Interview: The Shins' James Mercer on 'Oh, Inverted World' at 20 Years
by Mary Lucia
June 16, 2021
Interview Transcription
Edited for clarity and length.
MARY LUCIA: Hey, it's The Current. I'm Mary Lucia, and I'm so happy to be talking to James Mercer of the Shins, hey James!
JAMES MERCER: Hello, how are you?
I'm good. You're in a basement? Or an attic?
Actually, it's neither. It's an old Carriage House. Kind of like a miniature barn, basically from the 1800s that we fixed up.
That is so cool. So the beams and everything, that's all original?
Yeah, exactly.
[gasps] Where are you?
So here I'm standing--I'm on one end of this thing. It's about 30 feet long and this area that I'm standing in--when we moved in, it was stalls for horses and it was really kind of cool. They were like modular, so they had posts at one end, and you could take out the planks and make one double size, it's very clever. Really neat and then space for a carriage.
Oh, that is so cool. So when was it built?
This is 1889. Pretty old for Portland.
Whoa, that is so cool. Well, yeah, I was just gonna say Minneapolis just seems to like if anything looks beautiful and amazing and historical. It's like, "Get rid of it!"
Yeah, I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico and they seem to have had the same attitude through the 60s and 70s. Just really cool buildings from the 1800s, and earlier even--and they just level them. They regret it now.
Of course, they always regret that. But somebody decided that it was like Mike Brady should be the architect from 1970 on. James let's talk about--I mean, obviously, a lot of people want to talk to you about commemorating the record, and if you look back, I think most musicians, when they look back at maybe something that introduced the world to their music, they might have a few regrets or a few cringers. Do you have anything even like that?
Oh, yeah, I do. One of the things I've noticed in listening back as we were remastering it, there's a lot of listening you go through, and it's just things like the drum sound I wish I could go back and fix. Just all kinds of things. I think I was a little bit ambitious with the orchestration of things. For the technology I had at hand--I pushed it too far sometimes.
Do you think--it's interesting you would have said that, because I just was really listening to Oh, Inverted World, and do you think it's drums that sound the most--or potentially, can sound the most dated? Or drum mix?
Right. That is a good question, and I think you have something there because definitely, when you go back to the 80s, there's a certain snare sound that they loved, like a gated reverb sound. It was on everything, all the metal records had it and all the way to Paula Abdul and stuff like that. It was everywhere. So yeah, there is a bit of that.
When you think about when you guys were even writing the songs however many years ago this was--I always wonder if a band knows, on some level of, "This is really good. This is good."
Yeah I felt pretty confident that there was something new happening, at least in my realm. I had been in a band called Flake for a long time in Albuquerque, and we would write songs together. It was kind of that thing of go down in the basement, drink some beers and jam and you'll come across something cool, "So okay, we'll do that two times. And then we'll go to another thing." It's a great, fun way to write songs and stuff, but it ended up like a mishmash of all the stuff we were listening to like the indie rock stuff from the 90s. So there was like, a pinch of Pavement and a little bit of Superchunk and stuff like that. Then I got really into oldies radio when I was driving to work and stuff, and just became fascinated with the song smithing that was going on in the old days. Just the classic chord structures and things like that, and the sort of naive way that things were put together lyrically, and so I had this hobby on the side, which was trying to write in sort of a classic pop sense. That was the beginning of The Shins because those songs that I was writing, it didn't really fit on the pop punk stage in Albuquerque. So I had nowhere to put them except for down to tape.
Obviously the support of Merge Records at that time, I just keep trying to go back to that time. I was in radio too and I'm trying to remember what what we were playing the hell out of at the time. But before your record came out, it seemed like there was a shift or something--am I imagining that that people just thought, I don't know, if labels wanted to take just a little bit of a chance or just move a little bit outside of a certain expectation?
Right. I think at SubPop, they were in that state of mind. They had been doing a lot of heavier music. They were kind of that grunge vibe out of Seattle, and had done really well with it. But right about the time they started talking to us, they signed St. Etienne, if you remember them.
Oh yeah.
They were doing some weird stuff. Then they started putting out like folk things. They were trying to branch out and looking for new new sounds and stuff, luckily. And luckily, I was doing something that was novel, I guess at the time.
Do you remember the first time unexpectedly that you heard a Shins song on the car radio?
On the radio? I'm not remembering specifically on the radio. I think it was a long time after we started to get some popularity. But I do remember this: I remember one night in Albuquerque, maybe we had been contacted by Sub Pop. But there was nothing set in stone. I walked past a house party, and somebody was playing "New Slang," and that song was only on our--it was on our web page.
Oh, wow!
You could download the file or whatever. So I was like, "Whoa, something--that's weird." That's a first for me.
I'd say that's even cooler than hearing it on a proper mixed single on the radio. I think that's--walking down the street and hearing it coming out of a house party? That's the coolest thing I've ever heard.
It certainly was like, word of mouth type thing. It was a really strange time. Because I was an introvert, so I didn't have a ton of social interactions and stuff. But I remember at one point, a couple girls coming up to me and just being like, "Are you the one who wrote that song? It's so pretty." And stuff like that, and I was like, "Oh, this is great. This is awesome."
Don't you think you're still an introvert?
Yeah, I am. It's definitely a big part of my personality.
I believe that people that sometimes are great performers, great conversationalists, great on the fly, meeting a group of people, they are the people that want to die inside each time. I identify that way as well. But we somehow gravitate towards a career in which it pushes our worst fear right to the surface.
Yeah, that's certainly the truth in my case. I'm glad of it. I'm thankful that I found something that kind of pushes me and forces me to interact more with people. I don't know what state I would be in if that hadn't happened. I mean, I might just be a recluse or something, which isn't healthy. It's not a not a good way to live really.
Did the pandemic and the quarantine and lockdown make you more anxious or did you just find some creative ways to manage it?
There's been a fair bit of anxiety that's kind of nameless, you know, it's not like I was sitting around afraid to die or something like that. I felt pretty confident that we could weather the storm. Now that things are sort of opening up there's a side of me that's a little worried. I don't exactly want to go back to the lifestyle I had before. I've been enjoying this peace and quiet, maybe a bit too much.
I think essentially for musicians and traveling musicians, yeah, I don't know what the world looks like right now, and especially to you what expectations are being put upon you to resume some of that old life. I imagine it'll trickle out slowly, like everything else has, but yeah, I'm right, right there with you where it's like, I'm not just dying to get into a mosh pit right now at all.
Yeah, right. And a lot of my social interactions nowadays are through the kids--so the kids' friends' parents and stuff like that. So you meet a lot of people that have very different backgrounds and stuff like that, which is interesting and fun and a lot of ways, but also taxing for an introvert like me, you know, it kind of costs.
So, are your kids in-person learning? Or have they been doing all of this from home?
They're in school now. So they they go every day. So it's back to how it was, I think they're wearing masks, yes, at school.
Okay, and what grades are we talking about here?
Let me see. First grade, and fifth grade, and eighth grade.
Oh, eighth grade, how's eighth grade going for that particular child? Because that strikes me in my mind as being one that I--like Elton John, or something I've completely blanked on and I can't even recall it.
Yeah, the grade I really hated was sixth grade. Going into middle school was a struggle for me. She's doing well. She was a little nervous, for sure, going back to school. But she's good. She's got a lot of friends and stuff like that. When I was a kid we would move around a lot. My dad was an Air Force guy so it was just constant erasure, and then try and build something again, and have it all disappear. So she's lucky she doesn't have that sort of thing.
When you mean trying to relate to your your kids' friends' parents, have you come across any of those that are big fans of The Shins or luckily are they just more interested in talking about garbage pickup or something?
Yeah, I've met some people who know who The Shins are. I think it's fun for them to meet me for a little while. It's interesting, I guess for a bit. But nothing too crazy. No sycophants or anything like that. I think it's just kind of an interesting lifestyle to people who have more of a workaday world that they live in.
A lot of my musician friends who make a living, making music--there's a sort of prevalent feeling that their neighbors just think they're unemployed. Because they're around, and it's like, "Oh, did you lose your job?" It's like, "No, I just--no." They don't want to really go into it. So it's just like, "I'd rather they think I'm unemployed, and just mowing the grass."
The worst thing for me is, like being at a party, we have some friends who are really well off. So they have these big parties, and the people who are there are professionals, mostly, I mean, they're lawyers and doctors and stuff like that. The worst thing is when I'm introduced to somebody new, and they just say, "Oh, James is a musician." And then the guy says, "Oh, you know what, my cousin is a musician too, and he plays over at the Holiday Inn every weekend," and you're like, "Agh," they assume that's what's going on, and that I'm living off of my wife or something. Which is fine. It's fine.
I thought you were gonna say they were like, "Oh, I know a musician. He plays second chair for the philharmonic." It's like, "Uh, wait." Well, if somebody were to offer Broken Bells, or The Shins a slot at a festival, would your first reaction be like, "Oh, no," or?
Right. Well, we have been offered things like that, actually, for next year. I did have reservations. I was just, you know, I don't know. It seems so far off, that lifestyle now. Am I really able to do that? I'm like, am I capable anymore? Of being on the bus and running across the country. But we're gonna find out. I'll have to do it. It's how I make my bread and butter.
That's right, other than living off your wife.
Other than that, yeah. She's great.
Well, James, thank you so much for taking the time. I love that beautiful space you are in. What's the system for heating and cooling in there? Is it just au natural?
No, we ran gas down here. So we've got a proper furnace. Yeah, it's pretty good. It gets kind of warm in the summertime. But I have one of those AC units you put in the window which kind of helps.
Yes. Well, thank you so much and enjoy your day.
Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you.
External Link
The Shins - official site
Credits
Host - Mary Lucia
Technical Director - Peter Ecklund
Producer - Derrick Stevens
Digital Producer - Jesse Wiza