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James Mercer Gives Insightful Interview to Pitchfork, Comments on the (Potential) Return of The Shins

6:00 p.m. · June 24, 2010 · by Rachel Brodsky

Whether he's jamming with Danger Mouse or being badgered about when a new Shins album will get made anytime soon, James Mercer has never been inactive for very long. Though he's been busy riding the Broken Bells publicity wave, the indie pop singer/songwriter arguably found fame when The Shins got a few well-placed shout-outs on everyone's favorite catastrophe Garden State came out in 2004 (and he's never living that down). In his Shins career, Mercer released three critically acclaimed albums (Oh, Inverted World, Chutes Too Narrow and Wincing the Night Away), but since the last album came out in 2007, Mercer has (understandably) taken time to focus on new projects. 

Among the many writers asking Mercer "Are The Shins back yet? Huh? Huh? Are they?" is Pitchfork's Tom Breihan, who pointedly probed the singer for some juicy deets regarding the band's future. Mercer remained vague as ever in his responses, but did mention that he's been writing some new Shins material while on the road for Broken Bells. Not only that, but The Shins are also sporting a newer lineup (with Dave Hernandez, Sean Flora and Joe Plummer). 

But what's even more interesting is Mercer's "What's the big deal?" attitude after each question gets flung in his direction. Take a look at this quote from the interview below:

"We could probably talk for a long time about these things, and I'd regret a lot of the things that I'd said. I think the one thing that's important to know is that The Shins is a project that I started while I was in another band. It was a side project, and I got more and more invested in it. It's always been me writing songs and then fleshing them out in the studio as best I could. Usually, that means me doing a lot of the performances on the recordings. Then a lot of those performances are performed by other people when we play live. It's just been a delicate balance between recording stuff and then going out and playing live-- bringing my friends into it, from Flake and Scared of Chaka, and then just things changing over time and needing to keep one thing going. That's the Shins." 

Though Mercer wasn't too willing to discuss former Shins drummer Jesse Sandoval's ambiguous departure, he did maintain that once he "gets some time off," he'll be back in the studio working on Shins material. So hopefully that will satiate some of you. [Pitchfork]