Something never seemed quite right with James Mercer explaining away drummer Jesse Sandoval and keyboardist Marty Crandall's departure from The Shins as an "aesthetic decision," since it seemed like it was a way for him to just categorically move on without talking about the breakup. Sandoval went off and started a taco cart, and until yesterday, remained mum on what exactly happened with Mercer. Turns out dude wasn't let go for "aesthetic decisions," he was just staight-up fired.

In an interview with the Portland Mercury, the uncut version of which is here, Sandoval came clean about what really happened, blaming his firing on management, and Mercer's inability to just abandon The Shins and start anew.

I'd caught wind from a couple of people that James was processing moving further along with the idea of working with other people but I never quite got the impression that it was going be an across-the-board change. So I contacted him. I probably hadn't really talked to him for about a year and a half or two years before I called him out of the blue and I think that my admittedly highly emotional phone call expedited things. About a week after that phone call he contacted me by text and said that basically, "I got your message, I hope you're okay. Let's get together tomorrow and catch up."

 

The following morning I got an email from management saying that there's a band meeting scheduled. I didn't respond to that email because, well, I needed time to process everything. Since I didn't respond right away, I got another email asking when would be a good time because our manager was going to fly from LA to be part of this band meeting. That's when I was like, the writing's on the wall here. The manager's coming from LA? I haven't seen James in a while, but now when I'm going to see him, it's going to include the manager?

 

Then James called me and we had a very brief conversation where he said that he was going to be working with other people. I could tell that he was really nervous. He's the furthest thing from a malicious person; he's not a prima donna. He's just not that. If he was, if he was the stereotypical lead singer, I think that I would have sort of expected this. So he called me and he told me he wanted to be inspired and he's getting to a phase in his life, a point in his life, where he realized he doesn't really want to be touring anymore. This whole process for him was probably excruciating, I mean, again, he's not a malicious person.

Sandoval also worries that his drumming may have led Mercer to fire him:

His whole explanation in the press, it just rings, "It's not you, it's me, Jesse." [James Mercer's quote to Pitchfork is as follows: "I wouldn't say I'd never work with them again. I love working with those guys."] Anybody who has been in a relationship knows what that means. He has reached out a couple times by email offering to talk, but I have not responded. I expected a bigger gesture on his part.

 

I just think if he was reaching the point where he felt like he wasn't inspired, or I wasn't holding my end of the bargain, or he wanted to go a different direction, I certainly hope he would have imagined that there should have been some dialogue. Dialogue along the way. If he said, "Hey Jesse, there are some things that I want to do on this album that you don't do well, rhythmically, or I want to bring other people into the studio to record the album and after we're done doing it, would you be interested in learning all these parts and still go on tour?" At least give me a chance to still be a part of something that I am not entirely responsible for, but certainly helped create and anchor.

 

I think about it and I have to own up to my own faults. I definitely see why he was seeking outside sources. There were some drumbeats that he tried to do, that he asked me to do, and I just couldn't do them. I have a slower learning curve than polished musicians. In part, he could afford the luxury of sitting in front of his computer and do take after take until he got it right. With recording software the way it is now, you don't have to play the whole part start to finish. You can piecemeal things. Well, in the studio, I didn't have the luxury to take lots of time to execute drum parts, and you can't really piecemeal drums. So my weaknesses showed and I know that frustrated him. Recording time is ridiculously stressful for James, I understand how internally he started to problem solve how to make the recording process more streamlined. Working with Danger Mouse only exacerbated that fact.

I could keep posting quotes from this, it's a really riveting and heartbreaking read. Read it. [via Pitchfork]