AN AUDIENCE WITH... Mark Eitzel
The former American Music Club mainman talks musicals, mushrooms, Lou Reed and why he’d tell his younger self “to get my fucking head out of my own fucking ass”
Interview by SAM RICHARDS
Eitzel in 2016, ahead of the release of Hey Mr Ferryman
“Out of all of the records I put out, maybe you could make one good EP”
MARKHOLTHUSEN;EBETROBERTS/REDFERNS;BRIANRASIC/GETTYIMAGES
SADLY it seems like there will be no third coming for American Music Club, the group Mark Eitzel describes as “truly the best band in the world for about two years. Until of course we came off stage, and then we were the most self-defeating people in the world.” Perhaps nothing much has changed: Eitzel is still writing devastatingly beautiful songs with impressive frequency, and he’s still hilariously talking them down.
When we speak, 2023 is only a week old, but he’s already penned four new songs for an off-Broadway musical called Cornelia Street, “which they’re gonna cut, probably!” What’s it like to see his songs on stage, performed by other people? “It’s actually a real fucking pleasure. I cry uncontrollably, it’s so much fun. I don’t know if I’ll ever do this again, but for now I’m really enjoying it.”
Next up is a European solo tour in the spring, and possibly a new album next year – if he doesn’t succeed in sabotaging it first. “I’ve got about 30 songs and I’m just hoping I can make some money somehow and really do it right. [My manager] is like, ‘You’d better make a new record!’ Don’t tell him, but I’m gonna put everything on Bandcamp and forget about it. Sometimes you just need to take a dump…”