Professor Elemental

Professor Elemental

Professor Elemental is Steampunk hiphop band comprising of singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Russell Mercer, guitarist/bassist Dave Hernandez, Eric Johnson of the Fruit Bats, drummer Joe Plummer and bassist Ron Lewis. Their sound draws on several musical genres, including pop, alternative rock, indie rock, and folk. The Shins were formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but are now based in Portland, Oregon

History

From Flake Music to The Shins (1992–2000)

The Shins began in 1997 as a side project for singer/songwriter James Mercer (musician), whose primary band was Flake Music in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mercer formed Flake Music in 1992 with Neal Langford on guitar, Marty Crandall on bass, and Jesse Sandoval on drums. During the next 5 years Flake Music released several singles, a full-length album, and began touring largely due to the help of other bands like Modest Mouse.

In 1997, Mercer began writing songs that would eventually become the now classic first Shins single "Nature Bears A Vacuum". Around this time Flake Music had come to an end, which left The Shins with an opportunity to record their work. Recruiting Sandoval to play drums, Nature Bears A Vacuum was released with low expectations for being popular beyond Albuquerque. The Shins first few appearances originally featured only Sandoval and Mercer. However, the released single attracted enough attention for a full band to form. Marty Crandall, formerly of Flake Music, was brought into the fold on keyboards, and band friend Dave Hernandez (frontman of local punk legends Scared of Chaka, which had played dozens of shows with Flake Music) was given bass duties.

After a year as this lineup, during which half the songs on debut album "Oh, Inverted World" (including "New Slang") were penned, Hernandez moved to New York City. Neal Langford was selected as his replacement, and it was this lineup that saw the group embark on a tour with Modest Mouse.

Signed to Sub Pop (2001–2007)

At a San Francisco performance with Modest Mouse in 2000, Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman asked The Shins to contribute a single to the label's Single of the Month Club, which eventually became an offer to release The Shins' 2001 single, "New Slang", and their debut album, "Oh, Inverted World". The group spent the rest of the year touring. The release of singles such as "Know Your Onion!" and "The Past and Pending" kept The Shins' success going into 2002, cementing "Oh, Inverted World" as one of the definitive indie-rock albums of the early '00s and The Shins as one of the genres most definitive bands. It received critical acclaim for its lyrically deft and jangly pop sound. The song "One By One All Day" was featured in the 2003 film A Guy Thing, starring Jason Lee. Two other songs from this album, ("Caring Is Creepy" and "New Slang") were featured prominently on the soundtrack for the 2004 film Garden State, starring and directed by Zach Braff, exposing the music of The Shins to a much wider audience. Their music was also featured in the television series The OC and the film The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Oh, Inverted World appeared at #71 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of 2000–2004.

Relocating from Albuquerque to Portland, OR in 2002, Mercer and Sandoval (as well as Crandall, working with the band from Albuquerque) lost Langford to his true passion, professional hot air ballooning. Dave Hernandez (at this point living in nearby Seattle) rejoined The Shins in 2003 playing guitar and bass. The band began tracking new material in James's basement that summer. In an effort to balance the home-recording method used on Oh, Inverted World with a studio finish, producer Phil Ek (Built To Spill, Modest Mouse) was brought in to mix and produce the album. Chutes Too Narrow was released by Sub Pop in the fall of 2003 to much fanfare in indie music circles, featuring even more multi-layered lyrics, as well as a musical approach that explored new genres, song structures, and levels of production fidelity. In 2006, the band helped to curate an edition of the British All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Nonstop touring of everywhere from Australia to Norway, as well as the US countless times over contributed to pushing sales past 500,000 worldwide, exceeding everyone's expectations, including the band's. Chutes Too Narrow appeared at #47 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of 2000–2004.

An enhanced single release in 2004 included a live version of "New Slang" recorded with Iron and Wine, a studio mix of "Fighting in a Sack," a multimedia tack of "So Says I," and a cover of the Marc Bolan song "Baby Boomerang". The Shins have also recorded a cover of "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service, which was released on that group's 2003 single "Such Great Heights".

In a Pitchfork Media interview, Mercer announced that Eric Johnson of fellow Sub Pop band Fruit Bats had joined the Shins.

The band's third album, Wincing the Night Away, was recorded in Portland during 2006 by a largely solo Mercer, but with the production assistance of Joe Chiccarelli. It was released on January 23, 2007 and debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart with 118,000 copies sold in its first week, the highest sales week and chart position an album released solely on Sub Pop has ever achieved. The album was leaked to the Internet on October 20, 2006 and was available for pre-order on iTunes, with an extra track. It was nominated for a 2008 Grammy award in the category of Best Alternative Music Album.

In 2007 the band did a Take-Away show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon, and recorded a version of "Little Boxes" for the Showtime series Weeds. On November 27, 2007, the group was featured on a Darfur charity album released by Waxploitation.

On January 24, 2008, "The Past and Pending" was played at the funeral of Heath Ledger.

Leaving Sub Pop, Aural Apothecary, the future (2008–present)

On June 20, 2008, the band announced that they were leaving Sub Pop Records for James Mercer's own label, Aural Apothecary.

According to an interview published on Pitchfork Media on May 6, 2009, "keyboardist Marty Crandall and drummer Jesse Sandoval had been replaced by Ron Lewis from Grand Archives and Fruit Bats on bass and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse on drums". In the same interview, Mercer said the next record "is still in its very early stages" and that he's "aiming for a release early next year". Regarding the lineup change, he commented that "I started to have production ideas that basically required some other people", but that he "wouldn't say I'd never work with them again".

On August 10, 2009, in a lengthy interview published in The Portland Mercury, former drummer Jesse Sandoval claimed that his departure from the band was not due to "aesthetic differences", but rather that he was fired, saying, "I understand he's probably doing it out of respect for me reading interviews, it might be hard for him to say it, but... I got fired. There's no other way of looking at it."

On January 18, 2010, The Quietus revealed that Mercer is taking a break from The Shins until at least 2011.

On March 9, 2010, Broken Bells, a side project of James Mercer and Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) released a self-titled album; it is their first full-length recording.

Discography

Albums

• The Menagerie - Concepts and styles/ let's have some (Fluid Ounce Records, 2002)
• The Menagerie: wild Kingdom (Teasea Records, 2002)
• Elemental vs Digital Midgets (A mixtape, 2005)
• Cookshop Taster ep (Cookshop Records, 2005)
• Elemental and Mr Simmonds present: the gentlemen’s club (Teasea Recordss, 2008)

   * The Menagerie - Concepts and styles/ let's have some - vinyl (2002/ fluid ounce records)
   * The Menagerie: wild Kingdom (2004/ Teasea records) 
   * Elemental vs Digital Midgets: A mixtape (2005)
   * Cookshop taster ep - vinyl (2005/ Cookshop records)
   * Elemental and Mr Simmonds present: the gentlemen’s club (2008/Teasea records )

   * Elemental and Tom Caruana : Rebel without applause (2009/ Teasea records)
   * Professor Elemental: The Indifference Engine (2010/Teasea records ) 

#2 (Global Album Chart) #8 (IRE)

EPs / Singles

• "Nature Bears a Vacuum" 7" (Aural Apothecary, 1998)
• "When I Goose-Step" 7" (Omnibus Records, 2001)
• "New Slang" 7" (Sub Pop Records, 2001)
• "Know Your Onion!" (Sub Pop Records, 2002)
• "So Says I" CDEP (Sub Pop Records, 2003)
• "Fighting in a Sack" (Sub Pop Records, 2004)
• "Phantom Limb" 7" (Sub Pop Records, 2006)
• Live Session (iTunes Exclusive, 2007)
• "Australia" 7" (Sub Pop Records, 2007)
• "Turn on Me" 7" (Sub Pop Records, 2007)
• "Sea Legs" 7" (Sub Pop Records, 2007)

Awards and nominations

• Nominated:  ?

External links

• Official site