Caring is Creepy. The first song from the Shins that really cemented James Mercer as one of the great song writers of this era in my mind. A colleague of mine put it this way – Think of the best songs in the past five years. Mercer has written some of the best of them. – The Shins latest album reaching as high as #2 on Billboard’s 200 and over a million in unit sales lends credibility to that fact.
 
The band is now going through changes. Mercer added new members to the band (bassist Ron Lewis of Fruit Bats and drummer Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse) for a different creative direction. He’s working on a new album, acting in an upcoming film and laying down a film score with Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, both residents of Portland.

My general experience with musicians has been wonderful thus far so I was eager to see what would come out of the shoot with Mercer. We selected the Crystal Ballroom in downtown Portland for the location. Our first segment was in the keg freezer on the second floor of the venue. Nobody had shot in there before so that was an intriguing choice.

The best portraits come out of the relationship you can develop with your subject. You can research the hell out of them but you have to connect, you have to show confidence (even when you fake it), for them to open up. Mercer made this incredibly easy. He was one of the most personable and genuine individuals I’ve photographed.

"How was the show last night," I said. He played two consecutive nights to a sold out crowd.

"It was really good actually," he said.

"I like how you just folded your arms, let’s work this cold angle a little more," I said.

"I wonder why beer doesn’t need to be warm to ferment," he replied.

"Yeah I don’t know. Maybe it does, maybe this is just where they store it…ok hold that don’t move, that’s great," I said.

"So this is why they hire models," he said in reference to my direction. "They can just do it, you tell them to go and they just go."

"Right. You know, there are models who make more than I do on a shoot because they just turn it on and give you what you want without asking."

It seemed like more of a conversation then a photo shoot. This is where I like to get the relationship to. Within 10 minutes we had something to work with.

We moved down the hall to the green room on the second floor where the band relaxes before and after the show. I liked the symmetry and the art work of the room and wanted to throw Mercer into that environment to see what would come out.

I noticed a guitar laying on one of the couches.

"Let’s work this in, I like this," I said.

"It’s a Tesco," he said. "It’s made in Japan, I got it from Ebay."

"Oh, that’s cool. It’s looks old." I said.

"If you record this, it will sound cheap, but sometimes that exactly what you want. It’s cool to have a bunch of cool shit in the studio to work with," he said.

I placed the guitar in the scene and we started shooting.

"Whoa, hold that one, let’s do that again. You reminded me of Macho Man Randy Savage." I said.

"That used to be one of my favorite wrestlers of all time," he said.

"Yeah, like Grrrrrr." I said.

"Kind of like I’m taking a shit," he said.

"Yeah, Grrrr," I said.

We experimented with a few violent-esque poses, trying not to laugh in between frames. The hard part was trying to get something that looked real. We kept laughing at the situation but it was part of the experience.

I ended up scraping the last two locations because I felt strongly enough that we had some good personality to work with.

Keep your eye out for James Mercer and the Shins, he’s an incredibly gifted artist on the upswing…and check out a show if they come to your area, you’ll be glad you did.

The Monk

P.S. Thanks to Stephanie Johanesen of the Oregon Regency Society and Mac for helping with the prop search for this photo shoot.