Purchasing a home is in itself something to celebrate, but James Mercer had an extra reason to pop the champagne when he discovered the house he bought in Portland had, incidentally, once belonged to one of his musical heroes, Elliott Smith.
Mercer was chatting about the making of The Shins 2003 album Chutes Too Narrow for an episode of the Life of the Record podcast. On the song “Saint Simon,” Mercer sings, “Nothing holds a Roman candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside,” an Easter egg reference to Smith’s 1994 debut Roman Candle.
“I ended up buying the house that [Smith] lived in when he recorded Roman Candle and those things — just randomly,” Mercer said on the podcast. “It was kind of a music house, but I didn’t know. My drummer, Jon Sortland, he had actually lived there as well.”
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The house in question was, apparently, well-known among Smith and Mercer’s fellow Pacific Northwest indie rockers. “It’s funny — Janet [Weiss] from Sleater-Kinney found out, and she was like, ‘You bought that house?! You own that house?!’” Mercer continued. “It’s such a strange coincidence.”
Listen to the full podcast episode below; the above quotes begin around the 41-minute mark. You can see a photo of the “Roman Candle” house on reddit.
Mercer also recently chatted about another Shins classic, “New Slang,” on an episode of Story Behind the Song our podcast. In the meantime, he’s been working on the band’s follow-up to 2017’s Heartworms.