Via: Drowned in Sound
As promised, here's the highlights of part 1 of Drowned in Sound's interview with James Mercer. To be honest, the best quotables ran in yesterday's teaser, but there's still some interesting points to highlight.
The most striking revelation is that even though Mercer felt the pressure to deliver due to the band's raised profile, he wasn't all that worried about pleasing the bandwagon jumpers. The barb shot at Modest Mouse fans at the end is priceless:
"I decided not to put that kind of pressure on myself and it was a really good feeling of like, "Ah fuck it". When the Garden State thing happened it changed things, and I felt like if that meant the kids that don'''t really give a shit about us had time to disappear then that isn'''t going to hurt anything. We'''re not worried if we don'''t sell as many records as we could have done, but more about the people who really give a crap about the music still being with us and buying it. I figure that will happen. Nobody wants those noisy jocks you get shouting at Modest Mouse gigs.
The other main revelation from the interview is the little added bonus that people who buy the vinyl of Wincing The Night Away will receive:
"We'''ll be doing this thing where if you buy the album on vinyl you get a voucher to download the album off of iTunes, so that you can have it on your computer, too. So that'''s one alternative that we'''re pretty stoked about. Online is great because I am one of these people who thinks the less material shit we consume, the better. You'''re simply downloading electrons, which is a good thing, I guess."
Am I the only person who thinks it's absurd that more labels aren't doing something like this? If this became standard practice I would never buy another cd in my life. You can read the interview in full here. Part 2 will be published sometime in the not-too-distant future.