Either Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock isn’t talking about what he’s been doing with his time since his band played its last shows in July, or the music press by and large hasn’t asked him. There’s been little in the way of news or interviews since last August other than an announcement in March of an extensive tour that began May 23 at the Knitting Factory in Spokane, Wash.

Brock is notoriously press shy, and likely just wanted to get on the road and avoid the press interviews that accompany touring announcements. Or perhaps he just wants to find out if Modest Mouse has reached the point where that chore can be sidestepped.

A 10-month break from the road is certainly enough time to make significant progress on the recording of a new song cycle. Then again, it was eight years between 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which features former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, and 2015’s Strangers to Ourselves. What the 2017 tour will prove is whether Brock has built Modest Mouse’s legacy and following to the point where they can pack concerts without relying on new releases and infusions of inspiration from legendary musicians. Now an eight-piece ensemble, Modest Mouse is on the verge of becoming indie rock’s Grateful Dead, with two drummers embellishing the arrangements but tight song structures in lieu of space jams.

That ensemble grew from a lineup that started out as a trio in the early ’90s. The arrangements on the band’s breakthrough 2004 album Good News for People Who Love Bad News necessitated expanding the lineup, although Brock and company had been pretty successful at recreating increasingly complex composition. Brock’s idiosyncratic approach to music originates in part due to an unorthodox upbringing and disjointed exposures to music. His early childhood was spent in a commune with limited exposure to pop culture before his family settled in Issaquah, Wash., not far from the regional musical hotbeds of Olympia, Seattle and Portland.

Brock soaked up whatever inspiration-stoking music he came across, with the Pixies being a particular influence. He became proficient enough on guitar by age 16 to play with other musicians, and formed a partnership with Eric Judy after the future Modest Mouse bassist visited a video store run by Brock’s parents. With drummer Jeremiah Green on board and a name inspired by a passage written by Virginia Woolf, Modest Mouse entered producer Calvin Johnson’s Dub Narcotic Studios in Olympia and launched a recording career.

The band scored big in 1997 with indie album The Lonesome Crowded West, successfully made the jump to major labels with 2000’s critically acclaimed The Moon and Antarctica and scored a No. 1 album with Good News for People Who Love Bad News. That album contained what would become Modest Mouse’s it’s-all-good anthem “Float On” and paved the way for We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart. Strangers to Ourselves made it to No. 3, but by that time the music business had changed and acts were now dependent on live shows to maintain their careers. Fortunately for Brock, Modest Mouse’s following is solid enough to where he could do nothing but play live for a long time.

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