# Interview
Excerpts from a long interview by Martin Williams in the November 2000 issue of the brilliant English magazine "Comes With A Smile".

The same issue will also feature interviews of Willard Grant Conspiracy, Richard Buckner, Sloan, Arco, The Webb Brothers, Wisdom of Harry, Josh Rouse, Bettie Serveert, Bright Eyes, Grandaddy, Matt Pond PA, Grand Drive and The Czars. 
It also comes with a cd with previously unreleased songs from Textile Ranch, Matt Pond PA, (The Real) Tuesday Weld, Rivulets, Grand Drive, Dakota Suite, The General Store, Bettie Serveert, The Wisdom of Harry (previously vinyl only), Graham, Mike Daly, Josh Rouse, Squatter & The Ant, The Czars, Bright Eyes (previously available in Japan only), Keiron Phelan & David Sheppard (prev. vinyl only), WGC (Love Doesn't from Color of the Sun EP) and Greg Weeks.
It can be ordered from Matt Dornan.

Comes With A Smile:
When a show is going well, like last Monday, there's chat on stage, possibly out of necessity while you're tuning, but there's humour and stories, I mean you're not quite Henry Rollins, but you're coming out with the stories. Was it always this way?

Mark Eitzel:
I am very much like Henry Rollins, as you can see I work out a lot, I have a regimen.

But, I don't know, like the sing along part for Bitterness Poisons the Soul, like I never thought about that, except once when I was on-stage in LA and I was sort of like, 'oh my God I have to sing this fucking song again.' And it's sort of a self-mockery, kind of 'how can I make the song fun'. I've done about everything you can do on stage, I've done like really bad miming gestures when I was in a punk rock band, and I've been so drunk, once I was so drunk that I didn't know where the edge of the stage was, this really high stage, so I went over and I took the whole monitor rig with me.

So, I've done all of these things and now when I'm on stage and I've done the whole thing where I would play without looking at anybody and I'll stand there and just perform, it depends on my mood, it depends pretty much on how I feel the crowd wants it. I mean, I'm an entertainer and I'm aware of it, and I want to be a generous entertainer.

CWAS:
There's no conflict of interest there? I mean, when you're at home and you write your songs surely entertainment isn't the first thing on your mind.

ME:
It's entertainment. That's my theory of art. When I go to the National Gallery or if I go to any art exhibit: it's entertainment. You have to expend a little more energy than passive entertainment, but it's what I do, that's it, clear and simple.

CWAS:
As opposed to what? I mean with that definition everything becomes 'entertainment'. What else is there?

ME:
Boredom. Well, I mean I guess you're objecting to the mass media idea of entertainment. What's that woman, that Spice Girl woman? Victoria Beckham, Posh Spice, that's the entertainment you're objecting to, because it's on this horrible sort of gross, commercial scale and it's part of the new corporate music that They're creating, like peanuts. Or the new movies. The Lucas-flick, the new Star Wars came out, the poor fucker right, they're doing a new one and there's no script, and I guess Ewan McGregor and the other guy they had to do everything different ways because Lucas didn't know what he wanted, and then using technology he went and put everything back together and there's fight scenes that they didn't actually do, but they took other actors and put the faces on.

CWAS:
I've avoided it so far.

ME:
It's horrible. But it's a ride movie, it's a ride. Or Independence Day, I loved that movie, I saw it eleven times. I loved the movie, but there's no script and there's no poetry. It's wallpaper, it's morphine, and it's what most people want. So my idea of entertainment is that I'm out there and I want to be generous to the crowd. Like you go and see these bands now and everyone stands rapt in silence and they stare, that's new to me, when I grew up people didn't give a shit, it wasn't this 'special moment'. Like Cat Power, I saw Chan play in San Francisco and everybody was like, 'ssshhh', this very reverent thing. So I stood at the bar and talked as loudly as I possibly could. And I love her, I think she's a genius, but de-mystify it, y'know, it's just music, it's just something you go out and see, it's not this special poetry. And if it is a 'special poetry,' that means that music has gone the way of poetry and become a niche culture, a boutique culture and I don't want to be part of that. I don't want to do it. I'd rather have people's applause, I'd rather have people laughing at me. I want people to laugh and cry, it's corny but that's what I want to do. I'm corny. More than anything else I want to move people. It's just the classic thing, I want people to forget what they are for an hour, that's the best thing you can offer them, that's what I want to do. I don't always do it.

CWAS:
Given that some choose to characterise you as a kind of laureate for the dislocated and dispossessed, maybe it's fitting that you don't have a record deal these days.

ME:
I'm just lazy. I can't handle the depression of sitting there and I just wont have those conversations, those 'fun' conversations about how excited they all are, or you are, or it is. I don't want to be phoney. It's not like I'm plotting 'I'm not going to have a deal.' A friend of mine killed herself about two years ago and I did nothing but smoke pot, sit in the base-ment and watch television. And I'm still just sort of coming out of that. I wrote a lot of songs but they're all shit, and I made a lot of music but it's all shit. I have this great band,- of which Kristen is a member - they're actually making me very happy, we're called Connie White Plays the Sentimental Hits of Mark Eitzel.

CWAS:
I'm going to reel off the different projects you've apparently been involved with. The second Peter Buck record?

ME:
In November we worked on it together.

CWAS:
And that's coming out?

ME:
No, that's never going to happen. Unfortunately I write my own songs too, and I don't have any money to spend time with Peter's songs and my songs. And they're good.

CWAS:
He couldn't bankroll it?

ME:
I wouldn't let him.

CWAS:
A collaboration with Rachel's?

ME:
Oh, there was talk about doing something with Rachel's, it was going to be a movie and we wanted to collaborate with the Rachel's and do this movie thing and that didn't work out.

CWAS:
Is that the Left-handed Woman that you mention in the sleeve notes to 60-Watt Silver Lining?

ME:
That's right, yeah. And now Eric Matthews is doing it. He already did on song of mine, the Shop Girl Song, for the movie, and it's great. He's great.

CWAS:
There was talk of you doing an album of cover versions. 

ME:
Oh, we recorded that but it's in limbo like everything else in my life, except my friends.

I love what I do.
After the show in Birmingham there was some guy who had drunk a lot of beer who wanted of course to tell me what would help my career, and of course what would help my career...

CWAS:
Is not to listen to drunk fans in Birmingham.

ME:
No, no, is not perhaps playing the "new shit", to quote him, but to play Clouds and to play everything off California.

CWAS:
I feel the opposite of that, because having seen you lots of times, I've heard Blue and Grey Shirt and Last Harbour a lot. I mean, I love those songs, but I want to you to play the new stuff. 

ME:
And I don't mind playing them again, but I go to shows, like if I went to a Mercury Rev show and they played nothing off the last album they put out I'd be pissed off, because it's brilliant and it's beautiful. Or if I go to a Will Oldham show and he doesn't play...what's that song I like? The song about the cinematographer? I love that song, so I'm like "I wanna hear that song!" At the same time if he plays new songs I'll listen with the same intensity. 

CWAS:
Is there going to be a Lover's Leap USA, mk II?

ME:
Of course. I made more money with Lovers Leap USA than I have with any album I've ever made. I made 750 of the damn things, and I sold them for $10 each in America and £7 here. I made more money than I've ever made.

CWAS:
After Caught in a Trap you said your next record would be much more pop.

ME:
You should hear it, the demo I turned into Matador- whom I love- is so pop it's ridiculous. This Brazilian disco track is the lead-off. I love it.