The Music of Mark Mulch

Update: 2025-01-23

Description

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.”

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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?

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