Stream Mac DeMarco’s Laneway Set and Read a Chat With His Mum Agnes

On a stiflingly hot day at Laneway Festival last month, I found myself sitting next to Agnes DeMarco. At 61 she was one of the oldest people at the festival but was also having some of the most fun.

While we were talking, her son Mac was ripping it up on stage with pal Connan Mockasin but Agnes also had her professional duties to attend to. Months before, after a back-and-forth between Mac’s manager and the festival promoters it was agreed she could come on the Australian tour. But only if she served as MC for the festival.

Agnes came prepared.

“I have this binder that’s full of notes,” she said, handing me a dossier bigger than all my Year 12 notes. “It’s the bios. I introduced myself to the other bands on Facebook, then I went on Twitter, then I listened to everybody’s music. I listed all the awards they’ve been nominated for and all that. It’s my job.”

Agnes knows every song that her son has ever written. When asked to name a favourite, she lists several that she has a deep personal connection with. “I love “Blue Boy”, the first time I heard it I cried,” she said of a song about growing up and the need for maturity. “I love so many, I can listen to the whole albums, I know them all.”

Mac DeMarco has enjoyed a rapid rise and overwhelming acclaim, he now travels around the world playing sold-out shows wherever he decides to stop. “It’s incredible. It’s been a gradual build,” Agnes explained. “I knew when I heard Heat Wave [an early album Mac released under the name Makeout Videotape] that he was going to be a star, but I didn’t really understand the magnitude.”

“Now I feel like I somehow must have raised one of the Beatles, because he’s just adored worldwide. It’s amazing. It’s a phenomenon.”

Image: Daniel Boud

Agnes’ lovable, carefree nature, unabashed adoration of Mac, and readiness to interact with her son’s fans online has earned her own almost cult-like celebrity status.. As I walked over to meet her, she was surrounded by fans taking photos and confessing their love. After finally parting ways with them, she greeted me like an old pal.

More so than most musicians, Mac DeMarco’s fans seem to feel a personal, intimate connection to the man himself. He’s open, joyful, and always eager to show love to his listeners. “I think they’re very sensible,” Agnes says of these fans. “I adore him as well.”

In the short walk back to the artists’ area, she’s constantly stopped by adoring fans asking for a photo or a quick chat. She takes it all in her stride, and gives everyone more than enough of her time. Agnes has become an adored mother figure for Mac DeMarco’s fans, and she’s embracing it with open arms.

It’s such a natural fit she’s recently taken on a key role in the newly created Mac DeMarco Fan Club. Although rumours had been circulating that she’ll be the inaugural president, Agnes said her official title will be secretary. “I’ll be deeply involved with it,” she explains. Although she’s coy with the details she assured me it’ll be a way for fans to send Mac letters and presents. “It’s going to be rolled out eventually, and it will be amazing, that’s all I’m saying now,” she laughed.

Mac DeMarco has gained a reputation for his highly energetic, playful and hedonistic live shows. But Agnes notes he’s always been like this, even as a kid. “Mac was the same high-energy person you see on stage as a little kid,” she explained. “He was just a force.”

“Once I tried to teach him how to skate, so I took him to the skating rink. He had skates on, and he just spun like a whirling dervish then fell over, then spun like a whirling dervish, then fell over. He’s always had that energy.”

Mac first picked up a guitar in middle school. Both his grandparents are musicians, and he knew it was for him straight away. “As soon as he picked up a guitar, he never put it down,” Agnes explains. “He’s got the genes. He just didn’t stop.”

Her other son Hank is also a talented artist and a member of the Alberta ballet’s apprentice program. She raised them both herself after leaving their father and changing their last names to her own. It was difficult, but she wouldn’t change a thing. “I was a lot of things before, but then when you’re a single mum you have to whatever will bring the money in and put the food on the table,” she says.

Agnes herself is artistic, and worked to nurture and encourage her sons’ creativity and talents. “We just do things together, like we’d do a painting together just the three of us. We’d listen to rock music and dance,” she says, smiling. “It was just the way that we were.”

“I paint a little, and I’m the world’s worst guitar player, but I still pick away at it,” she continues. She tried to teach herself Mac’s songs, but has recently been distracted with trying to learn fellow Laneway act Angel Olsen’s entire back-catalogue.

Throughout our chat, she was continually grateful and appreciative of the opportunities that have been offered to her. If another comes in the future, a professional MC-ing job perhaps, she’ll embrace it, but she’s always happy to retreat from the spotlight and return to her peaceful life at home in Edmonton, Canada.

“If something comes up I will jump on it, because it’s just been fabulous. If it’s just a one-off I’m so lucky, and if something else comes up, I’m still so lucky, so it’s a win-win.”

Listen to Mac DeMarco’s Sydney Laneway set recorded by Red Bull Music Academy Radio.