Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse is an American indie rock band formed in 1993 in the Seattle suburb of Issaquah, Washington. Like many famous bands, it all started in a basement, with Issac Brock (vocalist/guitarist), Eric Judy (bassist) and Jeremiah Green (drummer). And it’s only one year after the group was formed, that they presented their first self-titled single at Calvin Johnson’s Dub Narcotic Studios and released it on Johnson’s K Records label.
What inspired Modest Mouse the most to create their music, especially at the very beginning of the existence of the group, was the other group “The Pixies” and numerous other alternative rock and space rock bands.
The band chose its name based on a passage from the Virginia Woolf story “The Mark on the Wall” which reads : “I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest, mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear their own praises”.
Then in 2000, Modest Mouse released the “Moon & Antarctica” album. Actually the first album after their signing with Sony (Epic Records). In this album, there’s, among others, the song “Life like Weeds”, a 6:30 minutes song.
The best album of Modest Mouse is “Good News for People Who Love Bad News”. Issac Brock made the biggest part of the songs of the album. Again, the great contrast between the music and the lyrics were confusing for the public, and it was a great success. It even became a Top 40 hit, and of course, their most popular album.
The last album of the group is “We were dead before the ship even sank” that was released in March 2007.
In an interview with Pitchfork Media on June 21st, 2010, Brock stated that the band spent the first half of the year working on songs for the next Modest Mouse album.