“Let me ask you a question; if you had to sit in a bathtub full of used syringes and acne puss, or drink a scab-and-acne milkshake, which would you choose?” asks Isaac Brock , front man for one of today's most notorious indie rock bands, Modest Mouse . Brock is renowned for his heavily-opinionated attitude towards music, but quickly slips into topics like eating acne when he gets bored with answering serious questions, which makes him a bit of a challenge to interview.
It's Saturday night and Brock's sitting in a Saskatchewan bar burning time before the band's next show. “It'll be the smallest place we've played in probably six years or more,” he says of Amigo's in Saskatoon . Brock explains that Modest Mouse formed in '92 when he began recording in a shed built next to his parents' house in Issaquah, a Seattle suburb. Since then, he's moved up to Calvin Johnson's Dub Narcotic Studios where his band has produced numerous EPs and LPs, including the recently popularized The Moon and Antarctica.
Most of those recordings sound unmistakably similar to The Pixies , but it's better not to ask Brock if he's affected by the comparison. Questions like the preceding one are why Brock once stopped doing interviews entirely, as he's not fond of being compared, or of the music-recycling trend. “I can say that indie music has gone in a direction where people are no longer borrowing and turning things around; they're treating music like a vintage clothing store, trying on whatever style it is that's going on right now,” he remarks.
Brock seems a little less opinionated on the matter of commercialization, however. Nissan's latest TV ad features a loop of “ Gravity Rides Everything ,” the second track from the band's latest major release, The Moon and Antarctica . Although, some fans may think that lending their song to a corporation means Modest Mouse has “sold out,” Brock describes it as way to pay rent. “I just wish it was less ‘soccer mom' and more artful,” he quips.
Being a more artful band also means that most of the Modest Mouse's lyrics are hard to decode, but just like so many other topics that seem to grate his nerves, Brock finds being questioned about song meanings irritating. “The lyrics make sense to me,” he says. “But you get out of it what you get out of it.” In fact, Brock says there are times when he believes it's better for people to come to their own conclusions about what a song means. “There's this song by Bedhead that I thought was really beautiful and then I found out it was about a bedside table, so I was better off not knowing.”
Modest Mouse spent the past summer working on a new record, the release date of which, Brock confirms, should be February of next year. “We're done recording but there's still some mixing to do; Wayne Coyne and Dave Fridmann from the Flaming Lips are going to come in and do that,” he reveals.
With the combination of their past projects and the upcoming album—which Brock describes as being one-third “trying to stay positive,” and two-thirds being “hard to explain”—it's apparent that the band is hoping to encounter another wave of hipster success. For Brock, that's one more thing he can add to his resumé, not that he's really keeping track. “When we started this, I didn't expect anything,” he concludes.
ISAAC BROCK'S CRAZIEST TOUR EXPERIENCE
“Some guy made me sign his dick once; I just about ripped it off. I was drunk and kind of pissed that he would ask, so I'm was like, ‘okay, fucking fine, here you go'…yank!”
ISAAC BROCK ON SUPERPOWERS
“If someone said you can have a superpower, but you had to put a piece of dog shit in your mouth, would you do it?… Did I mention that the superpower is super tastebuds?”
ISAAC BROCK'S THOUGHTS ON THE MUSIC BIZ
“Huge fucking lack of imagination. Most top-40 rock is the worst fucking shit I've heard in my whole life.”
ISAAC BROCK'S BIGGEST SECRET
When Brock is asked if there's anything really interesting about the band that no one knows about, Isaac says that he just can't answer that one. “I'm an organ in a body and I don't really have an opinion about the liver, wait…I think my analogy's falling short.”
ISAAC BROCK ON CRAZY FAN SHIT
“There's actually been some really nuts shit…People tracked down my address at one point. I've gotten a lot of haircuts [from fans], but once you get a haircut from someone they're a friend, not a fan.”
ISAAC BROCK'S PRE-SHOW RITUALS
“We don't really have any rituals. We drink, [but] we won't hold hands around a table and fucking get primped you know?”
MODEST MOUSE hits the Polish American Club -Miami on February 12
with Eugene Mirman and The Helio Sequence
epoplife.com
Remember the Ocean
Not what you would expect.
" RTO is different from typical bands found locally in that they are not fronted by an angry 20 something guy with wacky hair and a serious ‘tude, they're not hardcore and overly self-absorbed, they're not narcissistic nor disingenuous."
Do you know who Natalie Merchant is? Do you remember her band from the 80's and 90's— 10,000 Maniacs ? 10,000 Maniacs was one of the Avant Garde in the ascension of “alternative” music. You might remember them from 120 Minutes on MTV ; this is where VJ's like Matt Pinfield and Dave Kendall got a chance to turn people on to what was new and cool. Those days are gone. But I'm confident that Pinfield and Kendall would have loved a few of our local acts. I am thinking and writing of one in particular and I mention 10,000 Maniacs and Natalie Merchant by name because there's this band that has the same sort of resonance and power, minus the tragic hipness and painful conceit. Plus there's the obvious parallel of the lone female singer.
The band of which I speak is called Remember the Ocean ( RTO ). RTO is different from typical bands found locally in that they are not fronted by an angry 20 something guy with wacky hair and a serious ‘tude, they're not hardcore and overly self-absorbed, they're not narcissistic nor disingenuous.
The petit woman ( Kristen Larkin ) who is responsible for the lyrics and has a timbre in her voice reminiscent of Merchants' fronts RTO . The other founding member of the band is guitarist Earl Coralluzzo who is hip, but not overtly so. It's more of an early Weezer sort of cool—you can tell he played Dungeons and Dragons at some point in his life and he's ok with that. I sat down with the two of them before their last show. Afterward, Larkin return to Nashville, Tennessee (where she calls home today).
RTO's new album, Tomorrow After Dark was recorded in Miami and released in mid-December. It differs from the first disc in the increase of band members which leads to a much fuller sound than the group exhibited on their first disc, titled Ruth after Coralluzzo's ailing grandmother. Coralluzzo still lives in Broward County but he and the other members of the band often travel up to Nashville to play live shows and practice with Larkin, though it usually flows in the other direction with Larkin coming to Florida.
About the addition of the new members of the band Coralluzzo spoke mainly of Bassist Thom Hammond saying he is both the “… real musician and the techie,” while Hammond busied himself with setting up the equipment for the show. Larkin's soft laughter and demure style makes her intoxicating to be around. But we sat around and chatted before they went on and having gone into this cold, in other words I went into it having no real familiarity with the band and building expectations based on the musings of others, I had no idea what I was walking into. Larkin and Coralluzzo put me right at ease and before I knew it, I was the one being interviewed.
The one thing they spoke of extensively was the mixing and production of the newest album. About the album Coralluzzo says with the prideful smile of a father of a newborn, “We spent a lot of time and money on this one and I'm pleased with the results.” Their enthusiasm was evident and my excitement built nearly to the boiling point when the show commenced. This band is far removed from the one that I read about in New Times , where they were timid and overly enthusiastic—they now have the cool confidence of veterans without being a pain in the ass to be around.
With Coralluzzo in bare feet and Larkin swaying in front of her mic (the only thing missing was the Oriental rug) my intoxication continued until I had to literally tear myself away. The energy of the crowd was overwhelming and oppressive but it was apparent how much the crowd was in love with the band. I left the show a fan, completely in spite of myself. If the difference between the first and the latest disc is any indication of the band's growth arc then we can expect them to age beautifully just like a fine wine or a memory.
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