Horrible dates are when you're with people who are immature and can't really be comfortable in their own skin. James Mercer More Quotes by James Mercer More Quotes From James Mercer The part of modern pop music I don't know much about is hip hop. James Mercer about know modern music I don't like the idea of a singer-songwriter record. I don't picture myself that way, and it's not my favorite sort of look, I guess. It's really just an aesthetic thing. James Mercer picture myself look aesthetic When I started The Shins, it really was just me, alone, but it was still The Shins. I was totally recording stuff and writing songs as The Shins and all of that. So the beginning inception of the whole thing was some sort of a lie, I guess. James Mercer lie alone beginning me I know that there are a lot of sort of silly things that one thinks as a music listener about bands. I am a fan of many bands. James Mercer i-am things know music My attempt at really doing classic sort of songwriting is Shins stuff. James Mercer doing songwriting classic stuff As a child, I lived in Germany at the Ramstein air force base, where my dad sang at a nightclub in Kaiserslautern. My parents couldn't afford a babysitter, so when I was, like, ten or 11, I would go with them to the bar until two in the morning. James Mercer parents child dad morning We played a festival in Ireland once, and in the middle of 'New Slang,' the Scissor Sisters kicked in across the field on this mega stage. It was a little distracting. It was hard to keep track of what I was supposed to sing. James Mercer sing new hard stage