Imitator
04-14-2003, 09:40 AM
I will post more articles when more are found.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/03-04/14.shtml
Modest Mouse Drummer Quits, Band Entering Studio This Week to Begin Recording Fourth Full-Length
Broken thumb the final straw
Ryan Schreiber reports:
Last week, rumors began flying that longtime Modest Mouse drummer Jeremiah Green had left the band after more than ten years serving as their inimitable backbone. His departure from Modest Mouse, it was said, would allow him to focus his energy on The Vells, a newly formed pop band he's been drumming with recently. The Vells, which features members of Red Stars Theory, Stagger Lee, and The Blessed Light, just released their self-titled six-song debut EP on Luckyhorse Industries, the Pacific Northwest label run by ex-Built to Spill/Red Stars Theory/764-HERO bassist James Bertram and photographer Amanda Graham.
Concerned fans suspected that this might mean the end of Modest Mouse, but frontman Isaac Brock, speaking to Pitchfork by telephone from Portland on Friday, assured us that he and bassist Eric Judy are soldiering onward. The band has temporarily hired on Benjamin Wiekel (aka one-half of the indie pop duo The Helios Sequence) to fill in for Green on drums at live shows and on some of the next Modest Mouse full-length, which the band is already in the process of laying down.
Modest Mouse had put some time into recording bits of the new record with Moon and Antarctica producer Brian Deck and reliable ol' Phil Ek before Green left the band, but the sessions were fraught with tension, and the band decided to scrap the material. "Phil and I weren't seeing eye to eye," said Brock. "We just decided we needed to start clean after everything that had gone on, do it in a different place with different people, just start this whole project over. We shitcanned probably six of the songs. Writing wasn't going easy with Jeremy, and then there was other shit, like I broke my thumb, just stupid stuff."
When asked if the split with Green was amicable, Brock replied, "No, I wouldn't say that. No, it wasn't. It's not like we're really dealing with Jeremy, anyway. We don't know where Jeremy is, really. He just wasn't in a good spot. [The split is] not necessarily permanent, but he's got a lot of shit going on with him right now that I shouldn't really talk about. I think he's in and out of The Vells, too. I totally fucking wish Jeremy the best and all that. I hope that he can stay in The Vells."
Despite the fallout, Brock seems as ambitious as ever in regards to the new sessions, saying the band will be heading into Oxford, Mississippi's Sweet Tea Studios next week to begin recording with Dennis Herring, whose resume includes producing albums for Sparklehorse, Throwing Muses, and Camper Van Beethoven, among others. "We've written 16 songs and countin'. We're getting this Salvation Army band from New Orleans to do some stuff, and we've got this fella named Tom [Peloso] from The Hackensaw Boys from West Virginia-- they're this campy hillbilly band-- and he's playing stand-up bass with a bow on one song." Brock also mentioned that the band is in talks with an unnamed session drummer from Tennessee and Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington about making possible contributions to the record.
The album, which is as-yet untitled, will be Modest Mouse's fourth official studio full-length, not including compilations like Building Nothing Out of Something, which collected various seven-inches and B-sides, and Sad Sappy Sucker, a K Records collection of the band's earliest recordings. Working titles for some of the new songs include "The World at Large", "Bury Me with It", "The Ocean Breeze Is Salty", and "The Good Times Are Killing Me".
The new album is tentatively slated for a September 1st release on Epic Records, though Brock did seem to hint at some uncertainty on where they stand with the label: "I don't know, I'll see how it's going. My A&R guy... I guess he was fired for no good reason. Wasn't having drinks with the right people, I guess. I don't know a single person who works at that label anymore except the head of the art department."
In the meantime, Modest Mouse have agreed to play a show this coming Memorial Day weekend at the Gorge Amphitheatre in rural Washington state, as part of the annual Sasquatch Music Festival. Other bands scheduled to make appearances include Coldplay, Flaming Lips, Jurassic 5, Neko Case, Death Cab for Cutie, Liz Phair, Calexico, My Morning Jacket, Pedro the Lion, and Minus the Bear. Date:
05-24 Quincy, Washington - Gorge Amphitheatre [Main Stage]
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/03-04/14.shtml
Modest Mouse Drummer Quits, Band Entering Studio This Week to Begin Recording Fourth Full-Length
Broken thumb the final straw
Ryan Schreiber reports:
Last week, rumors began flying that longtime Modest Mouse drummer Jeremiah Green had left the band after more than ten years serving as their inimitable backbone. His departure from Modest Mouse, it was said, would allow him to focus his energy on The Vells, a newly formed pop band he's been drumming with recently. The Vells, which features members of Red Stars Theory, Stagger Lee, and The Blessed Light, just released their self-titled six-song debut EP on Luckyhorse Industries, the Pacific Northwest label run by ex-Built to Spill/Red Stars Theory/764-HERO bassist James Bertram and photographer Amanda Graham.
Concerned fans suspected that this might mean the end of Modest Mouse, but frontman Isaac Brock, speaking to Pitchfork by telephone from Portland on Friday, assured us that he and bassist Eric Judy are soldiering onward. The band has temporarily hired on Benjamin Wiekel (aka one-half of the indie pop duo The Helios Sequence) to fill in for Green on drums at live shows and on some of the next Modest Mouse full-length, which the band is already in the process of laying down.
Modest Mouse had put some time into recording bits of the new record with Moon and Antarctica producer Brian Deck and reliable ol' Phil Ek before Green left the band, but the sessions were fraught with tension, and the band decided to scrap the material. "Phil and I weren't seeing eye to eye," said Brock. "We just decided we needed to start clean after everything that had gone on, do it in a different place with different people, just start this whole project over. We shitcanned probably six of the songs. Writing wasn't going easy with Jeremy, and then there was other shit, like I broke my thumb, just stupid stuff."
When asked if the split with Green was amicable, Brock replied, "No, I wouldn't say that. No, it wasn't. It's not like we're really dealing with Jeremy, anyway. We don't know where Jeremy is, really. He just wasn't in a good spot. [The split is] not necessarily permanent, but he's got a lot of shit going on with him right now that I shouldn't really talk about. I think he's in and out of The Vells, too. I totally fucking wish Jeremy the best and all that. I hope that he can stay in The Vells."
Despite the fallout, Brock seems as ambitious as ever in regards to the new sessions, saying the band will be heading into Oxford, Mississippi's Sweet Tea Studios next week to begin recording with Dennis Herring, whose resume includes producing albums for Sparklehorse, Throwing Muses, and Camper Van Beethoven, among others. "We've written 16 songs and countin'. We're getting this Salvation Army band from New Orleans to do some stuff, and we've got this fella named Tom [Peloso] from The Hackensaw Boys from West Virginia-- they're this campy hillbilly band-- and he's playing stand-up bass with a bow on one song." Brock also mentioned that the band is in talks with an unnamed session drummer from Tennessee and Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington about making possible contributions to the record.
The album, which is as-yet untitled, will be Modest Mouse's fourth official studio full-length, not including compilations like Building Nothing Out of Something, which collected various seven-inches and B-sides, and Sad Sappy Sucker, a K Records collection of the band's earliest recordings. Working titles for some of the new songs include "The World at Large", "Bury Me with It", "The Ocean Breeze Is Salty", and "The Good Times Are Killing Me".
The new album is tentatively slated for a September 1st release on Epic Records, though Brock did seem to hint at some uncertainty on where they stand with the label: "I don't know, I'll see how it's going. My A&R guy... I guess he was fired for no good reason. Wasn't having drinks with the right people, I guess. I don't know a single person who works at that label anymore except the head of the art department."
In the meantime, Modest Mouse have agreed to play a show this coming Memorial Day weekend at the Gorge Amphitheatre in rural Washington state, as part of the annual Sasquatch Music Festival. Other bands scheduled to make appearances include Coldplay, Flaming Lips, Jurassic 5, Neko Case, Death Cab for Cutie, Liz Phair, Calexico, My Morning Jacket, Pedro the Lion, and Minus the Bear. Date:
05-24 Quincy, Washington - Gorge Amphitheatre [Main Stage]