Ahhh, breakfast," Mark Mallman said, easing onto the stool. It's 5pm. His hair is tousled, and he looks like he was up all night. He takes off his sunglasses, gets comfortable and puts down his Budweiser.
Despite his apparent fatigue, however, Mallman is excited. He's known for his endless supply of energy – displayed in his famous 52-hour gig in 2004 – but he's especially thrilled to be talking about his new album. "Between the Devil and Middle C" is Mallman's seventh record and it's auditory proof he isn't about to give up on his classic rock-influenced sound. After all, this would amount to quitting a very important job.
Musicians, he said, "are public servants, like cops," who show up so "people who work jobs can have a good Friday."
Though this sounds like Mallman was fated to serve in the name of rock, this wasn't so. Before the two-day-long gigs and opening slots for Guided By Voices and Linda Ronstadt, there was art.
Mallman, like his brother before him, went to Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he studied performance art and painting.
"In high school, I figured that's what you do, you go to art school," Mallman said, sipping his beer. "It seemed more important for me to think creatively than to think mathematically."
But music was always in his life, including the high school garage band that Mallman said sounded like "Soundgarden with a PiL [Public Image Ltd.] element." He studied art seriously for a few years, which helped him develop his alter ego "The Madman," a character specializing in spoken word and dark poetry.
From this experience – as well as his undying love of '70s rock – grew his passion for performing rock for the masses. Along the way, Mallman has garnered national attention and a cult-like following for his live performances, a nod in City Pages for writing one of "Minnesota's Fifty Greatest Hits" ("Kissing the Knife," from his record "The Tourist") and a reputation for being unpredictable.
"Between The Devil and Middle C" is another exercise in pure rock, from the unrelenting Foreigner synth of leadoff track "Death Wish" to the Clarence Clemons sax of the glorious "Knockout on 22nd St." The result is 14 tight, focused tracks, but Mallman said it started the way all his records do: With many more songs than he needed.
"The hardest thing is not writing tunes," he explained, since he's in his post-album break from composing. The process of narrowing down the songs was "diplomatic" this time, he said. He recorded 40 demos, picked 25 favorites and handed these off to friends, colleagues and a few loyal fans to see which ones stuck.
Before that, however, "Middle C" was pretty different than how it turned out.
"I had in mind a metal album – Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, real heavy. I wrote probably 15 songs like that, with titles like 'The Black Witch' and 'Nuclear Hunt.' They were cool, but it just wasn't me," Mallman said.
The problem, essentially, was that there was a lot of Madman but not enough Mallman.
"There's two sides and there's gotta be a balance for me," he said, shaking his head.
If this sounds unlike a man known for donning a wolf mask onstage and lighting a piano on fire, so might the fact that Mallman much prefers recording to performing live.
"The live show is just snake oil. It's, 'let's get on the back of the horse and carriage and sell this shit'," he said.
And sell it he does. He even "sold that shit" for days at a time, on a couple of occasions.
Known now as Marathon and Marathon 2, Mallman performed a single song for 26.2 hours straight at St. Paul's Turf Club in 1999 and doubled the feat five years later. Both stunts gave Mallman national exposure, but it all began humbly as a joke with friends about playing music whose sole function is to be ignored. This, he argued, would require playing for a day straight. A dare was born.
"If you wanna get me to do something," Mallman said, "tell me I can't do it."
So, with Red Bull cans and shot glasses piled on stage, he played for a day. His 2004 show reportedly consisted of more than 600 pages of handwritten lyrics.
"In three years, we'll do it for 72 hours," he said, with no hint of kidding around.
Due out in September 2006, "Between the Devil and Middle C" is another clear declaration of his musical loves, and Mallman is nothing but straightforward about wanting to sound like his idols.
"You end up sounding like what you listen to ... rock peaked in the '70s, the form was at its best," he said, matter-of-factly.
At this point in the conversation, Mallman's face brightens and his eyes light up as he mentions the joys of Bowie and early John Hiatt. But it's time to leave, because he has a lunch appointment. In the Rock Time Zone, where the King of Beers is the breakfast of champions, lunch is at 6pm. Mallman gives a gracious goodbye, grabs his beer and ambles out of the room.
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