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Of meat and men >> The Shins’ James Mercer
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 CHANGING YOUR LIFE: The Shins
In 2004, an independent film called Garden State was feted on the festival circuit, enjoyed a small but successful North American run and went on to reach thousands more viewers on DVD. Zach Braff wrote, directed and co-starred in the film with Natalie Portman, who tells him in their first scene together that the Shins will change his life, playing him a sample of “New Slang” from the band’s 2001 debut album, Oh, Inverted World. The Garden State plug generated CD sales and subsequent gigs for the Portland-based band, who had already released their widely acclaimed sophomore LP, Chutes Too Narrow. Lead singer and songwriter James Mercer has said that Garden State is the reason it’s taken so long to release Wincing the Night Away, the Shins’ latest and most adventurous pop opus. Luckily, the film’s use of “New Slang” overshadowed the short-lived McDonald’s ad campaign featuring the same song, around the same time. But while that ad was still on the air, the somewhat radical animal rights group PETA uploaded a short video interview that they had conducted with Mercer, claiming him as one of their celebrity spokesmen (the clip is still easy to find online). Although Mercer was once a huge Smiths fan, having gone to high school in England in the ’80s, he never adopted the “Meat Is Murder” ethos. So the Mirror called him up, at Jack’s Bar-B-Que in Nashville, to find out what gives. Mirror: I couldn’t help but notice that you’re affiliated with PETA. James Mercer: (laughs) So I should tell you about it while I sit here eating pork shoulder, right? Okay, we were in Virginia and Sub Pop had called me to say, “PETA is gonna come by and interview you and they wanna get into the show,” so I was like, “Oh, that’s fine.” So they came backstage to interview me and they filmed it, and that was it, now I’m a spokesperson for PETA. I get shit for it all the time, but I learned my lesson—not that I’m against PETA, or against treating animals correctly, it’s just that I shouldn’t be put in a position to speak about something I don’t fuckin’ know about. I’m not a vegetarian, I’m not educated about the whole issue. One of the weird things is that their [celebrity spokespeople] are people like Ron Jeremy and Pamela Anderson, then me. M: Three’s a crowd, I guess. But I see that the Shins is a quintet now. I read that hiring Eric Johnson from the Fruit Bats is part of your plan to step up the live show.JM:That was one of the major reasons to invite Eric in. The goal is to give people their money’s worth. We played this show in New York, and we were in the middle of recording [Wincing the Night Away], so we didn’t have time to practise, but everyone was pushing us, “You gotta play this goddamn show.” So we played this half-assed set in front of 4,000 people who paid $30 to get in, and I had this realization that we’re no longer this punk-pop thing from Albuquerque, we owe them more than that. And it was fun to spend a little money and get my brother to design a backdrop and stuff. It’s pretty cool. With viva voce at Metropolis on
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