Editor's note: Rapper Mac Miller has died at age 26. His death was reported Friday, Sept. 7, 2018. This interview was published in 2013, ahead of Mac Miller's scheduled show at the Tabernacle with Chance the Rapper, The Internet, Vince Staples, and Hardo
It's mid-afternoon, but Mac Miller is still a little groggy. He's in Austin, the day after the first date of his new tour and, well, the opening night post-show celebration turned into a hangover-inducing party.
"We're on tour with a bunch of friends, so yeah, we showed them a good time," Miller says, slowly, but with a good-natured chuckle.
And why shouldn't Miller be cheerful?
He's only 21, yet the Pittsburgh rapper-producer has already lined up a handful of gold and platinum-selling singles ("Knock Knock," "Donald Trump," "Loud" among them), overcome an addiction to "lean" (the trendy combo of promethazine and codeine also known as "purple drank") and watched his second major-label album, the just-released "Watching Movies with the Sound Off," debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, with impressive sales of more than 100,000.
He's starred in a reality TV show (MTV2's "Mac Miller and the Most Dope Family," which has just been renewed), toured with Wiz Khalifa last year and is currently enjoying some critical love for the sonically experimental, lyrically amusing "Movies." (The tracks "S.D.S." and "Suplexes Inside of Complexes and Duplexes" are among the standouts.)
Though Miller was in recovery mode, he quickly perked up to discuss his "Space Migration Tour," which plays The Tabernacle on Tuesday, as well as his love of Outkast and that memorable album cover.
Q: What's the format of the show? Do you have a live band or DJ?
A: Both. I'm doing half the show with me and the DJ and half with the band. We've got three people in the band - drums, keys and bass - but I pick up the guitar and play, too. It's something different if people have been to a Mac show before. This one is more of a performance. I've always talked to the crowd and hung out with them, which was cool, and it used to be about high energy, which it still is now. The first part is me running around and the mosh pit, but the second half is more of a performance with the band, a lot more chilled out, like the new album is. We're doing pretty much all of the new album in the second half.
Q: You're bringing a lot of the acts from your label. Will they be performing with you or doing their own sets?
A: Yeah, for the first two weeks of the tour, it's a different act every show and they each have one or two shows to do their own set. It will be tight for them. The whole thing about having a label is that these are people that I know personally, so it's like me giving a platform to people to get the word out. I wanted these to be intimate shows, something that goes back to playing small venues instead of doing 8,000 (capacity) venues. I realized smaller shows are tighter. I just did a preview show in London for 300 people and it was awesome. Prince did a show for 1,500 people in his hometown. He invited me to go, and I couldn't. I was really upset about that 'cause I'm such a fan. If I would have gone and met him, that would have been a top two greatest moment. I'm down for the next time.
Q: With this new album, how do you think you evolved stylistically?
A: It's funny, I think it's like everyone is saying it's completely different, and it is. But if you listen to stuff I made when I was 15, 16, 17, before I was that successful, it's more along those lines.
Q: You say in "S.D.S." "We're here to reinvent music." What aspects do you think need to be reinvented?
A: I think it's just people my age in music right now it's kinda like, if you see the show, you'll see I'm playing guitar, I'm trying to do everything. I think people who are young and love all kinds of music are trying to not necessarily do stuff from the past, but something that hasn't been done before. That's one of the beauties of music. You can create whatever you want.
Q: What inspired the album cover?
A: I was always kinda wanting to do that. It's supposed to kinda look like an aristocratic old picture, the pose. That's why I'm so straight. There's, like, some hidden symbolism in the cover. We went to the studio to shoot portraits and my mom (a professional photographer) took the picture and my brother designed the cover. We didn't know we were doing the cover, so I said, "Let's just do this." So I set up the table and the flowers and all.
Q: It wasn't embarrassing posing like that with your mom taking the photos?
A: No. I have trust issues with people, so with everything, I try to know the people before I do anything.
Q: You've said the album's title came from your habit of watching movies with the sound off while in the studio. What movies were you watching while making the album?
A: A lot of weird nature documentaries. Like the ocean documentaries under the sea, that's always a very nice vibe. Sometimes it might be, like, "Beetlejuice" or something else. Just all things visual. There are no windows or anything in the studio, so that's your window.
Q: Growing up in Pittsburgh, were you inspired by anyone on the local scene or did you look to the bigger cities for that?
A: Yeah, I was inspired by the local scene, but the thing about Pittsburgh is, musically, everyone is inspired by everything. Everyone loves down South music, but also stuff from the West.
Q: Speaking of the South, you've mentioned you're an Outkast fan. Have you ever met the guys?
A: I met Big Boi, he's good people. I have yet to meet Andre (3000). I'm excited for that day when it comes. Outkast to me, how they do hit records, that's how I look to do hit records. The songs are so good. It's not like you're recording a record to be in the club or be played as a dance song, but you're just trying to make a song that is cross genre.
Q: Wasn't Gucci Mane supposed to be on the album?
A: We had a song that I'm sure will come out. I did another song with Future that was gonna go on the album, but it just didn't fit. Waka (Flocka Flame), Gucci, Outkast, Future, they're all great. The Atlanta music scene is already there. You can think you're really popular and go to Atlanta and people don't even know who you are because they're so into their scene, which is dope. It represents where you're from. Matt Martians is from Atlanta and he's playing with me on tour. They have their own set.
Q: You posted on Twitter recently that you're really excited about these next two years. What do you have floating around your head that's making you feel so optimistic?
A: I feel it's just going to be a lot of great music making and stuff like that. I just feel positive and optimistic. I have a lot of stuff coming out, from production to a bunch of things. I've been working on so much stuff, but the rollout is finally starting.
