Vegas Archive: Mercury Sky – Discography 2001-2003

Jan 24, 2014 Posted by Guest In Vegas Archive Tagged Mercury Sky Comments 0

Click here to download The Walls That We Bring

[ezcol_2third]Welcome to Vegas Archive, a feature where we re-release music from local bands that are gone, but certainly not forgotten.

Today we’re bringing you “The Walls That We Bring” and “Farewell…” EPs from local punk rock band Mercury Sky, who were active from 2000 to 2003, after forming from 3rd Man In. For more information about the band and these records, read the commentary from Mercury Sky drummer Mike Reilly.

Sometime around the year 2000 our collective taste in music started to change. We started to write songs that were a little bit heavier both in tone and subject matter and felt that the 3rd Man In name needed to go. We were never really stoked on the 3rd Man In name and as we wrote songs like “Lies Within,” “Way Back When” and “Forever Forgotten,” we felt that a change was coming.

We added Jordan Pflueger as our guitar player and Dave stepped into the sole position of singer. It made sense in many aspects as Dave was afforded the fun of his frontman antics while not having to worry about playing guitar and was therefore able to focus a bit more on his vocal approach. Mercury Sky was a necessary step for our band.

Sometimes the name change felt like a step back. We had built a solid fan base over the years and we were now turning our back on that. We dropped some of our poppy-sounding songs and didn’t really ease into our new band name, we just sort of went with it. It all happened very quickly. If only social media was around in 2001, we may have settled some of the confusion. It would have made things so much easier.

Eventually we would be playing shows as Mercury Sky and kids would come up and ask us what happened to 3rd Man In and then we would have to give them the rundown. It wasn’t long before the word started to get around and kids started to show up again.

The songs came pouring in and before we knew it, we had enough to cover a full length. We talked to members of Faded Grey, who had just recorded the album A Quiet Time of Desperation in Orange County, California with Paul Miner of Death By Stereo Fame, about possibly getting into that same studio. Lance Wells of Faded Grey hooked us up with the information and we booked a 48 hour block of time at For the Record, and we enlisted our friend Teppei Teranishi from Thrice to help engineer the record. Everything was set to go with one major exception…how were we going to get our equipment to California?

Mark had a truck but could only seat four-fifths of the band in it. Mike and Dave came up with the idea to install a hitch on Mike’s Chevy Corsica and rent a trailer from U-Haul. Almost every garage we went to told us they couldn’t do it, except for one downtown off LVB and Fremont. The guy at the garage said it would work, but to try not to overload the car with a lot of weight. So there we were, 5 dudes in a mid-size car pulling a trailer with our equipment 250 miles to make a record.

With Teppei helping us out we were allowed to work deep into the night as our regular engineer, Jim Monroe, set us up and worked a normal shift and then turned over the controls to Teppei. We tracked all the music live with enough separation in the tracks to allow for overdubs to fix any mistakes on guitar and bass. We busted our asses and tracked everything over the course of about a day. That left our last block of time to track vocals and mix everything down.

While tracking vocals Teppei noticed that one of the songs had a vocal melody that was very similar throughout the whole song and asked if we wanted to tool around with it at all. We took a short break and Dave went to work. The result was a completely changed new chorus to our song “Memories of Yesterday.” We then mixed everything down and left with our reel and dat tapes in hand. Lance Wells came through for us again as he hooked us up with Paul Miner to master the album on the “Indecision Records Rate.”

The album was done and we needed a name. I remember days upon days of throwing out ideas and eventually we were all eating a late night breakfast at some casino going over lyrics when Mark found the line “The Walls That We Bring” and that seemed to sum up the state of the band at the time. We would eventually play some incredible shows including a mini tour with 7 Foot Midget and one of the greatest days of our lives as we got to open for Face to Face, Thrice, Midtown, and The Movielife at the House of Blues in Vegas. Just thinking about looking out into that sold out crowd as those curtains opened still gives me chills.

We continued on, but the eventual departure of Dave for his mission would cause the band to end. Just before Dave shipped off to Mexico we rushed into the home studio of Jesse Amoroso (The Loud Pipes, Crazy Chief, Cowtown Guitars) to lay down the last 4 tracks that we wrote as a band in 2003. We played our final show at the Skillet Cafe to a packed restaurant full of all the friends that stayed with us and followed our band over the years. Following Dave’s exit we tried out a couple of replacement singers but in the end we weren’t just replacing a frontman. After years of friendship and playing together in 3rd Man In and Mercury Sky we had become a family and replacing a brother just didn’t seem right.

Despite all the “what ifs” that could have happened, we wouldn’t change a thing.

Various members of Mercury Sky would continue making music, later joining/forming a number of bands including I Am The Thief, Bide, Annum Ford, A Common Thread, For The Wolves, Colossal Raptor, Farcity and TheCore.

– Mike Reilly