Mac DeMarco insists Here Comes the Cowboy isn’t actually about cowboys. Not real ones, anyway. “It’s not about a real cowboy. It’s more like a cartoon buffoon,” he explains, sounding exactly like a guy who named a record Salad Days and once described his musical influences as “Kermit the Frog vibes.”
Don’t let the hats fool you—DeMarco’s latest album isn’t some turn toward outlaw country, even if the marketing team leaned into it a little too hard. “The press release said I wrote it all in two weeks. That’s not true,” he says, half amused, half exasperated. “Some of those songs were six months old. Press agent really ran with that one.”
What is true is that Here Comes the Cowboy might be the softest, most romantic thing he’s ever done—and that’s saying something. “I’ve always liked love songs,” he shrugs. “I’m a Beatles guy. Everybody feels emotions. It’s sneaky, but maybe it works.”
The record is soaked in a ’70s Laurel Canyon haze, like Jackson Browne got a little too high and forgot to finish his verse. But Mac isn’t trying to make a retro record. “I never go in saying, ‘I want this to sound like 1974,’” he says. “I just know the kind of kick drum sound I like.”
The album’s opener is a perfect DeMarco non-statement: one line repeated over and over until it turns into a mantra. “Your cowboy,” he drawls, with the kind of commitment that suggests he might forget the words halfway through. “It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever recorded,” he says. “That might be twisted.”
Then there’s “Choo Choo,” a glorified jam session born out of pure creative fatigue. “I was driving myself nuts miking up a piano. I just plugged in my guitar and had fun. That was a little sad—like, ‘Oh yeah, this is fun again.’”
Even his hidden track—yes, Mac DeMarco is still making hidden tracks in 2019—is a throwback to a time when people listened to whole albums on purpose. “You’re banking on people putting in the time,” he admits. “I just wasn’t really thinking about it.”
As for the big business move behind the record—launching his own label—Mac downplays the whole thing. “We didn’t start from the ground up. There’s no office or anything,” he says. “But now if a friend makes a great record, I can actually help get it out into the world.”
He’s not gunning to be the next Rick Rubin. He’s just hoping to keep things weird, lo-fi, and maybe a little romantic—Kermit voice optional. “People only hear a couple tracks anyway,” he shrugs. “But I don’t really care. The record makes sense to me. That’s what matters.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
