The Story
Modest Mouse formed in the early 1990s in Issaquah, Washington, around singer-guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green, and bassist Eric Judy. Their sprawling early records — This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West (both 1996-97) — turned highway sprawl, dead-end towns, and existential dread into some of the most influential indie rock of the decade.
The Moon & Antarctica (2000), their major-label debut, traded some of that rawness for eerie, spacious production and remains widely regarded as their masterpiece. Four years later, Good News for People Who Love Bad News made them unlikely mainstream stars: "Float On" became a generational hit, the album went multi-platinum, and the band earned Grammy nominations. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (2007), recorded with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, debuted at number one in the US.
The band weathered long gaps and lineup changes — Strangers to Ourselves arrived in 2015 and The Golden Casket in 2021 — and suffered a profound loss when founding drummer Jeremiah Green died of cancer at the end of 2022. In June 2026 Modest Mouse released An Eraser and a Maze on Brock's own Glacial Pace label, their first fully independent album since the 1990s and their first without Green.
Now based in Portland, Oregon, the band remain a fixture of North American stages, spending summer 2026 on tour from Bonnaroo to the Pacific Northwest.
