LL: What do you attribute your shooting star rise to? Your music is hard to define in terms of tone and sound – is that something that you think adds to your appeal?
MF: I think it’s honestly, at its core, pop music. It’s music that can relate to anybody, young or old… but it’s also intelligent pop. The lyrics are talking about real things, the music is quirky enough and left-of-center enough that I think it still stretches people’s sensibilities.
LL: That’s something that I’ve noticed, the sound is poppy but the lyrics themselves are actually pretty heavy and at times even dark. Are people relating to the lyrics or simply relating to the sound?
MF: Only time will tell. The way I look at it honestly is that good lyrics will make a song last forever. A good melody will make a song. It’s immediate, and so if it’s a good melody, you can react to it right away. You’re in there, you know what I mean?
There are hit songs all the time that have great melodies and have terrible lyrics and they come and they go. But you listen to hits from the 60’s and 70’s that had both, you know, like the Beach Boys, or any of The Beatles stuff and it’s like really accessible music, with great lyrics, and you still listen to it today, so…
마크 너란 남자 격하게 아낀다..ㅠㅠ
계속 좋은 멜로디, 좋은 가사의 아름다운 음악 많이 만들어주세요 엉엉 오빠님..
그나저나 이 인터뷰, 덕후에게 매우 흥미로운 인터뷰ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 별별 얘기 다 한다. 투어 얘기도하고 마크랑 폰시랑 먹을거 갖고 싸운 얘기 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve been given?
To try out for American Idol. I never did that. I heard that all the time when I went home to Ohio. My aunts and uncles were like: ‘You’ve got such a great voice – why don’t you try out for American Idol?’ I’d say: ‘Because I’m a songwriter, not a puppet.’ Even if I won and became really successful off a show like that, I’d be miserable. I’d rather be a poor singer/songwriter doing what I love than get rich from selling my soul.
What's made you happiest in 2011? I hung out with Bono in Dublin and had a really long, good chat with him. We were talking about poets and he asked me if I'd ever heard of Yeats and I hadn't so he went into his house and brought about this book of Yeats and read me some of his favourite poems. Then he signed the book and gave it to me.
