The Music of Mark Mulch
The Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast (40 minutes):
“I have been really lucky to get to do what I've always dreamed of doing, so that's living the high life.”
“I don’t ever want to stop playing music.”
The complete video interview with Mark Mulch:
Bill Hurley’s full Mark Mulch interview on the Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast (40 minutes).
Clip 1: Mark talks about Sunrise Vibes (2:48)
Trop Rock / Island Music singer-songwriter Mark Mulch talks about how he and Monallo collaborated on the hit song Sunrise Vibes.
Clip 2: Mark talks about Tide Down (3:19)
Mark talks about how he and Kirstie Kraus collaborated on the hit song Tide Down.
Clip 3: Mark talks about Beach Up in Heaven (4:02)
Mark talks about his very personal and meaningful song Beach Up in Heaven.
Clip 4: Mark talks about High Life (3:13)
Mark talks about his song High Life and how he feels he is living the high life because of the good fortune he has had in his musical career.
The Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast introduction and transcript:
After 19 years of building a successful career writing and performing in Nashville, Mark Mulch has found a home in the Trop Rock / Island Music community and is “all in”
“I found my people,” he says in the latest Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast. Three years after embracing Trop Rock, Mark now has several Island Music hits, including Tide Down (with Kirstie Kraus), Sunrise Vibes (with Monallo) and Beach Up in Heaven, and is working on more. Here are some highlights of our interview with Mark Mulch:
Mark and Nick DeKoff, known as the Mulch Brothers, moved to Nashville to pursue a songwriting and singing career Eventually, Nick moved back to Michigan, and Mark has had great success.
Three years ago, Mark’s friend Kirstie Kraus steered him into Trop Rock / Island Music, telling him, “You’re doing this and you don’t even know it,” and he’s never looked back.
Mark originally wanted to be a professional baseball player.
Mark got to meet his songwriter hero, Kenny Loggins.
Mark says, “It never gets old hearing your songs on the radio.”
Referring to his song High Life, we asked Mark what he sees as the High Life. “My life,” he said with a laugh.
Mark talks about how his well-known Trop Rock songs and collaborations came into being. The beautiful song Beach Up in Heaven is a tribute to his brother, who died when Mark was 18, and to one of his former band members, who also passed away. In the song, Mark envisions meeting up with them again at a Beach Up in Heaven.
Hi Mark, thank you for joining me on the Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast.
Thanks for having me, Bill
I've been looking forward to this for a while. I want to get into some details about your music and your career, both in country and Trop Rock, but first I wanted to talk a little bit about you.
Sure.
You give off that vibe to me of someone who loves what you're doing.
Oh yeah.
And you always look like you're genuinely having fun.
Having a good time all the time.
What's your overall philosophy in terms of how you approach your career and the people you meet and engage with along the way.
Um, good question I think it's just because, I mean, how could you not have fun playing music for people, you know. I think it’s Bruce Springsteen who reminded everybody that, you know, it's called “playing” for a reason. It's just great to connect to people. I have friends and fans all over the world, really, which is amazing. And people who genuinely want to help, you know, with your career, and who love your music, and especially in the Trop Rock genre. I'm still relatively new, probably you would say, coming up on like three years now since my first EP came out, and I just love how everybody wants to hear your original music, you know, and that's really been a boost for me.
I found my people, as they say,
So, your distinguishing feature is your hair (Mark and Bill laughing). Have you always had the long hair? Is it like your superpower?
Sort of, I guess, right? Who has the long hair, Samson?
Yes, Samson (laughing), so if you cut it could you no longer play music?
Good question, it's been a long time. I've had long hair since ... I went to Catholic high school.
I did too.
Okay I'm sorry (laughing), um, kidding.
No, I hear you (laughing).
I love my I love my high school. We just had a little Christmas time reunion and stuff a couple weeks ago. But, yeah, so I was in a Catholic high school, college prep school, you had to have your hair, you know, cut, had to be no longer than your collar.
I originally wanted to be professional baseball player, so I always kept my hair kind of short anyway, but I start playing guitar when I was like nine years old, always dreamt of being in a rock band or whatever and had bands in high school and stuff but it was kind of like right after I got into college, I played college baseball for a little while but then, um, went to music full time and I don't know if I've cut my hair short since (laughing).
It's been working for you (laughing).
So you grew up in New Jersey. Am I right?
Yes, um, I was born in Staten Island and then spent every summer in New Jersey, and then we moved down there. And so, yeah, I'm a Jersey guy.
And then at some point you moved over to Nashville. How has that journey over the years worked out for you compared to what you had envisioned it to be?
It's been amazing. I moved here, it's been 19 years a week ago. I moved here 19 years ago, so now I've lived here longer than I ever lived anywhere else, and it's been great. I moved down here with my buddy Nick (DeKoff). We started the Mulch Brothers, brothers from different mothers, and um, we, we came down here with two goals. One, to get a publishing deal to be songwriters, not only to write our own stuff, but to write for other artists. And to get a record deal. And back then they used to call this a five year town. Now they called it a ten year town. I sometimes joke that sometimes it could be a ten minute town, now that you got the social media and stuff, if you take off. But five years in, we got a deal with Savannah Music Group, a publishing deal and a record deal, and got some cuts. Got a cut with the Randy Rogers Band out of Texas called Steal You Away that wound up in a film called Country Strong, and (I’ve been) really, really lucky, I’ve been doing music pretty much full time since I got here 19 years ago, which is just an amazing blessing.
So the Mulch Brothers weren't actually brothers.
We were not brothers, it was something I came up with about 20, when I think about it now, it's probably like 25 years ago, and, we came down here as Mark and Nick Mulch and the rest, as they say, is history.
Are you still working with Nick?
No, Nick wound up getting married and has two kids and moved back to Kalamazoo, Michigan. So I continued the Mulch Brothers with a friend of ours that was in the band. We were lucky enough to get another record deal and put out an album called Next of Kin that did well. But then ultimately the Mulch Brothers ended, and I've been solo now for, I don't know, I'd probably say it was eight years but it might even be as many as ten. I think it's like eight years now solo.
So you've been writing music all this time both for yourself and for other artists?
Yeah, I put out my first solo record, full length album, called Living It Up, and then also continue to write with not only country artists but some rock artists as well here in town. Wound up with another cut with a girl named Priscilla Block who got signed to Universal Records. I've had several cuts with independent artists out of Nashville which has been great. And I continue to write, you know, three times a week, usually here in town.
So it's all been mostly country with some rock, and then more recently you've moved into Trop Rock?
Yes I would say it's coming up on three years now. And you know her well, I think you had her on your podcast, Kirstie Kraus. She asked me to do, like, a weekend run up in Wisconsin, um, for a Parrothead Party, Jimmy Buffett thing, up there. I can't remember the name right now, the place that we played at but we played at two or three places and Eric (Babin) was there from Radio TropRock. And Bruce was there, and we did an event up there, and on the way up she told me all about the genre, and she pointed out about a dozen songs of mine that I was playing all the time, but she said, you're doing this and you don't even know you're doing it. You know, right?
And she also knows I grew up at the beach, I grew up at the Jersey Shore. I love the beach and I love summer, and she said this is what you should be doing. And sure enough, I had a great time that weekend, and Bruce just sort of inadvertently said to me at the end of it, you should do a Trop Rock album for us, you know, and, and I took it to heart, and came back to Nashville and started writing. And that's when I put together Days in the Sun.
So are you now focused more on Trop Rock, or is it just still a mix or do they just cross over naturally?
Well they crossed over naturally but now I'm a hundred percent in with the Trop Rock. You know, we released the EP, I guess that was 2023. 2024 was a couple of singles including - you can't see but I got my Sunrise Vibes coffee mug right here – Sunrise Vibes with Monallo.
I was going to ask you about that. I love that song.
Oh thank you. And same thing this year. I think this year I'm definitely going to put out two singles in the beginning of the of the year, and then I might hold off and, and put an album together, but that's still in the works.
But, yeah, I’m in. I love it!
So, in your experience, what distinguishes a Trop Rock / Island Music song from a country music song?
I think with Trop Rock, everybody still loves, you know, the story song and the songs that definitely have meaning. But you can be a little bit ... you can have a little bit more fun with it. Everybody likes hear a little bit of a you know, just something a little funny or play on words or something like Kirstie and I’s song Tide Down. You know, it's really T-I-D-E tide down. You know, it’s just things like that. It's just fun, and then you can be serious you know. I have a song on my EP called Beach Up in Heaven and that's a very serious song, and I mentioned my brother who I lost when I was 18. And so it really it mirrors it in a way but I just love how you can have fun with it, you know.
Kirstie and I can do something silly like Tropic Wonderland you know?
Right, so you travel a lot. Give me a glimpse of what your life is like as a musician, and how you balance your professional life with your personal life.
Um, well, it was more difficult in the past for some reason but that was mainly because whoever I was with didn’t really join in with me. And now my fiance Grace loves the Trop Rock world as well. We've been together for little over two years now, so she's kind of been in it since I kind of started and so we travel together. She's been to Meeting of the Minds and a bunch of things like that. She actually did the cover of Tropic Wonderland for us. She helped me design it, which is great. And we run an events business here in Nashville and do weekly events all summer long and work together on that. And then hit the road, you know, usually on Thursdays and whatnot to go out to different Trop Rock events or to concerts or house concerts or shows that I have to do so.
Now it's kind of all one which is great you know. In the past it used to be difficult to go on the road, and there would be times, especially in the Mulch Brothers where we were gone for, you know, six weeks at a time, sometimes even more than that, you know, and then we come home and maybe do laundry, and then get back in the bus and go again and keep going. So this has been much easier, and it's so much fun. As you know, there's a lot of couples that travel around together, so we have gotten to know a lot of people, and it's been great.
Do you have favorite places to perform? I know you do house concerts and you do venues like Meeting of the Minds and a lot of other things.
It's funny, um. the Hangout, where Meeting of the Minds is now was a big Mulch Brothers place. There was a summer that I think we played there almost every month. So I'm really happy to be back playing at that venue. That such a great venue, with the stage that overlooks the Gulf of Mexico. And I love playing down at Key West, and so I'd say those those two areas. It's always fun to go home to Jersey and play.
You mentioned the house concerts. That's the thing that I'm most interested in. I've done a couple so far in the Trop Rock world, but I'm trying to do several this year. And I really, really like that aspect of it.
Because you get a smaller crowd, you get to interact with the fans. It's just more personal, right?
Yes. It’s great, and the food's usually really good too (laughing).
So some of your most successful songs, your Trop Rock songs, have been collaborations. You did, with Kirstie Kraus, you did Tide Down and Tropic Wonderland, and with Monallo you did Sunrise Vibes and you did Days in the Sun with another Wisconsinite Brecken Miles.
That's right.
Is that the nature of the Trop Rock / Island Music community? Is it sort of unique that way? Is there a lot more of that going on?
I feel like there is. That's another thing that I love about it is everybody's very collaborative and inclusive, and there's, you know, doesn't seem to be like a competitive kind of thing, it's like, let's all do stuff together.
I got a new one coming out that'll probably be, I think, the next two will probably be me by myself but then I got an idea for to that I have to pitch to another Trop Rock artist that I want to work with, and I do love that. I love the collaboration.
Me and Monallo, that was a great full circle moment, because we actually met outside of the Trop Rock world at a songwriter festival in Fort Myers Beach a couple years ago called the Island Hopper Song Writer Festival, and then we ran into each other at Meeting of the Minds not this past year but the year before - 2023 - and we were just like, oh, you're doing this? I'm doing this too. And we start talking, and oh we should do something together, and kind of left it at that. And then Sunrise Vibes kind of happened on its own, which was great, but it was a great full circle moment to wind up doing something together.
Which one of you originated Sunrise Vibes?
Technically Monallo, no technically, sorry, technically Monallo's wife, because she took a picture of the sunrise down in Fort Myers. She would apparently do this every once in a while on the way to work, and send it to him. He posted it on Instagram and just simply put Sunrise Vibes. And I texted him immediately when I saw it on Instagram, and said that's our song, we have to write that, let's write it. And I had some ideas already come into my head, and I texted it to him, and he texted me back some more lines, and I texted him back some lines, and the next thing I knew I had another text from him and it was a voice memo, and he had started singing a little bit, and then I sent him something back and sang back some more, and then a month later we finished it on Zoom. And then he came to Nashville and we recorded it here.
I love that. And that song just as has such an upbeat feel to it. It just is a fun song to listen to. It makes you feel good listening to it.
Thank you.
I do love to hear those stories about how songs came into existence. Tell me a little bit about Tide Down. How did that come about, with Kirstie Kraus.
With Kirstie, it was, of course, being that she introduced me to the genre I wanted to make sure that we wrote something together for the first EP.
And we got together one day here in Nashville, and just I think we started talking about how it's funny because i wasn't, you know, dating someone at that time and neither was she, and we were both having trouble with balancing it, like you said. And then we start talking about that and how, like it's hard to, you know, you can't really get tied down being a musician, and then we did the play on the title T-I-D-E and tried to throw in some lyrics that fit that and then basically just started singing about how, you know, if you if you want to be with us you're probably gonna have to come with us and otherwise we can't be tied down and it really came together quick.
And then the recording was super fun because I got to use my band here in Nashville, played on it live, Brecken’s on it, even, he's clapping, part of the clap crew on it and the clapping.
And it just was great fun, we had a great time we did that with we recorded it with Lee Turner who works with Darius Rucker and several other artists here in Nashville. And then we finished it with Daniel Dennis, who's the guy that I use for most of my stuff, I work with on most of my recordings. Just super fun, and what that song has done, and how it really helped me break into the genre just blows my mind.
It's a unique song because it's like part country, part rock, part blues, part Trop Rock. It kind of mixes it all together into one song.
Maybe that's what did it. Even when I catch it on the radio, you know, sometimes , the beginning of it, I’m like, oh what's this (laughing)? And I know it's me, I guess, you know, and that's a good sign because it's just got a great ... and I think part of that is because we were all, you know, we were all together at the studio. The band got to jam on it and it just has a really fun live feel to it, and I’m just really grateful that everybody got behind that.
And you mentioned this earlier a little bit, one of your most beautiful and meaningful songs is Beach Up in Heaven. Can you tell us a little bit more about the story behind that song?
Sure. Um, that was a tough one to just write, and even a tougher one to sing. It's still a tough one to sing. Grace has encouraged me to perform it every time I play if I can, because everybody kind of has that place, and a lot of people have the same story.
Um so it's mostly about where I grew up and where we spent our summers which is Ocean Beach New Jersey. A lot of people know Seaside Heights New Jersey and Point Pleasant New Jersey area, the boardwalks and stuff.
And then I sing about hoping to see my brother again, which I lost my brother when I was 18, he was 29. And just to me ... I read a book that was called What if God Was the Sun, and it was basically about a guy who doesn't understand why he keeps going to the same party every day, and it's a family party. And all of his relatives are there, and all the people that he loves, and he starts to realize that other people that are there have passed away, and then he realizes that he's actually crossed over himself.
And so it came from a very heavy kind of thing like that. I got together with my two co-writers here in Nashville and told them that story, and then told them that I wanted it to be that to me heaven would be being, you know, at Ocean Beach every day, but everyone who's passed is back, you know, we're all back together again. And to me, that would be my version of heaven.
And I also got to, we had right about the time that I was writing it. I had the idea in my head for a while, and right at the time we were writing it, two months before that, I lost one of my best friends, who was like a brother to me, and he was in our band, the Lemongrass Band, a band we had in Jersey that did really well for a while. Two of my family members - my nephew and my brother in law - were in it, and so A.J. (Perna), our bass player, we lost him suddenly. And so there's a part - that second verse - about, you know, we'll play guitars among the stars and play Springsteen all night long, and we'll get the band back together before too long, is about, you know, someday we'll all get to play together again.
I think that that's a version of heaven for a lot of us, and I I'm very sorry about your brother, and I'm sure he would be touched by that beautiful song,
Thank you. Appreciate that.
If you were sitting, sitting around a campfire on the beach with a drink in your hand, what would be one of your favorite stories you'd tell about your life of songwriting and performing.
Ooof. I'm not sure, that's a tough one, there's been so many great things, but I think that part of it is getting to meet people.
Um, I've had been really lucky some of my friends have become really big rock stars so I got to hang out with Eddie Van Halen one night when the Mulch Brothers got signed, we were at an after party, I think the CMA Awards or something, and we had just cut Danny’s Song by Kenny Loggins which is one of my favorite all time songs, and we did our own version of it, and Kenny Loggins was at the party, so we got introduced to him. And that was something I never thought would happen in my life. He’s like my favorite singer, and I got to talk to him and tell him that we cut it, and tell him how much the song meant to me.
So things like that, and then you know, there's been countless shows and things and it's always great too when, as a songwriter, it's always great when someone, anyone, whether they're signed to a major label, or whether they're independent, it's always very, very flattering to have someone cut your song, whether you co-wrote it or whether you ... that's just a big, big, big deal.
Sometimes, for me, a certain simple line in a song can connect with me. For example, “living the high life the best we can” in your song High Life. There's just something about that simple line, “the best we can” because, you know, we all want to live the high life, but we all have certain restrictions, whether they're financial or health or whatever that kind of redefine what high life will be for each of us. So it becomes living the high life the best we can. Right? So what would you describe as the high life.
Um, my life! (laughing) The fact that I get to play music for a living, the fact that we get to, for the most part, you know, make our own schedule and get to go to all these great places and hang out with all these fun people and just have a good time. I hope this comes across the right way, I hear a lot of people say, you know, oh that's on my bucket list. That's on my bucket list, and I'm always thinking, my life is kind of a bucket list. I don't know, right, I've been really lucky, I have been really lucky to get to do what I've always dreamed of doing, so that's living the high life because, you know, that to me ... people talking you know what are you going to do when you're retire? Ah, I think I might be retired already. I don't know I'm already doing what I want to do. I don't ever want to stop playing music, unless I can’t play music. So I’m just lucky.
It's appreciating the things you have, is what it boils down to, right? And you've had a lot of success that you can appreciate, so you're very lucky that way.
Thank you.
What are some of the favorite lines that you have written in your songs? Is there, are there one or two that you're like, oh I’m really proud of that line the way it came out?
Oh I don't know, that's a tough one, that's almost like getting into who's your favorite kid and stuff like. I can't think of one right now, I mean that's a tough one. I'm also really bad at remembering my lyrics off the top of my head.
I can understand that when you have so many. ... So how many songs that you sing and perform are songs that you wrote yourself?
Oh like I said in the Trop Rock world, everything I'm singing is pretty much my own, stuff that I either wrote on my own or co-wrote, a lot of it is co-writing. And then if I do a longer gig, I will basically do 80% my own stuff, 20% covers, and it's always covers that shaped my music, you know, so of course Jimmy but, you know the Eagles and Tom Petty and The Band is one of my favorites, the Beatles. Then, when we're doing the Trop Rock shows, I like to do, like, summer anthems, things that will make people remind them of summer like Summer of 69 or, you know any song that you kind of ... I do some John Mellencamp is one of my biggest songwriting influences and one of my favorite artists, so I'll do some Mellencamp. That seems to remind people of a certain, certain summer in their life.
So tell me a little bit about how the music industry works, and your experiences with it. Are you signed with a record company? Are you considered an independent artist. How do you navigate the business end of all of that?
Now I'm independent, which is great, especially with the tools that we have now with social media and digital distribution where you can press a button and send your music out to the world basically. The music business itself is tough. It's a tough, tough business (laughing and quoting Hunter S. Thompson: “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”)
But you know, overall, it's still you know it's still an amazing thing to be a part of.
I've had, like you said, I've been super lucky to have some good success with it. And, like I said, it's great to have someone cut your song, especially if they put it out as a single. I've had people do that. I've had several songs in film and TV and even commercials, so that's always a kick to, you know, for your song to be in a movie or a TV show and then sit in a movie theater and watch your name come up. I'm someone who always watched all the credits at a movie, even when I was a kid, so to be able to sit in the movie and wait and see your name come across the screen for, you know, you wrote a song that was used in it, all of that is just, you know, irreplaceable.
It sounds like you're, you're pretty much tapping into at all the different angles of the music industry.
Yeah, trying to.
The writing, the performing, getting into the movies, commercials.
And it really never gets old to hear your song on the radio. That's the number one thing, you know. All the Trop Rock stations, you know, Radio Trop Rock or Tiki Man Radio, or Dockside any of the ones just like. And if I happen to be listening and, and boom. you know, Sunrise Vibes comes on or Tide Down or any of the songs I'm just like wow, it never gets old. It never gets old to hear your song come on the radio.
Do you have a regular band that you perform with on the road or do you mostly do solo performances on the road, and then a band in the studio, or how do you navigate that?
I've been doing a lot of solo acoustic stuff but I really want to get back to doing full band. And we did a couple full band shows last year. I have my guys and my buddies here in Nashville that are kind of like my first call, and what's great about this town is you could put a band together, you know, usually at any moment for, you know, for a show or for if you're going on the road for a couple weeks or whatever, so that’s super fun.
I like both you know. Sometimes if I've been doing the solo acoustic thing for a little too long I need to get back to, you know, getting some of my buddies together and getting out on the road and doing some full band shows. And we hope to do more full band shows this year.
And what's coming up for you musically, what's next? Do you have any more collaborations coming up, any big new songs you're going to be releasing?
I got a couple in the works and a couple ideas. I just finished one yesterday that I'm super excited about, and then I think they'll be at least two singles coming out before I decide if I'm going to just release singles all year again like I did last year, or if I'm going to pause for a bit on the recording and get an album’s worth of material together. I'm hoping to go down - I don't know if you know Alan Jax Bowers - I really want to get down - Alan's he's a Jersey boy, and we didn't know that until we really got talking to each other, so that was a great connection - but I really want to get down to that studio (Mudcut South Studios) and do at least a song, you know, with him, and that might be the next. The next single will probably be recorded there.
I did just finish the collaboration songwriting-wise with Krystal King. Do you know Krystal King?
I know that she's a friend of Kirstie’s.
Right, she plays with Kirstie. We wrote a really. fun song that we're going to do, you know, that'll be another collaboration release. So that's one of the three that are already on deck for a release in the first part of the year.
All right, great, we look forward to all of that.
Awesome Thank you.
I appreciate your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add that people should know about Mark March.
I'm trying to get used to (the fact that) everybody in Trop Rock seems to be more Facebook than Instagram, but you can follow me on Instagram @markmulchmusic, and markmulchmusic.com is my website, and friend me on Facebook.
And I just want to let everybody know that I'm ready to play. So if you have a house concert or an event or a bar or if you're camping somewhere and you need some music, let me know.
All right, that's great. I hope that I get to run into you at Music on the Bay coming up.
Sounds good.
All right thanks, Mark, I appreciate your time.
Thanks for having me, Bill.
