Broken Bells Lift Off and Head Into the Blue
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The post Broken Bells Lift Off and Head Into the Blue appeared first on Consequence.
On the title track and opening song of Broken Bells‘ new album, INTO THE BLUE (out Friday, October 7th), James Mercer sets the stage by singing, “Overlapping lines in time/ cross and fade and intertwine/ where love and loss combine.” It’s a grandiose image to kick off the first Broken Bells album in eight years, but it’s also a beautiful metaphor for The Shins’ James Mercer and prolific producer Danger Mouse (AKA Brian Burton)’s friendship.
In between their many projects, Mercer and Burton have travelled the world, worked with numerous other musicians and mediums, and continued building out their extensive legacies. But as Broken Bells, there’s a mutual love and respect that radiates from their cosmic concoctions, a tenderness that makes their psychedelic songs into full-hearted gems. INTO THE BLUE picks up where Broken Bells’ last album, 2014’s After the Disco, left off: the songs feature lush, cinematic arrangements, choirs and orchestras and sonic odysseys, and a classic pop spirit that echoes The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and ELO.
But not all is the same for Mercer and Burton; for one, they’ve used samples for the first time on a Broken Bells record, frequently swapping Burton’s crystalline drums for homespun loops, and coloring out their sound with a nostalgic palate. The album also contains some of the oldest tracks in Broken Bells’ existence — Mercer names “Invisible Exit” as the oldest song on the album, dating all the way back to their first tour in support of their 2010 self-titled debut.
Dusting off their old gems was a big theme in the construction of INTO THE BLUE. “Some of the songs are things that we had sitting around for quite a while and just hadn’t finished,” Mercer tells Consequence. “Since we started fairly late in our careers, we had never had the opportunity to do that, go back to things we had come up with in the first couple of years we were together.”
Though many of the tracks’ origins date back to Broken Bells’ formative years, their exquisite craftsmanship is well on display. There are no choices that feel half-baked, no catharsis undeserved. As for the album’s title? Well, Burton thinks it “sounded cool,” while Mercer thinks the “blue” represents “oblivion — but not in a horribly negative sense.” Upon listening, it’s clear that the “oblivion” that Mercer refers to is built from love, and represents the freedom and delight that two friends feel when making music.
Ahead of the release of INTO THE BLUE, Mercer and Burton sat down with Consequence to discuss making their first album in eight years, the origins of certain tracks, what the collaborative project represents in both of their lives, and much more. Check out the full Q&A below.
After all this time away from the project, how does it feel to be unveiling another Broken Bells album?
James Mercer: It feels good to me. It feels like it’s been a long time coming. Things get postponed all the time, you know, so it’s like you’re almost there and then, “Oh, we need three more months!”
Brian Burton: Yes, especially on this album, it’s been a long time coming. So I’m anxious for it to be out, but yeah, it’s been a while.
Talk me through the journey of creating this album — was the writing or recording process offset by the pandemic at all?
Burton: I guess for us, we never really stopped working for any long period of time. When we were done touring After the Disco, we jumped right back in and started writing new songs and recording stuff.
Mercer: Right away — I think it was a matter of weeks, wasn’t it?
Burton: Yeah, it was really quickly after, because that’s what happens when you’re touring, it’s more fun to make music, let’s go make more music instead of, for guilt purposes, feeling like, “I gotta be doing something.” So we jumped right in, and started working with samples and things like that — I had started working with samples more, so we just started kind of putting together ideas and assuming it was going to be the next album. And that time just came and went. We did a few songs, we took some time away, we did some more stuff.
Then, when it started to become years, we didn’t want to be waiting too long, and we thought we were close to an album but didn’t really have it. So we put out “Shelter,” and then when we realized we had to do more, so the next year, we put out “Good Luck,” just kind of holding it back. We were really close still, but then the pandemic happened, and then by the time we were finishing this album, we figured it needed to be its own thing.
Mercer: And meanwhile, we’re both doing other projects, you know. I mean, I had my head down for a pretty long period of time doing Heartworms for The Shins. And Brian had a number of projects…
Burton: The record with Karen O, I was working on that, and then I started with this and the Black Thought stuff, we were just both pretty busy. But we still would see each other a couple times a year, that kind of thing. And that adds up.
Besides incorporating samples, was there anything on the record that you guys hadn’t tried together before?
Burton: I’m not sure — James, anything stick out to you right away really?
Mercer: Yeah, working with samples was the main difference. But some of the songs are things that we had sitting around for quite a while and just hadn’t finished. Since we started fairly late in our careers, we had never had the opportunity to do that, to go back to things we had come up with in the first couple of years we were together.
Burton: Yeah, there were some things that came out like that. I think the thing that maybe was a little different on this one was that when we got towards the end, we really started to refine the songs more than just doing new things, which is what we usually do. And I think it was all the time we had in the last few years where we were really close. And so we did that and we were just really tough on the last twenty percent of finishing it, we were really, really trying to keep the standard up and everything. That was the biggest difference, I think, and just the time it took. But the process was pretty similar.
Mercer: Yeah, I think that time that we spent addressing little issues over and over and finding things to tweak, I think it really paid off in surprising ways. There were new things discovered, and it’s funny, because you look back, and I think we could probably listen to any of our other songs from previous records and be like, “Oh, we could tweak that,” you know what I mean? But we had the time to do it on this record.
What’s the oldest track on INTO THE BLUE?
Burton: Might have been “Invisible Exit.” I think that was started on tour, on the first tour for the first album. That was written in a hotel room. I think that’s when the first idea of that was put down. So yeah, like 12 years ago, a long time ago.
How did the lead single for INTO THE BLUE (“We’re Not in Orbit Yet…”) come together, and what made you decide to make it the lead single?
Burton: If I remember right, it started in Portland. I went to James and we were recording in Portland and it wasn’t going so well. It was a different environment, different thing, and it just was a very gloomy kind of time while we were there. Nothing was happening, but I think in the last couple of days we got the beginning of “We’re Not In Orbit Yet” and “Love On The Run,” so we ended kind of positively. But that’s what I remember, it was finally something that kind of started to feel like a song out of the stuff we were doing there, and then yeah, we brought it back up a couple of different times and we worked on the song for years on and off a little here, a little there, until we got to the end.
Mercer: I remember us talking about the idea that that song seemed to fit in our repertoire, it seemed very Broken Bells-y, you know, so it was something that wouldn’t shock the fans. It was one part of the conversation.
Do you think there’s a song on the album that maybe would shock the fans?
Mercer: “Love On The Run” is different than anything we’ve ever done.
Burton: That’s what I would say as well, yeah.
Mercer: And I love it for that. It’s got a sweet solo at the end, it’s on for a bit.
Another album highlight is “The Chase,” which features some beautiful string arrangements. How did that song come together?
Burton: That was one of the first things we did after we got off tour, it was one of the first ideas we had and it was using a looped drum sample — it was right when we were trying to start messing around with samples, “The Chase” and “Shelter” around the same time. And that one was never quite finished and we kept having issues with it. And then in the eleventh hour, I found this great loop that Questlove had given me and so I plugged it in there and it just made the song have a different shape. And then we just kind of redid stuff around that shape and it just made it work really well. It felt newer to us, and it wasn’t becoming something that we had gotten fatigued on.
With the album being titled INTO THE BLUE, what does the “blue” symbolize to you?
Mercer: I guess oblivion — but not in a horribly negative sense.
Burton: I just think it sounds cool. I would leave it up to whoever listens, I don’t know that it needs to be defined. I like to leave things for other people, I mean it was definitely for us, but hopefully it’s left there for people to be able to interpret and use for themselves and not be thinking about James and I while listening to it.
Mercer: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Your debut album turned 12 years old this year. Do you ever go back and listen to that record, and is there anything you’d change or differently on it?
Burton: Not really, I don’t think so. I mean, nothing that stands out. I don’t really go back and listen to it with that kind of an attitude — it would drive me crazy to open that can of worms. I just think about the time we spent recording and hanging out and getting to be friends with James, that kind of thing. Like I think of it more in the nostalgic way of the making of the record more so than picking it apart.
Mercer: I do have a tendency to think as an editor, so I do that with everything I’ve ever worked on. I always look back and I’m like, “Oh, that could have been this way, or that way,” but often, those ideas are things we actually tried and didn’t work. So I think it’s our best effort right there, I think I can move on.
What does this project represent in each your lives?
Mercer: For me, it’s like a kind of sanctuary. You know, I think working with Brian is much easier than working on my own, doing The Shins stuff. I’ve got a real partner in Brian, and we’re real comfortable with that. And we really flow. So for me, it’s like extended vacations that I get to take with Brian.
Burton: Yeah, I think for myself, I feel like I’m only really in one band right now. So that’s what I’ve always kind of considered — if there is a band, or there’s a group, that’s what it would be, it’d be Broken Bells. So, you know, I get to do all these other things, but this is the one thing that I have — a partner in a way that’s been ongoing this whole time, even though it’s taken a while to do this. I haven’t done three albums with anybody in this kind of way.
It just feels like me and my friend are in a band and we put out records every once in a while. But yeah, it is mostly an excuse for us to get together and hang out and just make stuff, so we’re always talking about it, we’re already talking about doing it again soon and getting back into it. Hopefully it won’t take eight years again!
INTO THE BLUE Artwork:
Broken Bells Lift Off and Head Into the Blue
Paolo Ragusa
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