MUSIC:Depression, hostility, desperation – it may not be the kind of atmosphere in which you'd choose to record an album, but it led to Mercury Rev's melancholy classic Deserter's Songs, frontman Jonathan Donahue tells LAUREN MURPHYas the band prepare to play the album in its entirety live
HOW DO you define a “modern classic”? Jonathan Donahue doesn’t have the answer, but that won’t stop the mild- mannered Mercury Rev man enjoying his moment in the spotlight.
Earlier this year the band were approached by the organisers of ATP's Don't Look Back concert series to recreate their 1998 album Deserter's Songslive in its entirety. Previous albums given the same treatment over the past six years include John Martyn's Solid Air, Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Backand Slint's Spiderland.
There's no doubt that Deserter's Songswas a significant marker for the band. The album signalled a watershed in their career, which at the time was teetering on the brink of collapse. They had released three albums that hovered somewhere between alt-rock and dark, dreamy, experimental wig-outs, but that had attained for them a level of popularity barely beyond cult status. There had been fractures in the line-up, morale was at an all-time low, and Donahue, the chief songwriter, was in the grip of depression.
The album went Top 30 in the UK and spawned several hit singles in Goddess on a Hiwayand Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp.
"I'm as mystified as anyone as to how that actually happened. I never expected it, I never saw it coming," he says. "It was this orchestral record jumping on to the airwaves in the midst of Oasis versus Blur, but I think people just felt the heart waves pounding off the vinyl. When someone hears that, it's quite undeniable. For myself, I feel it coming off records by other people – like Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin.
“There’s a sorrow in that, and when you hear it you’re instantly almost paralysed by it. I won’t say that’s what led to the commercial success, but I think that’s what led to people really listening to it.
“It was definitely the hardest album to make. Not necessarily music-wise, but simply waking up each day. As much as I love music, it wasn’t foremost in front of me when I opened my eyes each morning. Much more was a great sense of sadness, a great sense of loneliness. When you’re at the bottom, the last thing you’re thinking about is writing a masterpiece, or even writing music at all.
“What got me out of bed on those days? Perhaps desperation. I don’t think it was that far away from reality that I thought it would be the last record I did. There was nothing to say that it wasn’t going to be. I was hoping that I’d be able to finish it, and maybe play it for a few friends over a period of time, and that might be it. From there, it was back to working a job in the mountains, somewhere, digging holes.
"At the time, no one was looking forward to another Mercury Rev record. Our previous one, See You On the Other Side, had sold five copies worldwide. We didn't have a manager, we didn't have a lawyer or a record label. Grasshopper and I were estranged for quite a bit of it – we weren't even close to resonating with each other. There was a sense of, 'Well, if this is it, I'm going down swinging, and I'm gonna make a record that I wanna make.'
“I was quite aware at the time that for a band who wanted to have commercial success, writing five-minute orchestral torch songs was not the way to get back on the radio at the time. It was the height of Britpop, but this was the last way to reincarnate a band that was on the brink of destruction, or maybe disillusion.”
Although these songs are packed with emotional baggage – the melancholy drips off songs such as Opus 40and Hudson Line, tracks that feature guest appearances from neighbours Garth Hudson and Levon Helm – it doesn't necessarily mean that revisiting them 13 years on will be difficult.
“I suppose it’s the same sort of way you might run into an ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago in a bar. You don’t necessarily want to just dredge up all the things that went between you in the hour and a half that you might be sharing a few drinks. You tend to focus on the positive, otherwise you might go insane, y’know?” he says with a smile.
" Deserter's, for me, was a very melancholy, lonely time. And I'm very fortunate that I emerged from it, and it revealed something quite positive in my life, and many others'. But I certainly wouldn't wanna drag that sadness on stage with me every night. I would be crushed underneath the weight of it. I guess, in that way, when I go back now, it's almost as if I'm covering another band. It has that sort of eerie feeling to it."
Playing the album from start to finish will be a new undertaking for Mercury Rev.
"With the album structured the way it is, you're there in the moment, and I have to respect that – because that's why people are coming to these shows – to hear the songs in sequence. In a way, I'm like a weird Polaroid snapshot for them on stage. The music is there, but I'm more like the candlelight at the dinner, rather than the conversation. The conversation is actually going on between the audience themselves, and inside them. You're going back for 90 minutes to revisit a period of time – hopefully in a positive way, for most people. But the amount of people who've told me that Deserter's Songsgot them through a bad relationship break-up – I have no idea what our audience is going to be thinking on this tour," he laughs.
Although there's a new Mercury Rev album in the pipeline – the quartet have been working on the follow-up to 2008's Snowflake Midnightfor the past year – the next few months will see further ruminations on their colourful past. Along with Deserter's Songsand its instrumental counterpart, there are further reissues in the pipeline.
“You can imagine when you’re re-releasing old material, you have to go through all the old vaults. Myself, Grasshopper and Dave Fridmann have been going through all the old boxes of stuff, saying: ‘Holy shit, did you see this? Do you remember this?!’ – ‘I don’t remember that!’ – ‘Is that me?!’ – ‘That’s you!’ – ‘Oh my God, we can’t release that, that’s horrible!’ – ‘No! Put it out!’ In a way, it’s like a giant emotional feng shui of your career.”
Spending so much time prising open the dusty door to the past must provide ample time for reflection. More than 20 years on, are there any unrealised ambitions or regrets? Mercury Rev may not be a cult band any more, but nor are they stadium fillers.
“To me, when we say ‘cult status’, it means that you’ve never played to 60,000 people. Well, that was never the point. The point was simply to make music. And to me, that I’ve been able to do that for more than 20 years now, I’m really very humbled by it. So to say that I’ve never played a stadium somewhere – well, it’s true! And I may not. I’m sure that there are a lot of bands who, even though they do play stadiums, in their own hearts they’re still the band that was in the bedroom making the music so many years ago. So I would never apologise for not being filthy rich. I’m not! But I wouldn’t apologise if I was, either.
“There are many other musical ways to make a ton of money. But then I wouldn’t sleep at night. And I do now. I sleep like a child.”
Mercury Rev perform Deserter’s Songsat Cork’s Cyprus Avenue on Monday and Dublin’s Vicar Street on Wednesday
