Modest Mouse in Rolling Stone: Is bandleader Brock out of control?

Northwest alternative band Modest Mouse tells all in a Rolling Stone interview. It's a rather amusing article, but it may make you wonder if Volvo-driving, personal assistant-employing band leader Isaac Brock might need some help.

Brock, who was raised around Issaquah and started the band there, spilled his guts to writer Jason Fine during a night of binge-drinking at a dive bar near his Portland home. Brock comes off as quite a nonsensical drunk in the July 14 issue of the music magazine.

Propelled by the radio hit "Float On," the latest Modest Mouse album, "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," has passed gold and may be on its way to platinum; the article makes it sound like the last song on the album, "The Good Times are Killing Me," has a telling title.

Brock said he spent a few days in jail for charges related to drunken driving. Yet that didn't stop him from driving home after a night of extremely heavy drinking, according to Fine's first-hand account.

"Brock's friends have encouraged him to phone for a ride home from the bar tonight, but despite the fact that he's got no valid driver's license and only limited motor facilities left, he decides to navigate the short distance himself. (One reason Brock got the Volvo is safety, he says; the other is that he thinks it's an unlikely car to get stopped by the cops.) Back home, Brock is not ready for the night to end. A bottle of port appears. ... "

Drummer Jeremiah Green explained his mysterious departure from the band during the recording of "Good News": "I wasn't healthy in my head," Green told the magazine. "I was on overdrive, drinking, taking other things to try and calm down, and it turned into this thing where I was hallucinating and having paranoia about people, the whole world."

Green spent a year away from the band, replaced by Benjamin Weikel (of the Helio Sequence), but has returned to his job as drummer of Modest Mouse, a dysfunctional band that manages to function quite well.

Those who know the blue-collar, punk rocker Brock will get a kick out of the idea that he has an employee, according to the article: "He's got a live-in personal assistant, Richard, who runs Brock's errands by day and fetches beers for him by night."

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com