Carol Hilker

"You watch your phraseology!" says Mayor Shinn to Harold Hill in "The Music Man."

James Mercer took the advice to heart.

"It was my dad's favorite musical. There is a character, Mayor Shinn, who kind of runs the fate of Harold Hill forming his band," says Mercer, singer/songwriter/guitarist for The Shins, "I also just liked the way it sounded. It's a decision I'm proud of."

Long ago, in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a young Mercer would walk around singing sappy, melancholy songs. "I remember being like seven and writing songs about 'coming to the mist' and stuff like that."

He would accompany his father, an electrical engineer, to his moonlighting gig, playing small nightclubs in New Mexico. Mercer soon learned to play the piano, picked up a guitar at 17, and ten years later formed a ruckus-y, punk-inspired pop band, Flake.

Five years into Flake, Mercer started to have some "serious aspirations and interesting musical ideas," resulting in a song titled, cleverly enough, "The Shins." Soon after that, The Shins were formed as a Flake side project and Mercer began concentrating more attention on writing songs for The Shins, developing a more focused, crafted sound than Flake's charming, if somewhat rambling, collaborative style. In 1998, Modest Mouse, a band they had met on a tour through Southern California three years earlier, requested them as an opening band on their Texas dates, which led to a string of chaotic performances with three songs as Flake, three as Sommersault (a side project that keyboardist Marty Crandall played in) and three as The Shins.

When The Shins began to take over Mercer's consciousness, Flake started to fade away. Within months, the remaining Flake members moved out-of-state, as did the Shins' dual-banded bass player, and much of Crandall's Sommersault. When the dust settled, The Shins were the only band left standing. Ironically, the musicians who filled the void left by those who departed had actually been in Flake's original lineup. So, in an odd case of full-circle development, The Shins ultimately wound up in exactly the same configuration that had launched Flake in 1992, with the only difference being that Langford and Crandall switched instruments.

"Oh, Inverted World" was conceived during the rise of such bands as Death Cab for Cutie and The Doves, when pop was battling Britney Spears and rock was battling pop and most pop bands were claiming to be rock. Mercer is happy with a pop title. "In a way," Mercer notes, "any recording less than four minutes like the Ramones is pop. Punk is still pop. I think it has more to do with pop culture than anything. Certain people have knowledge of popularity, that's probably why I concentrate on good lyrics."

"Oh, Inverted World" started out as nothing more than Mercer playing around with his recording equipment. He produced 75 percent of the record in the course of a year at his home studio. Having gone to high school in England and having lived briefly in Germany, it was hard to avoid a heavy influence of Brit rock. Their music ended up sounding more like the love child of Echo and The Bunnymen and The Beach Boys than a mess of homemade rawness, but they eventually caught the ear of Zeke Howard from the indie band Love as Laughter, who asked Mercer for a demo, which he passed on to Sub Pop Records. A few short months later, critics and fans also caught hold of the record.

The release of their second album, "Chutes Too Narrow," sold more than 250,000 copies, and garnered more critical acclaim than "Oh, Inverted World." But do they worry about crippled creativity as their career takes off?

"Time constraints are the biggest worry," Mercer says. "When you suddenly have to answer to a label, you have deadlines. And in the future we hope to spend more time with the album."

And with acclaim comes more. "It was flattering," Mercer says of his song's prominence in the hit film "Garden State." "Zach [Braff] needed filler for that scene. The Shins are his favorite band." The soundtrack has been on the Billboard charts for more than thirty weeks.

The Shins are no strangers to soundtracks and have become one of the few indie bands to "sell out" while keeping a certain level of dignity. Their songs have been the feature of a Gap ad, the "Wicker Park" Soundtrack, "The Gilmore Girls," countless references on "The OC," "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," "Garden State" and even a McDonald's commercial, helping fast-track their success. All four members grew up in blue-collar households and welcome any chance to get their music heard. "It's making a living," Mercer says. "It's one thing to be poor and smart, but if you are poor and stupid, then you're just a dumbass."

Mercer adds with a smile, "Over and over I say, it's what you put into it, that's what you get out."

The Shins play a sold-out show at The Congress Theatre, 2135 North Milwaukee, on April 14.

(2005-04-12)

Also by Carol Hilker

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