All is drama

>> Muggings, appendicitis, dead producers: Mercury Rev make light of their tragedies

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“The first time I heard Mercury Rev I knew there was something inspiring about this band,” says drummer/pianist Jeff Mercel. “To be handed the opportunity to join, you’d have to be a fool to pass it up.”

Mercury Rev formed in the late ’80s to provide music for their own experimental films, but they were soon turning heads with their cinematic concoctions, a sound that lay somewhere between grandiose noise and soaring pop. Following the tumultuous departure of half the band, Mercel signed on in 1997.
“They played their first show in the town where I went to university, in the bar I worked at, and there was already a myth and lore surrounding the band,” says Mercel. “It’s as if they were mysterious spectres, scamming recording time at the university studios in the middle of the night.”
Three critically embraced albums later, Mercel was enlisted by Dave Fridman, producer, bassist and founding member, along with vocalist Jonathan and guitarist Grasshopper. Secluding themselves in the Catskill Mountains, the band emerged in 1998 with Deserter’s Songs, an album that further blew critics’ minds and solidified their devoted British fanbase, a phenomenon Mercel attributes, in part, to the relatively broad-minded mandate of U.K. radio.

“Everybody likes to root for the underdog. People hold things precious, especially bands, that have maybe been forgotten or shunned, and Deserter’s Songs had that spirit-out of nowhere, out of darkness and desperation came this record. But the music was also quite universal-songs about love and about loss, things that anyone can relate to.”

American dreams

Equally majestic in all its tortured beauty, Mercury Rev’s next album, All Is Dream, was released on September 11, 2001. Of course. Not quite as monumentally dramatic as the reasons for their abandoned launch parties were the events surrounding the album’s recording, starting with the recruitment of producer Jack Nitzsche.

“Jack Nitzsche’s body of work is staggering,” says Mercel. “He produced Neil Young’s Harvest and also played in the band. He worked with Phil Spector for a long time as an arranger-although he didn’t get the credit that Spector got, he was a huge part of those records. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is probably his most famous soundtrack, but he also wrote incidental music for The Exorcist. He worked with the Stones-Christ, it’s just this tremendous diversity of material, and we aspire to that idea. The spirit behind rock ’n’ roll is freedom, and the rules are there to bend or break, if need be, and that was the intrigue with Jack, he was a wild card.”

“But a week after we met with him and said, ‘Okay let’s do this thing’, he passed away. It was like getting the rug pulled out from under us, but he certainly left a lasting impression on the record.”
The band then sought solace in another legendary figure, Tony Visconti, most famous for his work with David Bowie, T-Rex and Iggy Pop.

“It’s funny, he was the polar opposite of Jack. They shared a similar passion for music, but Tony was much more the down to earth guy from Brooklyn. He had done all these amazing records but he just wanted to hang out. It was great to see how he works, to see how he would come at a song. We’re not exactly young men, but we’re not so old that we can’t learn new things. There’s no better resource than working with people like this.”

As positive as the Visconti experience was, the All Is Dream sessions had more trials in store, starting with Grasshopper and a friend being mugged at the New Orleans jazz festival.

“They didn’t have much money on them anyway, so they were, like, ‘Here, take it!’ But one guy thought he would be clever and slash Grasshopper’s arm at the inside of the elbow where the arm bends, where there are some pretty major arteries and veins. It was fairly serious, he lost a lot of blood and he was laid up for a long time. But he got back in the studio, all stitched up, trying to play guitar.”

“Then I was feeling under the weather and ended up meeting a doctor friend in our local bar-at the time, I had no health insurance so I needed some free medical advice-and he looked at me and said, ‘You look like shit!’ He gave me a very quick, impromptu exam in the back of the bar and said, ‘You’re going to the hospital.’” So I drove myself there and calmly walked into the emergency room and said, ‘Hi, I’m here to get my appendix out’. But Jonathan escaped the record physically unscathed.” :

With Oasis and Soundtrack of Our Lives at the Molson Centre on Friday, Aug. 16, 7:30pm, $36.50–46.50

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