Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly

April 16, 2008

Buzz: Interview with Mark Eitzel of

American Music Club

by Ken Shane

American Music Club released their

ninth album, The Golden Age, in

February. The band was formed by Mark

Eitzel in San Francisco in the early ’80s.

They released classics like Everclear

(1991) and Mercury(1993), garnering

critical acclaim, and survived a number

of lineup changes before disbanding in

1994.Eitzel then went on to a prominent

solo career.

The band reunited in 2003 and

released the highly regarded Love

Songs For Patriots the following year.

AMC are back again with another new

lineup, and they are about to begin

an American tour to support The Golden

Age.

I spoke with Mark Eitzel from his home

in San Francisco.

You just came back from Europe.

How did that go for you?

Pretty good actually.

You’ve obviously been to Europe a

number of times, in fact you lived in

England at one point, right?

As a kid I grew up there.

Are you finding any change in terms

of the reaction to you and the band

as Americans?

I’ve got probably the worst name for

a band in Europe, you know? I made a

joke with a journalist over there like,

can you imagine a teenager in Europe

wanting to go and see a band called

American Music Club? He’s like, nope,

I can’t. I mean, we do okay. We’re

breaking even. It’s not like we’re this big

band or anything, you know. My band’s

pretty smart. It’s funny, there’s a tradition

where people speak English, where

rock and roll is in English. So people

are kind of used to that. But in terms of

hating Americans, I think they all very

healthily hate the Bush administration,

and they hate the Iraq War. I had an

interview with some guy in England.

He said, ‘you know, I love America. I

was raised by Neil Young, and it’s so

sad to see America diminished.’ That’s

kind of what most people’s reaction is.

Hopefully that will change soon.

We’ll see.

To get back to the band, have you

moved to L.A., or do you just spend

more time there?

I just spend more time there.

Part of spending more time in L.A.

is that you have a couple of new band

members, because a couple of guys

stayed back in San Francisco. Is that

correct?

Right.

Are you happy with the new lineup?

Was the European tour the first time

you were out with the new guys?

Yeah, they’d never done it before,

and I think it was really hard for them.

One guy’s girlfriend was freaking out

I guess, but they seemed to do okay. I

mean, overall it’s tough the way we

travel. I think we had about 60 days,

and we had five days off.

And now you have an American tour

to do.Is everyone still on board for

that?

Yeah, I think they’re going to do it. I

don’t know, who knows, maybe they

won’t show up. You never know.

Like virtually every tourist worldwide,

I’m in love with San Francisco. You’ve

said some things that would indicate

that you’re not quite so enamored

with the city these days. Would you

care to clarify your position?

I’ve kind of outgrown it in a way. Maybe

it’s gotten old. I just can’t imagine being

able to live here, and being able to afford

it. I just can’t picture it. I go out and I

see people and I’m like, ‘do you live

here? You must work your ass off.’ It’s

crazy.

I really don’t have any problems with

San Francisco. I have a lot of friends

here. It’s just a really small place, you

know?

Yeah it is surprisingly small. There

are only about 750,000 people and

you can drive around it in a few hours.

It’s not like the east coast anywhere.

It’s very, very small, and very strange.

I like it. I’m just a little bit tired of it.

I think we all get that way about our

homes at some point. Let’s talk about

the new album. First I should say that

I really enjoyed it. I’m not the only

person to say this, but it’s a little more

straightforward in sound, it’s a little

more subdued in terms of production.

What’s behind that?

Basically it’s just an honest step for

me. As a writer, not everything I do has

to be like tearing my heart out of my

chest. That kind of bores me now actually.

And I also just tried to make an honest

record where you rehearse the band,

and then you play what you rehearsed.

So that’s what we did exactly.

Did the new material get a positive

reaction in Europe?

Yeah. The thing is, we’re a new band.

It took us a few weeks to really play well

together. Now we’re really good.

People from this area will be

particularly interested in the song

‘Windows Of The World’ on the new

album. Can you talk about that?

I went to a party at the World Trade

Center one night, and I wrote about it.

I don’t know, it’s kind of true. It’s no big

heavy song. Everyone says it’s political,

but it’s not political. It’s really just about

the bar.

When President Bush talks about the

heroes, I’m like, you’re only calling them

that so that you can use them. They

were good people. They were just people,

living their lives. I’m sick of politics actually.

So I wrote a song about the bar. We

have bars around here like that, big bars,

mostly for tourists, but I love them.

They were just people who got up

that morning and had no idea what

was going to happen. It’s very weird

when you think about it.

It is really weird. These fucking religious

people think that God is on their side

and they can do anything they want. I

hate ’em all.

At one point you were going to call

the new band MacArthur Park Music

Club. As a devout Jimmy Webb fan,

I was wondering why you changed

that.

It was explained to me that there are

three different pay scales for me. I can

get paid 9 out of 10 if I call the band

American Music Club. I can get paid 4

out of 10 if I call the band Mark Eitzel.

And I can get paid 1 out of 10 if I call the

band MacArthur Park Music Club. So

I thought, if I was in Smashing Pumpkins,

and I wanted to call my band Zwan, I

could. But because no one has really

ever heard of American Music Club

before, it was explained to me that I

really had to do this. And also because

I had seven versions of American Music

Club before I ever met the guys in San

Francisco.

One last question: what plans do you

have for your solo career?

I don’t know. At this point I’m just

playing it by ear. I think that if we can

get through this American tour without

killing each other, that would be amazing.

I’m doing this musical in London. I’m

Collaborating with a playwright over

there. So I’m spending the whole month

of June doing that, and then I have to

go back in the fall to do that as well. So

that’s probably what I’m going to do

next, be a writer for the musical.