Mac DeMarco Quotes

It's so crazy now with the Internet and being able to play shows to people who are actually interested in you. I still feel so lucky when that happens. Things just happen so fast.

A lot of people assume I have a great hat collection, but kids steal my hats at every show. I've had all these hats that I've loved, but now they're in some little kids' possession. It's difficult to replenish. I don't think the kids realize this.

When people think of someone being prolific, it's like, 'He's got a vault with 5,000 songs in it,' or something, but I just kind of pick them out of the air when they float by.

I hate living in a really small apartment, living in a shoebox, not being able to play the drums, not having space. It sucks.

Journalists say my music is "blue wave," or "dreamy," or "jangly-slacker jewel," and none of it really makes sense to me.

I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their own life in different ways. Something for everybody to have a piece of.

I like guitar. It just turned out that it's the instrument I learned to play. I have a lot of respect for it, and I'm learning more and more every day. For me, the classic band setup - guitars, drums, bass - will stay fresh forever. I don't know. I'm still into it.

I had a band called the Sound Of Love, and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape, and that was that.

I'm just trying to have fun, and maybe the way I hold myself kind of freaks people out. I don't feel like an outsider, and I think my friends feel the same way I do. Now that we're playing to larger audiences, maybe we're weird to some people. But I'm trying to express what I am.

If people are talking about you, that's great. You start making more money, that's great. You get to go to weird places, that's great. The music industry is weird, especially with the Internet. People are calling you all kinds of weird stuff, like 'jangly.'

My music is kind of laid back, it doesn't have super crispy, shiny production, and I'm not singing my heart out or whatever. But that whole idea of blogs declaring: "this is the new denomination for this sound" is ridiculous to me.

Usually when festivals are really huge it's kind of weird. It's totally fun for me and my band to play in front of a crowd that doesn't necessarily know who we are, but festivals get pretty impersonal when they get super large.

When you play a guitar for a long time, you get your hand oils in there; it starts feeling good and behaving, and you just don't want to mess with that.

I don't care about what people might call my style. It's just like when people call my music 'jangly,' 'dream,' 'oceanside,' whatever - I don't care. I'm just wearing whatever I can scrap together.

Once a song comes out, these songs aren't mine. They're everybody's. So there you go.

For me, it's all about the Canadian tuxedo, and maybe a bolero. The province I grew up in in Alberta is pretty much the denim capital of Canada. The first premier of Alberta started Grand Western Garment, which Levi's bought later on.

I actually had a really nice guitar as a teenager. I took jazz guitar, so my mom bought me this probably $1,600 guitar. But I got really into garage rock and local bands, and I noticed they played really crappy guitars. So I thought, 'Hey, I should get a crappy guitar, too!'

I'll probably have to open a recording studio at some point because I won't be able to pay the bills.

I think recording at home feels more organic, and injects some more personality into the music.

It's so crazy with the Internet and being able to play shows to people who are actually interested in you. I feel so lucky when that happens.

I'm going to try to do music for the rest of my life, but that's just trying. Maybe it's not going to work out. Who knows?

One thing I hear a lot is, 'Dude, my mom loves your record,' or 'I got it for my dad for Christmas.' I'm essentially doing dad rock. Which is great, because I love Steely Dan, you know? Nothing wrong with dad rock!

I thought I knew Elton John, but then it was like, "Woah, Elton's a pimp! He's really amazing." And since Billy and Elton are homies, I'm finally getting it - the two piano boys.

At the time I was writing the second album, I was sitting home in my underwear all day every day; I didn't have all that much to write about except for my own life and my family.

I mean, Lady Gaga is trying to be a freak or whatever but that quality of being very meaningly and heartfelt, but also having a sense of humor about it, bands don't do that anymore. Lady Gaga's songs are cheesy. The Beatles weren't cheesy. That's the hardest thing with music: to not be cheesy, but also be meaningful. That's the goal, I think.

I think people do expect something a little weird to happen. Maybe they've seen something I did once on the Internet and expect that I'm gonna do that every night.

I was having a good time before, but you grow up after a couple years and realize, "I can't get drunk like this every night." Things change.

Neil Young is the prime example, the grand goal, if you will. He's still shredding, and he never lost his credibility.

I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.

A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.

I don't necessarily like wearing lipstick; I just think it's funny to do. I think the darker the better, but it's whatever my girlfriend Kiera has in her purse.

Perfectionist? That's not something I am.

If I feel like I'm going too far in one direction, I just can it. It's a weird thing. Some of my songs might be cheesy; I try and keep it light. It's hard to explain.