McBriare Samuel Lanyon "Mac" DeMarco (born Vernor Winfield McBriare Smith IV on April 30, 1990) is a Canadian Singer-Songwriter, musician and producer.
Growing up in Alberta, he started his career with the indie rock duo Makeout Videotape which had a short run before he started his solo career. With his goofball personality and his whacky sense of humor, he made himself a household name of the indie scene pretty quickly, gaining worldwide popularity after a few years and a couple albums. He also owns his own recording studio with which he recorded his entire discography.
It is difficult to pick one genre in order to define Mac's music. Mixing elements of indie rock, jangle pop as well as slacker rock, Mac prefers to use the term "Jizz Jazz" (a term which hasn't been properly explained although it is also the name of the studio where he produces his albums).
Outside of his solo career, he is mostly associated with music acts of the same artistic circle of his. Notable outsiders are Charli XCX, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Haruomi Hosono.
Discography:
- 2012 - Rock'n'Roll Night Club
- 2012 - 2
- 2014 - Salad Days
- 2015 - Another One
- 2017 - This Old Dog
- 2019 - Here Comes The Cowboy
- 2023 - Five Easy Hot Dogs
His work provides examples of:
- Chronological Album Title: 2 (while it is his first LP, his debut album was the mini-LP Rock'n'Roll Night Club).
- Cover Version: After covering Haruomi Hosono's 1976 song "Honey Moon," Mac later sang it on stage with the Japanese artist himself in 2019.
- He covers a wide variety of songs when he's on stage. One concert in particular has him playing Dave Brubeck Quarter's "Take Five" followed by tool's "Schism". Another one features a cover of Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" where he just sings the opening lyric over and over again.
- Disappeared Dad: His father left him at the age of 4 and they barely got back in contact since (this relationship is one of the major themes on the album This Old Dog).
- Face on the Cover: From his first album to Another One, all of his album covers feature him.
- Fake Radio Show Album: Rock'n'Roll Night Club.
- Instrumentals: With the exception of a countdown at its beginning, the album Five Easy Hot Dogs is entirely instrumental.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Made several videos
dedicated to his beloved cat Pickles after he passed away. - Live Album: Live & Acoustic Vol. 1.
- Perpetual Smiler: Along with his "chillster" attitude.
- The Place: His album Five Easy Hot Dogs has a tracklist referencing various locations from the US and Canada.
- Product Placement: Some of his songs mention the smoking brand Viceroy.
- Smoking Is Cool: He is an avid smoker since his teenage years and he never seemed to be insecure about it. He even wrote a song dedicated to cigarette brand Viceroy.'Cause oh, honey, I'll smoke you 'til I'm dying
- Surreal Humor: Most notably in his music videos.
- Title by Number: Every song on One Wayne G is titled after a date (presumably when the song was made) in order of year-month-day, in chronological order. There aren't any dashes or commas separating the numbers, so it looks like random gibberish at first.
- Vocal Dissonance: He usually pitch-shifts his voice on some songs, especially on his earlier work where he sounds way deeper than usual.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: The video for "My Kind of Woman," in which he dons a dress, wig, and some hastily applied makeup. It very promptly gets all ripped off of him later though.
