He's no Dr. Drew or Dr. Phil, but James Mercer has had a few things to say about love and relationships over the course of three albums with Portland-via-Albuquerque indie-rockers The Shins. With the assistance of tons of great publicity, the latest, Wincing The Night Away, broke all kinds of Sub Pop records by debuting at number two on the Billboard charts, with nearly 118,000 copies sold in its first week. The A.V. Club caught up with Mercer in time for Valentine's Day to talk about sex, marriage, and the fatal flaw in the logic of love.
The A.V. Club: Do you like Valentine's Day?
James Mercer: I wish I could say, "Yeah, I just totally love it." Of all the holidays, it seems like the one that is so synthetic, in a way. It's one of those greeting-card holidays. But I used to love it as a kid, actually, which is kind of funny. You remember as a kid in elementary school, you'd make your own little mailbox and decorate it with hearts and stuff, and then each kid would make Valentines for the whole class? I used to actually really like that. I think that I liked it because there was always that girl that you had a crush on that you were allowed for this one day to have some sort of interaction with, without getting shit from your friends or from anyone else. You could do it without anyone even realizing that it was something special to you. But I can't say that I've really been, "Oh, Valentine's Day's coming," and been really excited. [Laughs.]
AVC: What's the most important thing to do to have an enjoyable Valentine's Day?
JM: If you can afford to buy some sort of piece of jewelry, however small and gaudy it might be, I've learned that that always works—as a guy, at least. But if you have taste and money, then use both. [Laughs.] It's really not that hard. It's funny, because I've got a friend who calls me every time there's a situation like this where he needs to impress his wife—he calls me thinking that I know, or at least that I'm a friend of his who won't make fun of him for calling. [Laughs.] He sweats it so bad; he just worries that he's not gonna do enough. You don't have to worry about it so much—like I said, any sort of small gift is usually well-appreciated. So that, and dinner somewhere. And then be as clever as you can with that.
AVC: You guys are going to be on tour on Valentine's Day.
JM: The whole band will go to a brothel, or maybe a lotion place. [Laughs.] We could probably all go out and have a nice romantic meal together.
AVC: Were you an outsider as a kid?
JM: I was a regular dork. I was a kid who was scrawny and all that, and probably kind of dumb or something. [Laughs.] I wasn't unordinary; I wasn't extraordinary.
AVC: Did you have many girlfriends growing up?
JM: I was fairly normal in that way. I kissed my first girl when I was 15, and then I lost my virginity when I was 17. So that's pretty good. It was just that when you're in high school, you're sort of forced into the normal world, where you're competing with the football players, just kind of in that world where somebody like me didn't quite fit in. I had a girlfriend in high school, and she was also outside that realm, which was great. Thank God for those girls.
AVC: How did those early relationships shape who you are as an adult?
JM: I think that's always an important thing, and probably even more important if you're one of those kids who feels left out of the whole romance thing in high school. Then, "Oh my God, there is this girl who actually thinks I'm cool?" It was a big deal. It's so unfortunate, though, that you have to be a fucking high-schooler, that you have to be a teenager and handle it the way a teenager does. Looking back, I was such a dumb-ass. And it's funny how girls just kind of know—they're like, "What? I wanna hang out and be with you." But to a young guy, it causes so much stupid behavior. Whereas the girls are pretty much acting the way that they end up acting in their late 20s.
AVC: When did you go from being awkward to being more confident?
JM: [Laughs.] So late that it's embarrassing. I had relationships that were just kind of messy and me not knowing what the fuck I wanted, until I met my wife, really, which was three years ago.
AVC: It seems inevitable that some people have attempted to woo partners by playing "New Slang" and telling them that it will change their lives. How often do you think that actually works?
JM: I don't know. I hope it's worked quite a bit. One of the members of My Morning Jacket pulled Dave Hernandez, our guitarist, aside and said—and I think he was kind of drunk—"Man, my wife and I, we put on Oh, Inverted World, and we just get down, man." He was saying that they have sex—that's one of the records that they like to listen to when they're getting it on. That was pretty cool.
AVC: Which is, of course, why you made that record.
JM: Exactly. [Laughs.] We were trying to put Barry White out of business. Maybe we've got some babies out there that I'm honorary godfather to.
AVC: You have a song called "Caring Is Creepy." Do you really think caring is creepy?
JM: When I came up with that idea for the title, I was talking about how in my circle of friends—this was my circle of friends, especially in Albuquerque—you drink and you hang out and you talk and you make jokes and you do all that stuff, but as soon as you start talking about anything real, something that actually moves you or anything like that, it's just fucking awkward. You know, there's a lot of ways to kill a party—talking about politics and that shit—but I'm talking about anything that's heartfelt. That used to grump me out, so "Caring Is Creepy" is where that came from. The song itself is about a love of mine at the time that went south—it's fitting in that way.
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