Jen: So you lived in Pocatello for awhile?
Marcus Eaton: True, I grew up there. I went to grade school, junior high, high school, graduated from Pocatello High School.
Jen: What year did you graduate?Marcus: Well my class was 1998 and I graduated a semester early. I wanted to get out of there, I was ready to move on. I’ve played music since I was really young, so, in high school I was ready to go and start playing music. I had a band together so I just wanted to get out of there early and have more opportunities, which I did, so, six months early, not that big of a deal, a semester. So that was good.
Jen: I heard that you worked at Budget Tapes and Records back in the day.
Marcus: I did, ya, Rich is the bomb.
Jen: You mentioned that you have been around music all your life, and of course your dad is Steve Eaton. What was it like growing up in a house full of music?
Marcus: Some of my earliest memories are of my dad’s recording studio. At one point he had it in our loft, but then he moved it downstairs, which is totally irrelevant, but . . . (laughs) it was really cool. I remember going down and listening to his music and obviously I was a huge fan of my dad’s since I was a little tyke. It was great, we had all these amazing musicians coming through all the time. When I started playing guitar, I didn’t start playing ‘til I was nine, I was always, I had access to pianos and my grandparents were opera singers as well. So I was around music all the time, so when I picked up the guitar when I was nine I really got into it. It was something I was really passionate about doing right from the get go because it didn’t seem hard at all I just loved it, it was really simple.
Jen: You just had a natural talent for it . . .
Marcus: Ya it was just a really simple thing, it wasn’t like, ‘oh you have to practice this,’ or something that my parents forced me to do, which some people’s parents force them to do which, sometimes the kids end up appreciating it later. But for me, it was just really natural and I loved to do it and I played all the time. Anyway, the musicians that were coming through the house, it was really awesome to have them because then I’d start picking their brains and my dad had a couple friends that would come through and I’d go, ‘show me that chord,’ or, ‘show me this, show me that,’ and that’s pretty much how I learned, ya know, taking notes from everybody that came through and my dad of course, and watching people play. It’s a really amazing experience to watch other people play and to learn all their techniques and things like that. I felt like we had a household that was always bringing culture to us and that was really cool.
Jen: So who besides your father inspired you to play guitar?
Marcus: Well, my dad was my primary influence, and then once I started playing of course then I started listening to other people, and one of the first people I was exposed to . . . although this is really funny because acoustic guitar is such a different sound, and that’s what I started with is an acoustic guitar, it’s such a different sound than an electric that when you’re younger I don’t think you put two and two together and realize, ‘oh, that’s the same instrument that I’m playing.’ So I got turned on to Stevie Ray Vaughn, this album called “Family Style.” He has an album with his brother, and I listened to it all the time and it took me awhile to figure out that this was the same instrument I was playing, I guess I didn’t really realize it. And I was like, ‘oh my God, that’s a guitar on there!’ And then I started picking out songs by ear and working on that stuff. Then in high school I got really into Jimi Hendrix, I was really inspired by that, because that’s the birth place of most modern guitar playing because of his use of effects and his playing obviously had effects that were invented specifically for a sound that he was looking for. So I got really into him and started emulating his style and playing electric and then from there I just branched into hundreds of other people.
Jen: So, what was the name of your band back then . . . The Lobby?
Marcus: Ya, The Lobby. We got signed in 2002 I believe and was on a record label called Uninhibited Records and it was a division of MCA/Universal and they released an album called “The Day The World Awoke” which is still available. They released that and then long story short their funding just was lost and it just, that’s it. So we went out on the road and had some great experiences, I mean we played with a lot of great people, I opened for Jewel solo and played with Victor Wooten, he’s one of the best bassists in the world, he’s a member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of those guys, but he is just draw dropping, just incredible, that was our first tour, actually. We were really, really excited about that, as you can imagine. Then we played with Train, and Jason Mraz, we played with him a couple times, you know, a bunch of people, a lot of really great experiences with great musicians. And then eventually, there was a really tough situation, and there always is, being on the road is a difficult thing, and it’s just being in the right place at the right time, and once the funding sort of dropped out, we had all this new material and we didn’t have god enough management to find what we needed. Had we had the right manager I think they could have steered us in the right direction and taken us to a higher level or found other people who were interested or another deal. There’s always options, but it just led to a lot of tension in the band because we were playing all the time and making no money and we would come back home from these really grueling tours, I mean we would spend hours and hours and hours in a car driving to make two hundred bucks and it just doesn’t make sense so everyone was getting very frustrated and I was somewhat frustrated and I just knew, that’s what you have to do and, just sticking to your guns and making it happen, so eventually those guys lost interest in it and ultimately they just weren’t that passionate about it and kind of felt like, ‘well, if it hasn’t happened by now it’s not going to happen,’ which I obviously disagreed with, so we went our separate ways. Then I spent three years playing solo and that was really gratifying and it was really good for me, it really helped me solidify a lot of my things style wise, and I do a lot of looping when we play live, it really helped me satisfy a different side of things, because when you’re with a band it’s just a different thing, it’s much harder than playing with a band, you have to cover all the parts yourself. I had this opportunity, one of my heroes is Tim Reynolds, I’ve been listening to him for a long time. When we were playing with The Lobby I had the opportunity to meet with him a few times and eventually we hit it off, and I became friends with his road manager, and he was like, ‘you’re the perfect opener, we should try to get you on a tour,’ and eventually that’s what happened. Tim and I went on about three tours together, usually the west, we ended up doing 26 cities together, which was a lot of fun, and that was really helpful for me and my career especially because I just created something completely different than the band to the extent to where now that I have the band, when I put it together, I started playing with this new lineup about a year ago, and everybody’s like, ‘oh, I don’t know about the band, dude, I really liked your solo stuff,” so obviously something was going right there, so now it’s just a matter of combining the things that I do and giving people a variety and doing some of the looping and obviously showcasing the band as well. And that’s where we are right now.
And the drummer that’s playing with us is absolutely incredible and we met on kind of a cool situation because throughout all this stuff too there’s also the business side of it. I had a manager who was working with me for about a year and a half I think and that didn’t work. It’s very difficult to find someone who’s really passionate about what you’re doing and wants to turn other people onto it and put the amount of work that it takes into doing it. So I was looking for a manager and also I was just struggling and my booking agency, the second booking agency that I had dropped me. I was in between and I said, ‘well, I’m gonna gonna be down in a certain area’ and in between that I picked up this endorsement from Baden guitars, which was awesome and they’re really great guitars and the company’s based in, basically San Diego in this little town called Escondido. I was down there doing some stuff with Baden and I decided to book myself in L.A. and I contacted this promoter of this little club called the Ghengis Cohen which is just a little hole in the wall, just a little listening room. I went in there and wasn’t expecting much, just wanted to play, make a few bucks while I was in L.A. and called some of my friends while I was down there, and the sound man came up and he was wearing this shirt, do you know the band “A Perfect Circle?”
Jen: Ya.
Marcus: Ok, so he’s wearing this perfect circle shirt and he said, ‘dude, do you like perfect circle?’ And I said, ‘ya, I just saw their drummer play with Sting a few years ago, this guy named Josh Freese,” and this guy said, ‘ya that’s one of my favorite drummers,’ so he got me dialed in, he was the sound man, and I did my thing and he came up after the show and said ‘oh my God, dude, that was the coolest thing I have ever seen in L.A. Do you ever play with a band?’ and I go, ‘well, I’m looking for the right people and haven’t found them yet,’ and he said, ‘well I’m a drummer, you should give me a call.’ And that’s how I found the drummer I am playing with. He is just absolutely phenomenal. It’s pretty amazing that we hooked up that way. His name is Kevin Rogers.
Jen: What is the other member’s name?
Marcus: The other member is a guy named James Monson, he’s a bassist that I’ve played with since the Lobby actually, and we kind of disbanded for awhile and we were in the same area, I was living in Seattle and he lived really close to Seattle, and I called him and said, ‘hey man, would you like to get together and jam?’ So we got together and played a little bit and it basically evolved into the band, ya know, I didn’t have necessarily plans for Jim other than repatching a friendship that was there. So we started playing and I had my solo thing going on and it made sense to have a bassist there as well with the looping that I was doing, so it kind of started out as this two piece and then I found Kevin. So we arranged for a rehearsal down in L.A. and everybody flew in and we had a week’s worth of shows in the area and that’s when the trio began.
Jen: That’s when the stars aligned. . .
Marcus: And that was last year, yeah, that was a year ago.
Jen: So you write the lyrics also. Where do you get your inspiration?
Marcus: Oh, I draw inspiration from just about everything, which I know sounds really vague, but I mean life experience is a definite must, I mean the more life experience you have I think the more you’re able to create things and write songs that people can relate to, and that’s really important to them to be able to listen to the material and have it resonate with them. So life experiences and you know, love, love lost and spirituality and different aspects of it. There’s sometimes when you’re writing it comes from somewhere and you’re not really even sure where the inspiration is coming from. I’ve had experiences where I’ve written songs and it’s only after you have something formulated that you figure out what you’re writing about. So sometimes I think it’s really deep seated in your psyche, and sometimes I feel as though, for me, personally it’s a spiritual cleansing in some ways because you’re pulling from some sort of muse that’s not, I don’t know how to describe it to you, it’s almost like it’s not part of you, it’s just something that you’re drawing from, a well that you’re dipping into.
So when you’re really in the zone and you’re tapped into it it’s miraculous what can happen, so that is my inspiration.
Jen: I read that you are working on a new studio album?
Marcus: Yes, as soon as possible. Right now, the economy’s really in a tight spot for everyone, it’s really touch, but we want to get into the studio as soon as possible. We’ve recorded a couple songs already, but they’re not to the point where they are mixed and all of that. It’s all about financing at this point. So, as soon as we can afford it we will get in the studio and finish the album. There’s plenty of material, but it’s great, we have the opportunity to play all the new stuff live and test it out, tweak it here and there, and that’s what really needs to happen with songs anyway in some respect that way by the time you go into the studio it’s dialed in. And sometimes the response is just incredible with certain tunes. We already have the list of songs that will be on the first album, so we have just a plethora of material to chose from plus I have all the old stuff. A lot of the old songs we don’t have access to “The Day The World Awoke,” and because of that, they’re selling albums and they make the money basically. So I can’t carry those on the road and sell them as part of my catalog, unfortunately. But they’re my tunes and I can always re record them too, so there’s always the option there, too. We also have a live release coming out too, and it’s a five song live release. We played The Gorge last year with Dave Matthews in September, and that was amazing, it was the side stage. That was the second year we’ve done that, so this year hopefully there will be another Dave Matthews gig.
