Bruised Shins

The Shins' 2001 debut, Oh, Inverted World, established them as critics' darlings, an unassuming lot of hardworking indie rockers whose music might not set the world on fire but at least would make the quietly crackling embers sound like a symphony of sizzle. The follow-up, Chutes Too Narrow, was warmly received, and the band looked to be making slow yet steady progress in growing its fan base. Then, in 2004, came Garden State, whose soundtrack included two songs from Oh, Inverted World -- "Caring Is Creepy" and "New Slang" -- and whose script had Natalie Portman telling Zach Braff that the Shins "will change your life." The soundtrack won a Grammy, the movie -- produced for a mere $2.5 million -- grossed more than $26 million and Oh, Inverted World's sales jumped approximately 400 percent.

"I think indie bands like us and Modest Mouse are becoming popular for the same reason I bought my 1904 house, and for the same reason that downtown neighborhoods are gentrifying," says Mercer. "Growing up in the age of Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven -- which was the landscape of my youth -- I'm craving authenticity. I think everyone is. You know, there is something real out there you can buy, but you just have to scratch the surface to find it. I think people are sick of fakeness."

Over a candlelit dinner in a newly gentrified, formerly industrial waterfront section of Portland, Mercer looks at Crandall and Hernandez and says, "C'mon, you must have some kind of embarrassing story you can tell us." Likely inspired by the whiskey and wine coursing through his veins, Mercer has just shared a doozy -- even better than the one about how he passed gas in front of an elementary-school crush. Last year, he was at a dignified dinner party in Australia, and the guy seated next to him started earnestly recounting how he'd recently had his heart broken. "It's not even about love," the guy had said. Mercer delivered a rejoinder he was sure they'd all recognize from The 40 Year-Old Virgin, which is apparently not as popular in Australia as it is in the States. Just as the noise at the table quieted down, Mercer could be heard loudly proclaiming, "It's not about the shit-stained balls."

The singer says he's got oodles of anecdotes like that -- stories about feeling out of pace with his surroundings. It's hardly surprising, considering that he spent his childhood moving around from city to city, country to country. Mercer's dad, Jim, was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, and the family -- James, his mom, Alice, and little sister, Bonnie -- was always somewhere new. Early on, the Mercers lived in a motor home that made temporary stops in Utah, Kansas and Alabama. When James was ten, the family spent a year in Germany, where he would pass his time, alone mostly, exploring the forest behind his house. "I would pretend I was in a Dungeons & Dragons game," he says. "I was a little odd. Plus, I was a pyromaniac at the time. In the forests, there was a 400-mark fine for smoking a cigarette. But I would light huge bonfires with my friends."

When Mercer's father was sent to Greece, the rest of the family came back to the States and settled in Albuquerque for a few years, where James faced serious culture shock. "I didn't fit in," he says. "Kids were drinking and smoking pot and having sex. The social dynamic was much more mature than I was ready for at eleven. I became depressed for months. My dad and mom are both farm people and were not versed in child psychology. I remember that as being the end of my childhood."

After attending high school in England, where he fell in love with British rock acts such as the Smiths and the Cure, Mercer returned to Albuquerque for college, got his first guitar and formed his first band, a freewheeling power-pop group called Flake.