“I am somebody who is a fucking late bloomer. Like, fucking late,” Marcer laughs, “I was very shy in high school. Then in my 20s, I really locked down with a bunch, with a few, very close friends. I held on tight to that small social group, which was my original band Flake and the few people around us that I was able to relate to. In my 30s, I got signed and suddenly I had to do things like this, have interviews like this, and it was terrifying. It’s social anxiety – I don’t know why some people have it and some don’t.”
Mercer got used to his crippling fear of interviews, but he never got over it. At first he says he couldn’t feel his fingers but after Oh, Inverted World (2001) was released and he was forced to stare down music journalists in every corner of the globe, the numb terror subsided to an intense discomfort. He figured he was doing fine. Then, in 2008, Heath Ledger overdosed on pain medication and left a sea of bewildered friends to mourn him. Mercer wasn’t one of them.
“I was asked to go and sing at his memorial service in LA,” he explains. “I went down and they had me sing a Neil Young song. Sitting in the audience and watching these people who were very close to Heath, what was revealed to me was that this person had lived so full-on and really emotionally engaged a lot of people around him. He was very present, and they were very affected by his passing. I realised at that moment that my memorial service, if I was to have one, would not have felt that way because I was so closed off. It was really disturbing. I was upset being there.
“When I started playing in the band and we were signed, I became challenged by new social engagements and that was good for me. I was contemplating these things, you know, but it was Heath’s memorial service and seeing people that were so touched by him and the stories they told about him, you know, that really made me realise I was shut off from life. Some people look at life and they kind of see it as a wonderful, fascinating thing to explore, almost as if they were in a video game or something, ‘This is your avatar, this is the world we’ve created for you, go, explore, and enjoy yourself.’ I realised it was much more than a game to me – way too much. I realised I really needed to figure this thing out and learn to open up.”
His revelation was not a trite one. Mercer knew he would have to make changes if he wanted to break out of his habits, and maybe try some new things. When he got home from LA, a friend called and invited him to go to Chile, hike through the wilderness in Patagonia and maybe make some music. He would have said no before Heath died, but he decided to say yes, and that made all the difference.
“It was almost like setting a match to a bunch of dry grass where each blade sets light to the next. It was like a prod to me – don’t live your life filled with fear and inside of yourself that you forget to actually experience life, you’ve got to break out of that. I knew that I really desired connection. I wanted to connect with people and you see people around you that do, they do it, they’re comfortable with other people and they have a charismatic way about them, like Heath, and you want that but for whatever reason it doesn’t come naturally to you and you have to practice. Honestly, it’s something that I wish someone had told me in my past. You feel that fear, you feel that push to introvert, but the thing you need to understand is that that is unhealthy. It is unhealthy to close yourself off from other human beings. You are a social creature and that’s in your genetics, and you need to engage and interact with other human beings. Saying yes to things and going and doing things, you just get better at it. It’s uncomfortable at first but you just get better.”
When he got back from Chile, Brian Burton asked Mercer to start a band, and he said yes again. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to make another Shins record, and Brian was offering him the opportunity to step outside of that world and see how he would cope. Touring the world with Broken Bells, off the back of their self-titled 2010 album, he found he did just fine. More than that, he realised that the world is filled with kind, talented people that are worth getting to know. He still loved his old friends, but he was no longer terrified of making new ones.
“I feel like there was a dependence that I had on the social side of my band mates, you know, and it wasn’t healthy, not on my side. They were fine, but I relied on them too much. Once I realised that I could engage other people in this pursuit, it really was a strong draw. I explained this to them, and they’ve been supportive, which I really appreciate,” he says.
The Shins was always a James Mercer project, from the minute he holed up in his bedroom and committed the first demos to four-track tape. He writes the songs, he sets the creative direction. The cast of players that records with him and tours with him has shifted over the years, so there wasn’t much of a demand to go back to the band and start working again. If Mercer wasn’t interested in making a new Shins record, there was no new Shins record to be made. In the end, Port Of Morrow came about because Mercer had drifted far enough away to feel like The Shins was less of a prison and more of a home – something he could change to reflect a newfound openness and a sense of opportunity he had found in the wider music community.
“It’s always been about me trying to realise these songs with the people around me, but now the circle of people around me had grown. I have a lot of people around me now who are friendly and talented and I want to engage all of them as a collective to work on and contribute to The Shins’ music,” he explains.
Port of Morrow is still a James Mercer project, but one that was born from a much “happier and healthier” time of his life. He has a wife, two young daughters and a network of friends around the world that he respects and appreciates. He is still undergoing transformation, but it is a transformation that has gained its own momentum.
“I’m guessing that me writing all the songs alone is going to change in future,” he says, “With all the people that I know now and the skill level and taste level that a lot of them have, I could see myself writing songs with a lot of these people – including the guys from The Shins. I’m in a more comfortable world now and I don’t want to hold it all to my chest anymore.”
BY SIMONE UBALDI
