Baby, if you had this face, you d have low self esteem.
This, if you know anything about Mark Eitzel, is exactly the comment you d expect him to make, whether you worship the woolly hat that adorns his baldy head or dismiss him as a whinging, pitiful Billy No-Mates. It s precisely the kind of comment that will make you either despise or and let s just get this over with love him all the more.
His personality, like his songs, seems to be a mixture of humility, pride, self-loathing, sincerity, and occasional bursts of schizophrenic frustration. He will cheerily claim to be the luckiest man alive to be able to do what he s doing, then state that he just wants to make truckloads of money. And his frustration is understandable it isn t easy being revered and worshipped by fans for whom the term hardcore seems ludicrously inadequate, and it must be even more difficult to be revered and worshipped and flat broke. Being constantly lauded by press and fans as the greatest songwriter of the second half of the 20th century when, all the while, lack of money is forcing him to rent out the top part of his house, and consider moving in with American Music Club s former guitar player Vudi for a while . . . it s a little too ironic. The constant self-deprecation though, surely can t all be genuine.
I don t know if it s really true . . . it s part of it, he says. When folks raise kids they ought to be supportive of what the kids want to do. My folks were never supportive of me doing music. I named my publishing company I Failed In Life Music because my mother was always saying, You re gonna fail in life if you don t quit this music! So I was always second-guessing what I was doing because there were expectations of much higher things than being a musician.
Such as?
Architecture or journalism or some kind of writer. But I love what I do. I always had this insane belief that if you say something right you change the world, you just have to find those three or four words that unlock the whole puzzle, and then it s all changed. Which doesn t mean coming up with a soundbite and it doesn t even mean people have to hear what you say; you just have to say it. It might be insane to think like, that but for me it s a good way to live.
pointless exercise
The new album, Caught In A Trap And I Can t Get Out Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby, his third release since AMC disbanded, takes its title from the Presley classic Suspicious Minds , but it s not so much an homage to the King as a simple reflection of his state of mind when he wrote the songs. Persuaded to take a support slot (with a band that he prefers remain anonymous), Eitzel found himself stuck on a tour from hell, hopelessly out of place and utterly frustrated.
That title is something I lived with every day. I did the tour because I think the headline band are great and I like their music, and my manager said you might be able to get some new fans. And you know what, I did. A couple, he shrugs with resignation.
Out of four thousand people at every show there were maybe two who liked me, so it became a pointless exercise, going through the motions of being a rock n roll success. The only people it could possibly please would be the record company and the agency who could say, he s opening for these major bands and he s a very respected person. Meanwhile I have to look in the eyes of this completely bored crowd. And at the time I was not in a good place of mind where I could be America s favourite entertainer and win them over, because I didn t care about winning them over. So it was my fault too.
There s an intentionally funny segment in a very old AMC song where Mark warbles hysterically I m a good man, I m a good man, I m a good man! and then drones I m a baaaad man, I m a baaaad man . . . And in person he s somewhat like that, one minute dismissing someone or something summarily with a fuck them , and the next apologising and claiming that his opinion counts for nothing anyway. After the Whelans show, he deals with ardent fans with the utmost patience and politeness, even though he must be sick and tired of the constant attention, and will drunkenly admit as much some time later. He s self-aware to an almost painful degree, but also genuinely considerate and courteous towards anyone who wants to talk to him, particularly when there s a little alcohol around.
As he says, I think the world owes me a living because of my bar conversation I ve put that in a new song. I m an excellent piss-artist. I think the government should support me basically to go to bars and drink. n