The Shins Turn On The Night

06/23/09 1:47pm

by Noah Love (CHARTattack)

Indie rock's most unlikely stars delay inevitable success

The Shins' third full-length, Wincing The Night Away, wasn't supposed to come out more than three years after Chutes Too Narrow. If everything had gone according to plan, the new LP would have seen the light of day as early as late 2005, and no later than the summer of 2006. But then Garden State happened. When Natalie Portman told Zach Braff The Shins were the band that would change his life, the lives that truly changed were those of James Mercer, Dave Hernandez, Marty Crandall and Jesse Sandoval, New Mexico's new favourite sons.

"We toured for Chutes Too Narrow for two years, and that was just off and on touring, one month on and one month off," Mercer recalls. "So then Garden State came out and suddenly we had to tour again for the first record again, and we had bigger shows, so it was kind of more enticing. And you want to win the bread and all that stuff, so finally we were like, 'We've gotta write another goddamn record.'"

But for The Shins, and for the perfectionist Mercer, that wasn't a cut-and-dry proposition. Deadlines were set and then missed, all in the name of getting it right. Of course, it's probably a little tough to swallow if you're Sub Pop and your biggest moneymaker, whom your entire release schedule hinges on, alters the way you're prepared to conduct business for a given six-month period.

"I think it was my inability to estimate how long it will take me to do this stuff,"
Mercer explains. "When Sub Pop calls me up and says, 'So OK, how far along on the record are you?' And I'm just sitting there trying to guess how much more time it'll take me. I think I was just always underestimating. I just kept putting tentative dates up and saying, 'Man, I'm not even close to done.' "When you start getting asked, 'Can you have it in three months?' and you think, well, three months, that's a long time, some bands will do a whole record in two weeks.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, shit, I can do it in three months.' Then I'm lost," he laughs.

Deadlines aside, Mercer's obsession with lyrics also dragged the process a bit. The one thing that has remained consistent with The Shins since the beginning has been the singer's ability to craft words that are sincere, poetic and, most importantly, unembarrassing. They're unique in that they're memorable, yet they never detract from the melody or structure of the songs.

"I think I try to avoid clichés, that's one of the things I try to do," he says. "I don't think I always succeed, but I try hard at that. Sometimes you hear lyrics and you think, 'Ah shit, that's a little too much information,' or just something will be kind of embarrassing to listen to and I guess maybe sometimes I can feel when I'm writing and I just change it if I'm getting that feeling. There's a lot of drafts going on with my lyrics."

The real challenge for The Shins with Wincing The Night Away, however, will be maintaining their popularity while moving past the ubiquity of Garden State. Whether fans who picked up Oh, Inverted World will make the quantum leap to the more electronic sounds of the new LP remains to be seen. One thing is certain, though: Mercer doesn't regret the infamous movie moment for an instant.

"I am very happy about what it's done for my career," he stresses. "I don't pretend to be unhappy about success or something. It's good. I think it's what everyone is trying to have happen." Although, he admits with a chuckle, "it's maybe cheat-ing or something to have a big movie come out and say that you're a great band
or something."

bonus sidebar
Towing The Line

Wincing The Night Away has more electronic sounds than its predecessors, which Mercer says came from working on a soundtrack for a documentary.

"Matt McCormick did a documentary about tugboats called Towlines and I did the soundtrack for it, and I ended up using sequencing software and stuff like that for it, and I just really enjoyed it. It's part of the vernacular now, you know. I mean it's this whole electronica thing, and it's on a lot of the records that I listen to, so it would kind of naturally end up on something."

This feature is from the February 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue, go to the Chart Shop.