In a recent interview with Billboard, Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock explained why it took so long to put out their recent Strangers to Ourselves.
"We kept having people come in to work on the record, but everyone had other shit scheduled after x-amount of days, so no one wanted to hang out while we took three years rerecording bass parts and putting mics in jugs of water to see how it sounds," Brock said. "It doesn't sound great. There's a reason they're not selling the jug-of-water mic."
Recently, Pitchfork learned of other experimentation and mishaps that contributed to album's continued delays. Here are a few:
Isaac Brock's car broke down constantly. "Such a classic excuse, it should be bronzed by now," he admits.
For "Coyotes", Brock bred and raised a pack of his own for research purposes. Two of the coyotoes, Scruffles and Otis, are actually executive producers on Strangers to Ourselves after winning an Empire-like power struggle.
Each week, Brock refused to enter the studio before he had read every available Walking Dead recap. When it was pointed out that he doesn't even watch the show, he sent a huffy group e-mail questioning the band's commitment to the album's themes. A detente is not reached until summer sweeps.
Three failed attempts at collaboration with Death Grips came to an unceremonious end when Zach Hill promised to come by the studio and instead mailed Brock a blank VHS tape covered in lye and nine Polaroids of MC Ride's pet iguana Hagar—named for the main character of popular syndicated cartoon Hagar the Horrible—in a blank padded mailer.
Gifted an advance copy of William Finnegan's forthcoming Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, Brock becomes fixated on making a surf rock album. A now deleted YouTube features Brock warbling "Surf City, ohhh yeah, come on mama get your damn board" in front of a confused group of chamber musicians.
Brock sent James Mercer to trace the route of 20th Century Explorer Percy Fawcett, and when he arrived at the Lost City of Z, Brock had Mercer call him from an early-2000s Nextel flip phone which Brock recorded with a mic placed inside a hotel bidet. "There's a reason they're not selling the patchy-call-from-a-Nextel-in-the-Amazon bidet mic," Brock said.
Confused, Brock spent hours of paid studio time campaigning Big Boi to invite Grand Funk Railroad guitarist Bruce Kilnuck to the recording session, despite Big Boi's repeated protest that he had never heard of the group and wasn't sure why he had to be the guy to talk to him. "They're an American band!", Brock says.
A year's worth of sessions and ideas are wiped out when Johnny Marr suddenly quits. "I'm not used to being the most handsome member of the band," he tells Brock over e-mail.
After hearing the Modest Mouse reference in Vampire Weekend's "Step", Brock became obsessed with returning the favor. Dozens of notebooks later, he gets as far as the couplet "what a way to end / this vampire weekend" before looking at what he had done and pitched the collected drafts into a fire.