tracks. The singer/songwriter released a small, eight-track instrumental album Some Other Ones for fans back in 2015. This time, the opening track “Gualala” gives Demarco fans a familiar feeling with his signature synths tweeting in and around the song, accompanied by a mixed style of plucking and strumming from an acoustic guitar and a rounded bass line to keep the song moving steady. The LP attests to the joys of escaping to places where no one knows you, if just for a moment. Each song’s runtime is about two minutes and is named after the location where the track was recorded. And the tracks from each place maintain a particular theme with the use of similar instruments. Vancouver, which consists of three tracks on the album, quickens the pace of the record. You can imagine DeMarco getting a little more pep in his step as he takes a little walk around town. The 14-track album bears a light feeling throughout the listening experience, thanks to the stripped-down production, and encourages you to find the beauty in the mundane—create when you feel inspired, and create because you love doing it”

Mac DeMarco In Blissful Limbo
MTV

“At the top of 2022, Mac DeMarco packed some guitars and gear in his 1990s Toyota Land Cruiser and started driving north up the West Coast. The singer-songwriter, best known for tucking away heartfelt observations on love and loss behind sluicing guitar lines and a jokester persona, told few about his road-trip plans. He barely knew himself. He just kept driving. A few days in, he pulled off the highway near Fort Bragg, a small city in Northern California, to take in a beautiful triangular rock jutting up from the gleaming Pacific Ocean like a geological shark fin. Then he took a photo of the sewer outlet directly across the road.”

Mac DeMarco Is Doing Exactly What He Wants All the Time
Exclaim!

“Judging by Mac DeMarco‘s thrift store fashion sense and his reputation as a goofy prankster, it might be fair to assume that he approaches recording with the same sense of irreverence. Spend a few minutes speaking with the man, however, and it quickly becomes clear that he’s an expert studio craftsman who takes his trade seriously”

Hold on tight to garbage you love
Blackbird Spyplane

“Mac DeMarco — he’s a young “GOAT of melody” who’s been running musical circles around the competition since he put out his first album of funny, off-kilter guitar pop in 2012, kicking off a Spyplane Certified Run of Zero Wack Albums (S.C.R.O.Z.W.A.)”

First Stream: New Music From Trippie Redd, Kali Uchis, The Kid LAROI and More
Billboard

“Last year, Mac DeMarco challenged himself to start driving and not return home until he had created a new album. “Maybe it’s the last couple of years, or maybe it’s my age now, but the idea of forgoing any sort of normalcy or comfort and making my entire life, for a segment of time, completely insane feels very inspiring to me,” he explains in a press release. “I stayed out on the road doing this for almost four months.” He came back with Five Easy Hot Dogs, a charming instrumental exercise that plays out in the order of his trip, and feels like a sumptuous conversation with a curious soul who happens to be an acclaimed, still-evolving indie singer-songwriter.”

How to Quit Smoking and Record an Album While On a 7,000 Mile Road Trip, According to Mac DeMarco
GQ

“Around this time last year, Mac DeMarco started off on what can properly be called a Great Big Adventure. As a mainstay of the music scene since 2012, he’s already spent a lot of time on the road touring his easy-going indie rock tunes like “My Kind of Woman” and “For the First Time.” But after two years cooped up at his home in Los Angeles during the pandemic, he had a backed-up well of wanderlust. So after finishing a show in San Francisco, he sawed a kick drum in half in Golden Gate Park, packed it up with a portable recording rig in the back of his Land Cruiser, and hit the road. “I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t know where I was gonna go, and I didn’t know when I was gonna come back,” DeMarco told me”

The 34 Most Anticipated Albums of 2023
Pitchfork

Mac Demarco: Five Easy Hot Dogs

“Mac DeMarco recorded his new album, Five Easy Hot Dogs, on the road. “The plan was to start driving north, and not go home to Los Angeles until I was done with a record,” he explained in a press statement. Each song on the album, as a result, is named after the city in which it was recorded, including three in DeMarco’s native Canada—Victoria, Vancouver, and Edmonton. Five Easy Hot Dogs follows DeMarco’s 2019 record Here Comes the Cowboy”

Mac DeMarco Announces New Album Five Easy Hot Dogs
Pitchfork

“Mac DeMarco has announced a new album of instrumentals recorded on a 2022 road trip. He made Five Easy Hot Dogs during a jaunt from his Los Angeles hometown to a cabin in Utah, which he conceived as “kind of like being on tour, except there weren’t any shows, and [he’d] just be burning money.” The song titles correspond to the cities where they were made, and it arrives on January 20, with vinyl editions following on May 12. Check out the tracklist below”

Snail Mail and Mac DeMarco Share New Song “A Cuckhold’s Refrain – Peppermint Patty”: Listen
Pitchfork

Snail Mail and Mac DeMarco have shared a surprise new song. Their collaboration is called “A Cuckhold’s Refrain – Peppermint Patty.” The song features Lindsey Jordan singing the verses with DeMarco singing the chorus, and the title is not a red herring—this is a song about being cuckolded. “You and my wife, me in my shed,” Jordan sings.

Mac DeMarco Announces Fall 2022 U.S. Tour
Pitchfork

‘Mac DeMarco has announced a number of new North American tour dates. The shows take place across the United States in November. Before then, DeMarco has additional concerts lined up in Europe and the United States. And, tomorrow (April 6), he’ll be opening for the Strokes at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. ‘

Mac DeMarco Tops Lineup For Los Angeles Edition Of Panache’s Annual Planned Parenthood Benefit Concert
Pollstar

Independent booking agency and management company Panache is once again showing love to Planned Parenthood by hosting Village Of Love, its eighth annual Valentine’s Day Planned Parenthood benefit concert series with event held in cities across the U.S. Panache unveiled the lineup today for its Los Angeles edition, topped by Mac DeMarco, who is managed and booked by the company (excluding the U.K. and Europe).

Is Mac DeMarco Growing Up?
The New Yorker

Still mourning the death of his friend Mac Miller and nursing a two-day hangover, the yacht-rock guitarist dropped by “The Tonight Show” and reflected on Michael McDonald, Volvos, and bone broth.

Mac DeMarco featured in LA Times
LA Times

“…“Here Comes the Cowboy” is the gap-toothed troubadour’s first album to be distributed through a major label, the Universal Music Group-owned Caroline. After issuing EPs and three low-key, psychedelic-tinged albums for the Brooklyn indie Captured Tracks, and accumulating an enviable fan base through relentless touring and endearing live shows, DeMarco is now calling his own shots via his new imprint, Mac’s Record Label…”

Mac DeMarco Wants to Ride Off Into the Sunset
Rolling Stone

Mac DeMarco is hanging out at home in Los Angeles, playing video games on the couch, when he picks up the phone. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but let’s rock and roll!” he says.
This might be the most Mac DeMarco way possible to begin a conversation. His unflappably chill folk-rock tunes, laced with a surreal sense of humor, have made the Canadian singer-songwriter an unlikely star. Since breaking through with 2014’s Salad Days, he’s gone from a cult hero to a bankable live draw with hundreds of millions of Spotify streams — all despite making virtually no effort to keep up with contemporary music. (He’d rather listen to “Japanese music from the ’60s and ’70s, and The Beatles.”)

Mac DeMarco on Mac Miller, Mitski, and making a ‘cowboy’ record
Entertainment Weekly

When Mac DeMarco announced the title of his fourth studio album, Here Comes the Cowboy, it seemed like he was following in the footsteps of Kacey Musgraves and Cardi B in the recent trend of the “yeehaw agenda.” Despite the name, the Los Angeles-based indie rocker doesn’t think the record has any cowboy or outlaw themes embedded in it. Honestly, he says, he just made some songs.

Mac DeMarco in NME’s “Big Read” cover story
NME

“Once known for his outrageous onstage antics and cult-leader-like effect on his followers, Mac DeMarco has, of late, settled into a hermit-like existence in Los Angeles. The result is ‘Here Comes The Cowboy’, an album of minimal, sparse and intimate songs, which is out next week…”

Hear Mac DeMarco Preview New Album With Lonesome New Song ‘Nobody’
Rolling Stone

Mac DeMarco unveiled “Nobody,” a desolate track set to appear on his next album, Here Comes the Cowboy. It’s out May 10th via his own Mac’s Record Label. “Nobody” is stripped down and ambling: Built around prickly guitars and a steady clop of drums and bass. DeMarco sings, “There’s no turning back/To nobody/There’s no second chance/No third degree.”

Mac DeMarco – “Nobody” Video
Stereogum

“There’s no turning back to nobody,” Mac DeMarco sings on the lead single from his new album. “There’s no second chance, no third degree.” The song a low-key lament about the perils of fame, yet from that personal subject matter DeMarco manages to wring universal feelings of longing and regret.

Mac DeMarco Confirms New Album in 2019, Announces North American Tour
Pitchfork

Mac DeMarco has confirmed that he will release a new album in 2019. “This will be the debut release on Mac’s Record Label (more details still to come),” reads a press release. The singer-songwriter has also announced a slew of new tour dates for the new year, which kick off after his appearances at this year’s Coachella Music and Arts Festival in April.

Pitchfork Announces Mac DeMarco’s New Label and First-Ever Solo Tour
Pitchfork

Mac DeMarco has announced he is launching his own record label. It is called Mac’s Record Label. “My friend Jen who plays drums in The Courtneys gave me the name,” he said in a press release. DeMarco has thus far released music via longtime label Captured Tracks. The new label will be distributed through Universal Music Group’s Caroline.

Mac Demarco talks about his approach to guitar on “Ernie Ball’s String Theory”
Stereogum

“… ‘I never thought I would do the music thing. Never wanted to play guitar when I was a kid,” Mac begins. ‘Got a family full of musicians, very unappealing. I was like, screw that, I’m not doing that…And then I picked one up one day while my friends were playing. Turned out I could do it a little bit, it was interesting, right around the same time I got into all the classic rock stuff you get into as a young man. Yeah, got hooked. You start off with the one string thing, it’s like, ‘Aw hell yeah.’ I learned ‘Smoke On The Water’ on just the low E string.'”

Mac DeMarco: Solitary Man
American Songwriter

As a performer, Mac DeMarco presents a very specific version of himself to the audience. He’s a happy-go-lucky troubadour, a jokester and unlikely heartthrob whose live shows often find him indulging in extended jam sessions with his band that sometimes feature schlocky cover versions of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care Of Business” or Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.”

Here’s Why Mac DeMarco Headlining Radio City Music Hall Is a Big Deal
Vulture

Somewhat surprisingly, Mac DeMarco is going to perform at New York institution Radio City Music Hall on September 22, and tickets will be available on Friday. It’s the kind of venue that many artists dream about one day playing, and DeMarco, despite his immense popularity, is a somewhat unexpected booking. So how’d he get here?

Mac DeMarco in Top 10 of 2017 Albums
Spin Magazine

“The content comes with a slight change in sound: Gone is the rinky-dink, pealing electric guitar tone that colored his early records, replaced with an acoustic instrument, recorded as if he’s in the room with you. There’s also prolific use of a CR-78 drum machine set to cruise, the steady motorik rhythms pushing him toward a more reflective space. He sounds comfortable, lived-in.”

Mac Demarco talks to The New Yorker about James Taylor
The New Yorker

“…they confirm that a truly great song exists outside of time and trend. But parallels between DeMarco and Taylor extend beyond their sound: they’ve both been known as boyish wild men who are fond of the bottle, and whose unpredictable, spastic personalities are at odds with the mellow, emotive songs they write.”

Assets

Mac DeMarco 1 by Christine Lai
Mac DeMarco 2 by Christine Lai
Mac DeMarco 3 by Christine Lai
Mac DeMarco by Monika Mogi
R0002859
Management
Booking - North America
Booking - Europe
Booking - Rest of World
US Publicist
Label
Avails
  • Spring/Summer/Fall 2022
  • Festivals, One-Offs
Territories
  • United States
  • Canada
  • Mexico
  • Australia