Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev atAll Tomorrow's Parties in 2004.
Background information
Origin	Buffalo, New York, United States
Genres	Indie rock[1] chamber pop[2] neo-psychedelia[3] avant-pop[4] psychedelic pop[4]
Years active	1989–present
Labels	Jungle Rough Trade Columbia Beggars Banquet V2 Yep Roc Bella Union
Members	Jonathan Donahue Grasshopper Jesse Chandler Marion Genser
Past members	David Baker Jimy Chambers Dave Fridmann Jeff Mercel Adam Snyder Suzanne Thorpe
Website	mercuryrev.com

Mercury Rev is an Americanrock band formed in 1989 inBuffalo, New York,^[5] with singer/guitaristJonathan Donahue and guitarist/clarinetist/sound generator operator Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak as the only constant members. The band's music has incorporatedindie rock,psychedelic rock and American roots, amongst other forms. Mercury Rev have been closely associated withThe Flaming Lips,^[6] and the two bands have shared historical ties.

Mercury Rev was formed in 1989 by students at theUniversity at Buffalo, partially inspired by thedrone music of composer/media studies professorTony Conrad (then working as a teacher at the university, and a strong artistic influence on co-founder Grasshopper).^[7] The line-up gradually coalesced around Donahue, Grasshopper, vocalist/keyboard playerDavid Baker and flute/French horn player Suzanne Thorpe; subsequent additions were bass guitarist/in-house producerDave Fridmann (a music production student at SUNY Fredonia, who began by recording the band and subsequently added enough bass guitar and sonic effect parts to make himself a full band member), and a late addition in the form of drummer Jimy Chambers (who joined towards the end of initial recording sessions to "effectively serve as the frame around Mercury Rev’s musical splatter.")^[8]

The band was initially formed to score its members' student films,^[9] and had a loose playing and recording existence. The band's initial music was a blend ofexperimental,psychedelic rock, drone andnoise rock. David Baker recalls "we were in Buffalo, sitting there thinking, there's no hope of us being a band, we’re not going to beGuns N’ Roses. What we did wasn't considered real, because it wasn't being covered bySpin orRolling Stone, so we could just be whatever we wanted to be. We'd take the microphone and record pots and pans or guitar and make our own little world. I mean, we knew the context, we knew who Bowie was, we knew who all the bands were, but we didn't put them with us. We were just making music. It was, 'Us? Are we in a band?' Well, none of us live in the same town, we just meet in the studio and have a great time together doing stuff."^[10]

At this early stage, several members also had other musical interests which prevented consistent Mercury Rev activity. Donahue worked as a gig promoter for other bands' concerts in Buffalo, which brought him into contact withThe Flaming Lips in 1989: he then toured with them as guitar technician before formally joining as lead guitarist in time to play on their 1990 albumIn a Priest Driven Ambulance. The latter album was co-produced by Dave Fridmann, who went on to co-produce every Flaming Lips studio album to date with the exception of 1993'sTransmissions from the Satellite Heart.^[6][11]

Mercury Rev's debut album was 1991'sYerself is Steam. Once referred to as "soundtracks to actual movies, composed by a band that didn’t really exist," it originated as the collective's attempts to devise and perform musical scores for student films showing in local galleries, or for existing nature documentaries which they'd watch on television and jam to.^[8] It was followed by the "Car Wash Hair" single, a more straightforward song typifying the band's early merging of psychedelic rock and noise rock. During this year, the band had begun to solidify and concentrate on more sustained effort.Yerself is Steam had been completed during Donahue's breaks from Flaming Lips activity in tour and in Oklahoma: following creative disagreements with the band's frontmanWayne Coyne, Donahue left The Flaming Lips in mid-1991, shortly after recording theHit to Death in the Future Head album. This enabled him to return to Buffalo and concentrate full-time on Mercury Rev. Fridmann, meanwhile, had produced the band's early recordings as part of his university course-work, meaning that Mercury Rev could access and use the SUNY Fredonia studios in off-hours and at cheap rates.^[8]

As they began to play live (and across a greater spread of venues and events), the band began to make a name for themselves as creators of powerfully experimental, often chaotic psychedelic music, withPitchfork later recalling "in their formative years, Mercury Rev really did sound like a careening bus headed towards a fiery crash — one where half the people on board were frantically fighting each other for control of the wheel, and the other half were in the back obliviously singing nursery rhymes as the whole bucket of bolts went up in flames... [It was] less a melding of disparate sounds than a battle royale of oppositional ideologies: order and anarchy, ecstasy and terror, purity and perversion."^[8]

Although Dave Fridmann remained the band's bass player, co-producer and co-composer in the studio, he often had to step back from his role as live bass player due to increasing demands on his time as a record producer.^[12] Bassist John DeVries substituted for Fridmann at an increasing number of live shows, including an Ireland-and-England tour in the autumn of 1992, with Gerald Menke taking over live bass duties by 1993.^[13][14]

Despite considerable critical acclaim,^[15][16][17] Mercury Rev's early releases gave them little more thancult popularity,^[6] although thanks to early British press interest they secured a prestigious slot at theReading Festival for their third-ever gig,^[8] and later appeared on the smaller second stage at some 1993Lollapalooza stops.

The band's second record,Boces was recorded during 1992 and 1993, with the band's collective creative approach in full flow. David Baker later recalled "[Jimy Chambers] was really into a lot of '60s music; Dave Fridmann, his background was more jazz. He used to put Steely Dan on a lot of the time. Suzanne was of the mind set of trying to conquer all these guitars with her flute. I thought people should be able to put their thing into the mix because it is better to have everything in... The drummer was writing a song, the bass player was writing a song and it would get blown up by someone else. Jonathan was a major song writer and I did a lot but everybody got to contribute... There were pre-ideas and songs brought in but I don't think anybody would have been allowed to tell people what to do. They knew their song was going to get blown up. Maybe you don’t bring in a song that you weren’t ready for somebody to blow up."^[18]

Later in 1993, the band embarked on a tour to support the release ofBoces, including someLollapalooza shows during the summer. At the Lollopalooza gig at Greenwood Village, Colorado on 26 June, the band were forced off the stage for being too loud and "out of control" following an objection by the Mayor of Denver.^[8][19]

David Baker parted company with Mercury Rev after theBoces tour, citing musical and personal disputes.^[10]

Baker remained on good terms with the band,^[10] and would later record albums as Shady and Variety Lights. With his departure, the thematically darker and musically experimental features of Mercury Rev began to disappear, with the music gradually shifting over time towards a melodic, ornate sound.^[4]

The band's first post-Baker album,See You on the Other Side (1995) contained a variety of styles, including a sprawling psychedelic opening track and noise rock numbers like "Young Man's Stride" (for which a music video was released), but also more melodic songs, such as "Sudden Ray of Hope". By this time the live band included organist Adam Snyder and brothersJason andJustin Russo of psychedelic rock bandHopewell (as bassist and keyboardist respectively).^[14]

That year, the group also recorded and released the album,Paralyzed Mind Of The Archangel Void, under the moniker "Harmony Rockets". The album featured a single forty minute track of mostly instrumental psychedelic improvised music. It was rated four and half stars, out of five, byAllMusic. (Fourteen years later, in 2009, the group would revisit it for performance in theDon't Look Back concert series.)

See You on the Other Side failed to sell well, a situation which helped to trigger a destructive period for the band during which they fell into debt, came into conflict with their record label, lost their manager and lawyers, and parted company with drummer Jimy Chambers.^[20][21] Donahue and Grasshopper, in particular, were failing to communicate with each other and struggling with their individual drug and relationship problems.^[20][21]

While Grasshopper retreated to a Jesuit guest house in upstate New York, Donahue began to listen to records of children's music and to write simple melodies on piano (in contrast to the band's former psychedelic/electric compositional approach.^[22] At the same time, he was invited to guest on aChemical Brothers track called "The Private Psychedelic Reel".^[23] This in turn inspired him to repair his musical and personal friendship with Grasshopper.^[21][23]

Mercury Rev relocated to Donahue's birthplace ofKingston, New York,^[9] and began recording in theCatskill Mountains. The personnel for the album was a loose core of Jonathan Donahue, Grasshopper and Suzanne Thorpe, joined by Dave Fridmann and by former drummer Jimy Chambers, and augmented by local musicians (including two former members ofThe Band -Garth Hudson andLevon Helm). The involvement of the latter began to shift the band's musical focus closer to roots and acoustic music. At the secondary recording and mixing stage, Donahue, Grasshopper and Fridmann opted not to use their previous method of distorted guitar and electronic overdubs and instead began to use strings, horns and woodwinds, resulting in more of achamber pop sound while retaining a psychedelic tinge.^[20][24]

The 1998 release of the resultingDeserter's Songs album met with acclaim, and made Mercury Rev unexpected pop stars.^{[25][26][27][28][29]} In theUK,NME magazine madeDeserter's Songs theirAlbum of the Year.^[30] Donahue's earnest, high-pitched vocals and concentration on relatively concise, melodic songs gave the band's material an entirely new feel and much increased popularity (Deserter's Songs spawned three UK Top 40 singles: "Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp", "Opus 40" and "Goddess On A Hiway").

Both Suzanne Thorpe and Jimy Chambers left Mercury Rev following the recording of the album, with the tours promotingDeserter's Songs featuring the return of the Russo brothers and Adam Snyder (although all three would depart the live band during 2000). Jeff Mercel, who'd played onDeserter's Songs, also joined as touring drummer, and would soon become a full band member.^[14] Although Thorpe would return as a guest player forAll is Dream,^[14] she would subsequently concentrate on academic research and emerge as a Deep Listening instructor, university lecturer and electro-acoustic improviser, as well as becoming part of "pirate-punk" band The Wounded Knees.^[31] Thorpe has also returned for occasional band revisitations of the Harmony Rockets project, including one at the 2009 All Tomorrow's Parties festival in England.^[13][32][33] Chambers would later form the band Odiorne.^[14]

By 2001, the band's nucleus was Grasshopper, Donahue and Mercel, with Fridmann remaining as co-producer and studio bass player. TheAll Is Dream album was issued in 2001 and became the band's highest-charting album in the UK to date (#11). It included "Little Rhymes", "Nite and Fog" and "The Dark is Rising," which reached No. 16 in theUK Singles Chart.^[34] David Bowie producerTony Visconti arranged strings and provided Mellotron parts for the album, which also featured contributions from Jason and Justin Russo. However, the Russo brothers did not join the band on tour this time, their places being taken by bass player Paul Dillon and by multi-instrumentalist Carlos Anthony Molina on keyboards, augmented by second keyboard player Michael Schirmer.^[14]

Carlos Anthony Molina had become a full Mercury Rev member by the time of Mercury Rev's fifth album,The Secret Migration, which was released on January 24, 2005, and on which he played both keyboards and bass guitar. The album featured the UK Top 40 single "In A Funny Way" (#28). The album itself reached #16 in the UK Albums chart. Jeff Mercel moved to keyboards for the subsequent tours, with his place on drums being taken on live dates by Jason Miranda.^[14]

The Secret Migration was followed up in 2006, by acompilation album,The Essential Mercury Rev: Stillness Breathes 1991-2006 and the film soundtrack albumHello Blackbird. The band released a pair of albums on September 29, 2008:Snowflake Midnight, and a free MP3 album of instrumentals,Strange Attractor, following which Jeff Mercel left the band (although he would rejoin them on tour in 2011 to promote the release of the double disc reissue ofDeserter's Songs). FormerMidlake keyboardist Jesse Chandler was recruited to Mercury Rev in 2014.^[35]

Mercury Rev's first studio album in seven years,The Light in You was released on October 2, 2015, throughBella Union. It reached #39 on the UK albums chart.^[36] This was the first Mercury Rev album not to be co-produced by Dave Fridmann. At this point the band were officially a duo of Donahue and Grasshopper, with Molina, Miranda and Chandler still regularly contributing but as part of a set of support musicians.

Although Molina and Miranda's involvement with the band had ceased by 2016, Chandler had become a full member of Mercury Rev by the time that the band releasedBobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited in February 2019. This was a reworking ofBobbie Gentry’s 1968 albumThe Delta Sweete,^[37] featuring instrumentation by Mercury Rev and a different female guest singer on each song.Lucinda Williams, actressCarice van Houten,Beth Orton andNorah Jones were among the vocalists. The album achieved a Top 40 position in the UK charts, peaking at #32.

2021 saw further changes to the Mercury Rev line-up, with second keyboard player Marion Genser joining the band as a fully-fledged member.

On June 4, 2024, Mercury Rev announced their latest studio album,Born Horses, which was released on September 6, 2024. The first single from the album, “Patterns,” was also released on the day of the announcement.^[38][39] The band's line-up changed again this year, with Joe Magistro taking over on drums, and guitarist/flugelhorn player J.B. Meijers (who'd already made some band contributions in 2018) joining.

• Jonathan Donahue – vocals, guitar(1989–present)
• Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak – guitar, keyboards, clarinet, vocals, Tettix Wave Accumulator(1989–present)
• Marion Genser – keyboards, harmonium, synths(2021–present)
• Jesse Chandler – keyboards, sax, flute(2014–present)

• Chris Heitzman – bass(2021–present)
• J.B. Meijers – guitar, flugelhorn(2018; 2024–present)
• Joe Magistro – drums(2024–present)

• David Baker – vocals(1989–1993)
• Jimy Chambers – drums(1989–1999)
• Dave Fridmann – bass(1989–2001; studio only after 1993), producer(1989–2008)
• Jeff Mercel – drums, piano(1998–2008; 2011 tour)
• Adam Snyder – keyboards(1995–2000)
• Suzanne Thorpe – flute(1989–1999)

• John DeVries – bass(1993)
• Gerald Menke – bass(1993)
• Justin Russo – bass(1994–2001)
• Jason Russo – keyboards(1995–2001)
• Michael Schirmer – keyboards(2001–2002)
• Paul Dillon – bass(2001–2002)
• Carlos Anthony Molina – keyboards(2001–2002), bass(2004–2016)
• Jason Miranda – drums(2005–2016)
• Simon Raymonde
• Don McGreevy – drums(2022)

• 2002 -Instant Karma - A Tribute to John Lennon (song, "Isolation")
• 2004 - " Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered"
• 2006 -Back to Mine (compiled by Mercury Rev, includes exclusive new track "Cecilla's Lunar Expose")

• Acoustic 05 (2005,Echo) - "First Time Mothers Joy"
• Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy (2009,Mezzotint) - "Sailors and Animals" (Miracle Legion cover)

• List of dream pop artists

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMercury Rev.

• Official website
• Mercury Rev atAllMusic
• Mercury Rev at WorldMusicDatabase
• V2Music: Mercury Rev
• Review of 'Butterfly's Wings'
• Silvertone Series No. 2 Mercury Rev in Russia. An interview for Podstantsiya.ru

• Mercury Rev
• Alternative rock groups from New York (state)
• Chamber pop musicians
• Indie rock musical groups from New York (state)
• Musical groups established in 1989
• American neo-psychedelia groups
• Musical groups from Buffalo, New York
• Psychedelic pop music groups
• Avant-pop musicians
• Rock music groups from New York (state)
• Beggars Banquet Records artists
• Columbia Records artists
• Rough Trade Records artists
• V2 Records artists
• Sibling musical groups
• 1989 establishments in New York (state)
• Yep Roc Records artists
• Bella Union artists
• Partisan Records artists

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