Hey Mercedes' frowning of a lifetime

Of all the feelings running through Bob Nanna’s head, the most prevalent is relief. He could be sad that his band of the past five years, Hey Mercedes, played its farewell show last month. He could feel happy that the group’s final EP, Unorchestrated, just came out. He could be anxious that his solo project, The City On Film, will release its debut soon. Mostly, though, he’s happy about Hey Mercedes’ euthanasia.

“For lack of a better word, it just seems like The Man was keeping us down,” Nanna says, laughing. “For every right move we thought we made, it seemed like we got knocked back twice as much.”

Singer-guitarist Nanna and two of his former Braid bandmates, bassist Todd Bell and drummer Damon Atkinson, formed Hey Mercedes with guitarist Mark Dawursk in 2000. Bell and Atkinson lived in Milwaukee, but Hey Mercedes considered Chicago its hometown, and it played its first show at the Fireside Bowl in August 2000.

“We got into Hey Mercedes with this notion that we’d been in Braid, and we’d seen the ups and downs, and we were going to do it right this time,” Nanna says. “And we just fucked it up! We just really fucked it up.”

“Doing it right” meant making themselves comfortable, seeking a bigger record label, and outsourcing business affairs. That seemingly simple plan led to all sorts of trouble. After releasing a one-off EP on Champaign’s Polyvinyl Records, Hey Mercedes signed to Vagrant Records, known at the time mostly for pop-punk, not Hey Mercedes’ busy, hook-laden post-punk. Vagrant was also perceived as commercially driven, and in a suspicious indie scene, Hey Mercedes took heat for alleged rock-star ambitions.

A lawsuit involving Vagrant delayed the release of 2001’s Everynight Fire Works for months. Personnel issues also caused problems; Dawursk was replaced by Mike Shumaker, and the band continually struggled with booking agents and managers. They also fell deeply in debt.
Still, Hey Mercedes toured incessantly and remained optimistic. Fire Works received good reviews, the band had a devoted following, and Vagrant quickly became one of the biggest indie labels in the country with the success of Dashboard Confessional and Saves The Day. Hey Mercedes’ The Weekend EP debuted in 2002.

Over the next year, though, the group gained little ground. Hoping to reach the next level, Nanna and company enlisted the help of big-time producers Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie (Radiohead, Dinosaur Jr.) to create a polished, more streamlined record, Loses Control, which came out in October 2003.

“We were just really optimistic about Loses Control,” Nanna says. “We really thought it was going to—I don’t know what the right word is—heighten our profile? I thought we were writing more mature songs, and they might help us break out a little bit.”

Although Hey Mercedes made a video for “Quality Revenge At Last,” Vagrant (and its new major-label partner) heard no potential singles—and thus expected low sales. The band toured hard in early 2004, but Loses Control sold far less than Hey Mercedes’ debut.

“There were a lot of bad times, and I think each member at one point or another was so sick of it,” Nanna says.

So they took a break. In early 2004, Bifocal Media announced plans to release a DVD version of Killing A Camera, a documentary about Braid’s final shows. To celebrate its release, Nanna, Atkinson, and Bell reunited with guitarist-vocalist Chris Broach for reunion tours of America and Japan. The band expected good shows throughout, but Nanna concedes that the Braid reunion tour sadly resembled a Hey Mercedes tour. After the tour, Atkinson moved to Memphis, and Shumaker returned to his hometown, Cleveland. A European tour was planned but scrapped: No one felt inclined to spend six weeks touring countries where Hey Mercedes’ records hadn’t even been released. The band had discussed splitting up before, but for the first time, it seemed like a real—and imminent—possibility.

“We could tell that we were at this total standstill, living in different cities, and we weren’t growing at all. We were all kind of pissed off at the circumstances,” Nanna says. “So I said, ‘Maybe we should just break up,’ and that’s when Damon said, ‘I feel exactly the same way.’” In addition to preparing a final EP for Bell’s label, Grand Theft Autumn, they planned a tour—but promoters expressed little interest.

“They just weren’t that excited about it,” Nanna says. “They wanted to get really good support [bands] for the shows so that people would come—and that just made us feel really shitty. This was going to be our last tour!”

In February, Hey Mercedes announced a final show at Metro—the same place where Braid played one of its last. Severe burnout broke Braid up after five years, but the band’s legacy grew powerful over time. Could Hey Mercedes mount an improbable comeback?

“The thought has crossed my mind, but just as with Braid’s original breakup, there was absolutely no doubt that it was the right thing to do,” Nanna says. “So if Hey Mercedes blows up in five years, I’ll be thrilled, but I won’t regret our decision for a minute. Plus, you have to take into consideration that the actual act of breaking up may have something to do with the sudden rise in interest. You always want what you can’t have, I guess.”