James Mercer
James Mercer
James Russell Merceris an American guitarist and musician. He is the founder, vocalist, lead singer-songwriter, and sole remaining original member of the indie rock group The Shins. In 2009, Mercer and producer Danger Mouse formed the side project Broken Bells, for which they released a self-titled album in March 2010, followed by After the Disco in 2014. Mercer has also acted, appearing in Matt McCormick's feature film Some Days Are Better Than Others, which premiered in 2010...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth26 December 1970
CityHonolulu, HI
CountryUnited States of America
When I started The Shins, it really was just me, alone, but it was still The Shins. I was totally recording stuff and writing songs as The Shins and all of that. So the beginning inception of the whole thing was some sort of a lie, I guess.
I tend to write a pretty half and half split of, like, slow, morose things and then sort of more upbeat stuff.
My attempt at really doing classic sort of songwriting is Shins stuff.
Lyrically, I think I'm frustrated with this whole process of trying to figure out what I believe about the world and life. I don't like to adopt a sort of guiding philosophy.
I don't like the idea of a singer-songwriter record. I don't picture myself that way, and it's not my favorite sort of look, I guess. It's really just an aesthetic thing.
I know that there are a lot of sort of silly things that one thinks as a music listener about bands. I am a fan of many bands.
I most enjoy sitting down with the acoustic guitar and just fiddling around and trying to come up with something like a hook or some sort of melodic line. That's something that I do habitually.
The Shins is, in a way, a recording project that turned into a live band. So I don't really keep myself beholden to any rules when I'm in the studio for Shins. I just gotta get it done as best I can.
I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.
The way I was brought up, there was a little bit of prodding to do something more practical, and I wasted a lot of time trying to be a practical person.
I've never been one to think it was cheating to sample this or to loop the drum part there - I've always done that. Even using four-track cassette recorders, I was always doing whatever I could to make it as good as I could.
I've always sort of felt like what the Shins is, I guess, is a vehicle for my writing.
There's not a lot of thinking that I need to do away from the studio on Broken Bells stuff.
So happy that Broken Bells is a thing in my life and really cool in so many ways. Not only, like, as something to sell records and be a band and whatnot, but just to give me an outlet and give me a fresh approach on things.