Slacker's guide to success

The movie Garden State helped to raise the Shins' profile.

A few years back James Mercer pulled his socks up and stopped being a slacker. Just as well, he would never have made it to Hollywood otherwise.

You see, there's a line delivered by Natalie Portman in the movie Garden State - written, directed by, and starring Zach Braff from Scrubs - that says listening to a song by Mercer's band the Shins will change your life.

But if it wasn't for a serious change in attitude in the late 90s then Mercer would never have written that song, the delightful New Slang, from their 2001 debut album Oh, Inverted World.

He formed the Shins with drummer Jesse Sandoval in Albuquerque in 1997 as a side project to the band Flake. The Flake years were notoriously lazy, admits Mercer.

"We were famously half-arsed about everything we did. Everybody in town would give us shit about being lazy and we wouldn't play shows because we're like, 'We just played one, last month'," he laughs.

"I wanted to start a new project that would be my project. And the attitude change has a lot to do with a twisted ego or something.

"I wanted to control the creative process, and I wasn't happy with the fact I wasn't as in control as I wanted to be in Flake so I didn't work very hard at it."

The Shins - also made up of keyboardist Marty Crandall and bass player Dave Hernandez - were different.

While the band's eccentric pop music is sure to live up to Braff's claim and change thousands of lives, the line in Garden State has changed Mercer's fortunes.

After the movie opened late last year there was a serious spike in sales of Oh, Inverted World, and 2003's follow up, Chutes Too Narrow.

"We got to meet Zach Braff, too," he laughs. "But that movie was huge for us. I mean, we are selling more records weekly now, of both our records, than when they first came out as new releases."

In New Zealand their first show at the Kings Arms in Auckland on Wednesday sold out and a second date was added. They also play university orientation shows in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington.

Although the Shins have moved to Portland, Oregon, the influence of Albuquerque is still there. The city seems to breed bands with a strange, oddball, and sometimes haunting take on life, yet there's an everyday feel to the music.

"I'd agree, but I don't know why," says Mercer. "We have these great friends who are in a band called the Aislers Set and I loved what they were doing, that slightly avant-garde pop music.

"But bands like the Aislers Set and the Handsome Family [another Albuquerque band] and the Shins are atypical of Albuquerque bands. Most of them are hard rock, or hardcore. That's also what was popular in the scene when we were coming up. But we were always sort of the anomalous thing."

He spent his formative years in the city ("I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing."), his dad was a country and western singer in nightclubs. His family also spent three years in Germany when his dad took up a residency at a country and western nightclub.

"I was always in that environment watching him playing songs and stuff. One of the things we did at home, instead of listening to records, was listen to my dad sing. Dad was pretty good."

So is Mercer. He sounds like Brian Wilson and has been compared to the Beach Boys' songwriter. But growing up, Mercer never owned the band's classic album, Pet Sounds.

"I know the Beach Boys' songs - I'm cool," he jokes, "but I was thinking more of Barbara Ann, and things that were on the radio. So I got Pet Sounds and then I could kinda see the comparisons, that lofty vocal harmony, But I think I got the influence from them vicariously and through oldies' radio."

His songwriting process starts with the music and then he procrastinates over the lyrics. Often the words are just interesting phrases he comes up with while "scat-singing" over the melodies he has written.

"My theory about this is, when you do that, you're allowing your mind to wonder and you're playing the song and you're letting it put you in the mood that the music itself is expressing. It's a fun process, but it is arduous."

The Shins played a tsunami benefit show with Ben Gibbard from Postal Service who, with the Shins, are among the bands leading a renaissance of Seattle-based record label, Sub Pop.

While it is most famous for giving the world Nirvana with the release of the 1989 debut album, Bleach, the label struggled through the latter part of the 90s.

But Mercer believes Sub Pop's founder, Jonathan Poneman, and others in the company realised they had to make changes. It was simple: sign some decent bands.

And on advice from some of the younger people in his company, Poneman checked out the Shins in 2000 while the band was on tour with Modest Mouse.

"He eventually did see us play, and I remember being nervous about it," says Mercer.

There was no need. Poneman signed the Shins and the first thing Sub Pop released was New Slang, the song that made them famous.

"It was a big deal for us getting signed because we came from Albuquerque - it's a small town."

Performance

* Who: The Shins, odd guitar-pop four-piece.

* From: Portland, Oregon, but formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1997.

* When and where: Wednesday, February 16 and Thursday February 17 (sold out), Kings Arms, Auckland.

* Albums: Oh, Inverted World (2001), Chutes Too Narrow (2003).