"I don't necessarily think it's a good business decision," he says. Billboard magazine reported earlier this month that August was one of the worst months on record for the music biz-album sales dropped over 18 percent from the same time last year. He's got a new job.īrock, whose own band is both a moneymaker (Modest Mouse can make in the neighborhood of $50,000 a night) and full-time gig, has decided to get into the business of helping other bands record, produce and tour. It's almost unprecedented for Brock to speak to the local press, but today he's got something to talk about. He brings a pack of American Spirits and a coffee mug out to the porch, where two plain metal rocking chairs sit on either side of a small wooden table. "Oh, right, I have an interview today!" Apparently it's not that unusual for strangers to show up at the door and strike up a conversation. It's not for a few more minutes that he snaps up straight. "How's it going?" he offers from his seat, that straight face looking up from the screen and then down again. Sun pours in through long side windows and Brock's alone in the middle of the room, reading on his laptop at the kitchen table. But when I show up on a Wednesday afternoon the door's wide open, with coffee and a hint of marijuana hanging in the air. In many ways, he's the rock star that isn't.īrock's home, nearly encircled by shrubs and trees, has a small red-and-black "no trespassing" sign out front. And more often than not, he avoids the spotlight: Brock often passes on interviews and public appearances, spending much of his off-tour time alone or with friends at his three-story Belmont-area home. And now they're positioned in a much better way than so many other bands that signed big deals."īrock has kept his straight face throughout the band's rise to ubiquity. "They've played it their own way built up their own audience. "They've become a model for how you can be a great band today and have loyal fans and make great music and do it on your own terms," says Jason Fine, a Rolling Stone reporter who spent two days with Brock for a lengthy 2004 feature. Not since Everclear has a Portland-centric band (MM's members are somewhat scattered across the West) found this much commercial success. It was the most played song on college radio that year, and the album recently went gold. "Dashboard," the lead single, is classic Modest Mouse with its brutalized disco percussion, noodling guitars and Brock's half-shouted, warped-record vocals. The success continued with 2007's W e Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Next came another big single, "Ocean Breathes Salty." Good News for People Who Love Bad News, the album from whence both tracks came, went platinum in August of that year. The single sold more than 500,000 copies. In 2004, "Float On" popped up everywhere, including Idol. Against the national backdrop of American Idol and all its smiling pageantry, Modest Mouse, with Brock at its center, has gone from an underground luminary to the commercially successful hit machine that-along with Death Cab for Cutie and the Shins-introduced the O.C. So when Brock isn't actively smiling-and he doesn't smile easily-one wonders what one may have done to offend him.īrock's expression is part of what makes him among the least likely pop successes of his generation. Or, more accurately, the way it was rebuilt: a hard punch and a broken bottle to the head (two separate incidents years removed) intensified the effect, the former having led to a metal plate in his jaw. When Isaac Brock lets his face go slack-when he attempts no expression at all-he looks furious.
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