A cult hero of the US indie scene, Mark Eitzel's melancholy songwriting and love of rootsy country rock made American Music Club natural outsiders as a wave of alternative bands such as REM, Flaming Lips and The Lemonheads started to break through in the mid 1980s. Born into a military family, Eitzel lived in Taiwan, Britain and Ohio and played in punk bands before moving to San Francisco in 1982 to start AMC with guitarist Vudi and bassist Danny Pearson in 1982. Adopting the persona of a doomed romantic, hard-drinking crooner, Eitzel received critical acclaim for early albums The Restless Stranger (1985), Engine (1987) and the classic California (1988), but his wit became more sardonic and his mood more bitter as mainstream success eluded the band. Fifth album Everclear (1991) was named as record of the year by Rolling Stone magazine, but MTV took little interest and the band remained in the shadows as the grunge and Brit-pop scenes began to dominate the rock charts. Still recognised as one of the great lost songwriters of his generation by critics and peers, Eitzel went solo in the mid-1990s, but returned to AMC for albums Love Songs For Patriots (2004) and The Golden Age (2008).
