GO WILD IN THE COUNTRY
A move out to the sticks has signalled a new direction in Mercury Rev’s sound. Words Chris Rolf.
"DESERTER’S Songs?" Jonathan Donahue wearily asks. "I suppose the title has some personal meaning to the group. Other than that , I won’t elaborate."
Mercury Rev’s singer isn’t the easiest person to interview, but it’s all part of this mysterious band’s charm. Their last release, the aforementioned Deserter’s Songs, once again featured liberal doses of the group’s haunting psychedelia. The album also signalled a new, more symphonic direction for the band, which critics have been praising ever since the record’s release.
"Basically we’re just learning new mistakes," says Donahue, who brings the hiatus-prone collective to T in the Park next weekend. "I think that the sounds are more subtle. It’s not necessarily a lot of crashing, distorted guitars. That’s where we were hoping to head - towards something that takes a little more to get hold of."
Instrumental to this more organised aesthetic was the group’s relocation from Poughkeepsie, New York to the increased seclusion of the Catskills. The move seemed only natural to the band, who formed in college and whose first efforts included homemade sound-tracks for TV wildlife shows.
"In the mountains," Donahue explains, "you step outside your house and you’re in a nature film. We just enjoy being on our own, away from all the music papers and things like that. Where we are now, there’s a lot of great musicians, but they all seem to live on their own as well. It just seems to work out a lot better." Still, their last record was a long time coming - the previous Mercury Rev album, See You On The Other Side, came out way back in 1995. In the interim, releases by the band’s unpredictable alias, The Harmony Rockets, have kept fans happy. Donahue expects this side project will continue in the future.
"I don’t see it as that different from Mercury Rev," he says. "It’s like walking on the other side of the street. The Rockets were simply a way to step out and do something more off the cuff, less pressured, without worrying about getting people together or out of jail."
In contrast to the years of relative inactivity, Mercury Rev has toured steadily for the last ten months. The band’s once volatile live performances have been replaced by a tight, confident stage presence, befitting of their latest musical direction. The have been some changes however. Bassist Dave Fridman remained at home to run his Tarvox Road studios, where Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips (who supported the band on their recent tour) have both recorded. Drummer Jimy Chambers also cut loose, and long-time flautist Suzanne Thorpe returned to college. For live sets, the band has recruited drummer Jeff Mercel, along with brothers Jason (bass) and Justin (keyboards/theremin) Russo. All hail from the upstate New York area.
Thorpe did, however return to co-produce last year’s solo album, The Orbit Of The Eternal Grace, by guitarist Grasshopper, which covered much of the freaky, effects-laden ground that Mercury Rev have decided to bypass. While Deserter’s Songs is still far from AM pop fodder, Donahue would just as soon put the "drug band" tag behind him. "I think people are going to put that label on anything that is undeniably non-mainstream and which has different sounds," he says. "If people come to your show and a third of the audience look like their tripping, they’ll automatically assume the band is tripping too. But for everybody that’s said, ‘I’ve tripped hard to your music,’ there’s someone else who said ‘I made love to my wife last night to your music,’ It’s not drug music - it’s good music and it’s honest music."
Donahue, who also appears on the new Chemical Brothers album, feels it’s just a matter of time until people come round to the group’s way of thinking. "There are always people who will try to pigeonhole you. They’ll say: ‘Mercury Rev is a highly respected band who will never sell a million records’ We never saw ourselves that way. I think we’ll sell five million records. It may not be this year, but it will happen. That’s what is so exciting
Reproduced from The Scotsman, 3rd July 1999