INVITED TO T by Roddy Isles
Mercury Rev arrive at T in The Park next week prepared to deal with anything the notorious Scottish summer can throw at them.
The band behind last year’s best album, the superb Deserter’s Songs, haven’t been at T before but they’re heard all about the extreme opposites the weather produced last year and are getting ready for any situation.
"Dressing in layers - that’s our big secret," laughed Adam Snyder from the band, the man who provides the Rev’s battery of weird noises. "We’ve been touring around the States a lot this year so you see lots of different weather as you move around the country, but you tend to find it changes gradually, like over several hundreds of kilometres and several days. We aren’t used to the sort of changes you guys had last year, but we’ll be ready for them!"
The band have been touring almost constantly since the release of Deserter’s Songs and Adam says they can now adapt to any situation facing them at a gig.
"Playing festivals is totally different from other gigs but we love them because you never quite know just what it is going to be like or what is going to happen," said Adam. "It can also be a really different crowd, because at your own shows it’s obviously fans turning out but at a festival there’s people in the tent that might not even know who you are."
"But we can change our set from night to night depending on the mood on the night," said Adam. "If we’re feeling mellow and the crowd’s looking mellow then we dig out all the orchestral stuff, but if everyone’s looking to rock then it’s out with the guitars and we go for it. We feel we can cope with any situation."
The reaction to Deserter’s Songs, both in critical and commercial terms, was astounding, probably more so for the band than the many surprised onlookers.
"It really did take us by surprise because certainly on a commercial level no one had really paid much attention to us before, and we were kind of getting used to that." admitted Adam. "We’re kind of getting used to the realisation now that pretty much anything can happen on this long, strange trip. All over Europe our profile has taken this great leap forward, and in the States that has rubbed off a little bit, although it’s still at an underground college level over there."
The bad news for fans waiting for the follow-up to Deserter’s Songs is that it will be next year at least before it emerges.
"We are touring pretty much right through the summer so we won’t be getting into a studio until the fall at the earliest," said Adam. "I guess it would then be about another year before we get the record finished, so you’re certainly looking at next year or the year after for the next Mercury Rev album. We’re not in a real hurry to get it done, and we’re not going to rush it."
One thing that Adam guarantees will not happen is that the Rev, after collaborations with the Chemical Brothers, will be turning to electronica.
"A lot of people have zoomed in on the Chemicals thing and seem to think that’s the road we’re headed down, but I don’t think so - the Mercury Rev techno album is not something that is about to happen!"
So if it’s pounding beats you’re looking for come Sunday evening at T, perhaps best head for the Slam tent. On the other hand if you want to leave to the sound of some of the best songs of the 90s and the Rev’s beautiful noise, you’ll find them on the Evening Session stage.
Reproduced from the Dundee Courier, Thursday 1st July 1999.