The Red and Black

Issue date: 6/15/00 Section: Variety

With their major-label debut out this week, and a national tour underway, Seattle-based Modest Mouse is anything but what the name implies.

Darlings of the indie-rock scene for the better half of the last decade, Modest Mouse crafts energetic songs that fold back on themselves, songs with a churning and desolate, yet vulnerably beautiful sound.

Honesty, sensitivity, frustration: all are themes that the band's songs deal with, and the new album 'The Moon and Antarctica' is no exception to the rule.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Isaac Brock and Eric Judy, two parts of the trio, before a May 26 Atlanta performance. The following is excerpted from that interview.

R&B: You're going up to Athens tomorrow (May 27) -- what do you think of the town?

Isaac: We all love Athens. It's a really cool town, and I'm friends with some of the people in Neutral Milk Hotel -- they're a great band. The last time we were in Athens, the town was cool. I thought about moving there for a while, but moved to Gainesville, Fla.

R&B: Then moving along, where do you guys see Modest Mouse in five years?

I: Let's see. I don't like looking ahead like that.

R&B: Do you like looking back?

I: No, looking back's worse.

Eric: Five years is really far away.

I: Looking back you get to have all the stupid things you've done, and you remember those too well. 'Oh, I really shouldn't have broken those beer bottles.' Stuff like that. I don't know, I don't like looking back too much, but I do it a lot -- it's kind of unavoidable, but looking at the future is avoidable. Roll with the punches, ya know? If this still seems like a good idea five years from now, and we're not cranky and old.

E: I'm cranky now.

I: (laughs) Yeah, but if we're still into it then, then we'll roll with the punches. Just don't try and pull a Rolling Stones instead of finding another job just to keep doing the same thing you've been doing.

R&B: You probably get a lot of questions about signing to Epic, a major label.

I: Yeah, but they're fun to answer.

R&B: Are you trying to broaden your audience at all with the new album?

I: I think we're just going for any audience. Whoever wants to listen can listen -- we're not going to hunt them down and make them listen.

E: I don't think anything we do is a 'decision.'

I: Yeah, we just recorded the songs we wanted to record. The major label's okay, man, we just decided who we wanted to record with. The only thing we got out of being on a major label was a bigger recording budget, and that's a loan too.

E: Yeah, we have to pay that back.

I: It's a worse deal than being on Up Records, and I'm sure we're going to lose some people we liked because we're not on an indie label, but that's just a petty way to go. It just gives us an opportunity to make better records.

R&B: Many of your lyrics are left vague. Is there anything you want people to get from them?

I: No, I want it to apply to them, ya know? I don't want what it meant to me to be what it means to them. I like to keep lyrics specific enough to myself where I can make reference, so when I go back and play them and hear them I can remember, but I also leave them open so they can change and grow with people.

Basically I try to make an allegorical type of story, where you can take it and apply it to quite a few situations, and I think that's important.

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