The Shins Bio
The Shins are an indie rock group comprised of singer, songwriter and guitarist James Russell Mercer, keyboardist/guitarist/bassist Martin Crandall, bassist/guitarist Dave Hernandez, drummer Jesse Sandoval, and Eric Johnson of the Fruit Bats. Their sound draws on several musical genres, including pop, alternative, alternative country, and folk. The Shins are based in Portland, Oregon.
The Shins began in 1997 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a side project of Mercer (previously of Blue Roof Dinner) and Neal Langford, both members of the lo-fi musical group Flake (formed in 1992). By 1999, Flake (now Flake Music) had disbanded and its former members became The Shins. (The name was based on a fictional family in the Broadway show The Music Man, a favorite of Mercer's father.) The band released two 7" singles on Omnibus - "Nature Bears A Vacuum" (1999) and "When I Goosestep" (2000) - and embarked on a tour with Modest Mouse. During the tour, they were met in San Francisco by a Sub Pop representative, who eventually offered to release their debut album.
(Intro to the complete bio at Wikipedia.)
The Shins Quotes
"The whole band will go to a brothel, or maybe a lotion place. " ~ James Mercer when asked about Valentine's Day
"I was a regular dork. I was a kid who was scrawny and all that, and probably kind of dumb or something." ~ James Mercer
"So that fatal flaw in the logic of love would be that love is essentially a selfish act sometimes—it's something you take from someone, or you seek out because of this very instinctual animal side, the lust side of things." ~ James Mercer
"So I've become a lot happier because I now allow for the total upheaval of my understanding. My hope is to remain open-minded and never really allow myself to be certain." ~ James Mercer
"You don't even need a new philosophy to explain the world. Just realize that you are who you are, that no god is telling you shit, that you're just doing your little mouse-brained attempt at discovery." ~ James Mercer
