{"id":15906,"date":"2018-05-16T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T16:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15906"},"modified":"2018-05-24T09:13:21","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T16:13:21","slug":"vancouvers-frog-eyes-come-full-circle-as-they-prepare-for-farewell-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/05\/16\/vancouvers-frog-eyes-come-full-circle-as-they-prepare-for-farewell-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver\u2019s Frog Eyes come full circle as they prepare for farewell tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

All things must come to an end. After 17 years, Vancouver indie-rock band Frog Eyes\u2014who started out in Victoria\u2014are calling it quits. Their new album, Violet Psalms<\/i>, will be the band\u2019s last; guitarist\/vocalist Carey Mercer says the circle is complete.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were making it, it felt very much like we were making our first record,\u201d says Mercer, \u201crecording things in our basement, not feeling like there was really much expectation or demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Mercer isn\u2019t thinking much about any post-Frog Eyes plans; in fact, he says he makes a point of not thinking about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really enjoyable to linger in the moment of finality,\u201d he says. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Vancouver-based indie rock band Frog Eyes have roots in Victoria; their new album, Violet Psalms<\/em>, will be their last (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a nice feeling of completion now; the world has changed a lot since the band\u2019s inception 17 years ago, says Mercer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have an email account when we started; I wouldn\u2019t [have been] super familiar with the term \u2018climate change,\u2019\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Mercer looks back on those 17 years, he feels thankful for the people who have played in Frog Eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppreciate and respect the time that your bandmates give you,\u201d he says, with a laugh. \u201cDon\u2019t take it for granted. I think when you\u2019re young, everyone just has oodles of time, and so it\u2019s not a huge thing to take some time from someone, to say, \u2018Come over. Come over three times a week.\u2019 You start to be very painfully aware of the time people give to you, and then it makes you think, \u2018Oh, God, it\u2019s always been like that; it\u2019s always been a pressure.\u2019 Everyone was always busy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mercer says the new album reminds him of being outside, which he says can be wonderful but also very precarious\u2014a vulnerable and exposed experience. But despite this awareness of his own work, Mercer says it\u2019s hard to know the qualities of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things I do that, generally, no one else does, and that\u2019s fine. There\u2019s this weird gestation period between the time that it\u2019s done and then the time that it hits the streets,\u201d says Mercer. \u201cI won\u2019t listen to it. I try not to think about it, and then we play the songs live and that totally changes the view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercer says the band explored a lot with how instruments could be used on Violet Psalms<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the four of us kind of hunkering down, trying to use familiar sounds in different ways,\u201d he says, with one example being the process of taking a drum set apart and seeing how it could be rearranged.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mercer says the band\u2019s decision to stop playing doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the financial strain often felt by musicians in the digital age; he says he was lucky enough to live through a consumerist blip where people were very into spending money on music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a massive commodity that coincided with the youth identity\u2026 and, being totally into spending money on music, I know that music is still important. On one hand, it seems like no one buys music anymore, but that\u2019s totally not true. It\u2019s just a little bit harder to quantify. Music is still a very vital, powerful force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frog Eyes
\n8 pm Friday, May 25
\n$20 ($15 advance),\u00a0The Copper Owl
\n<\/span>copperowl.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All things must come to an end. After 17 years, Vancouver indie-rock band Frog Eyes\u2014who started out in Victoria\u2014are calling it quits. Their new album, Violet Psalms, will be the band\u2019s last; guitarist\/vocalist Carey Mercer says the circle is complete.\u00a0 \u201cWhen we were making it, it felt very much like we were making our first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-may-16-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15909,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15906\/revisions\/15909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}