Hey Mercedes might be one of the more intriguing fledgling bands extant. Built from the remnants of Braid, the Champaign bred emo band that dissolved in 1999, Hey Mercedes is responsible for a four-song EP, live shows of growing repute.
Drummer Damon Atkinson, guitarist/vocalist Robert Nanna and bassist Todd Bell were three-quarters of Braid. They teamed with guitarist Mark Dawursk to became Hey Mercedes. Braid was all thrash and screaming, tugging and clashing guitars set in a foundation of punky ire. Hey Mercedes is a more mature member of the family, the hooky pop essence that thoughtful Braid fans could hear lurking in the background.
Says Atkinson, “There came a point where it just seemed for all of us that it didn’t seem like the band that we all wanted to be in. We wish things could have gone a little better, and people said that we broke up during the peakf Braid. But we felt we just weren’t as happy as we should be. But at the moment we said that, me, Todd and Bob said `Let’s start a new band.'”
Even though emo is out, Hey Mercedes still wears its heart on its sleeve. Nanna’s moody, earnest wail is still there, along with the explosive dynamics of Braid. But Hey Mercedes is simply a killer band — and it has the advantage of a fresh start with an existing fan base, as Braid devotees sign up.
As the new band was being born, Atkinson, Nanna and Bell laid out all the positives and negatives from the Braid days. They threw out the latter and kept the former.
“When we tour, when we go to the studio, we’re going to have the best experience possible,” says Atkinson. “If one of us doesn’t agree with something, we don’t argue about it, we discuss it, we don’t just do stuff, or do stuff behind each other’s backs. That makes for plenty of positivity. We’re all thankful that we’re in a band with each other.”
Their upcoming recording, “Everynight Fire Works” on Vagrant, is finally scheduled for release after a number of delays. It took five weeks to come together, and as on the group’s eponymous EP, you can hear the extra time. Braid’s last studio disc, “Frame and Canvas,” took but five days to record. “Fire Works” is backed by a bigger label, Vagrant, the band is better known and knows what they don’t want to do this time around.
“[Hey Mercedes] doesn’t feel like an offshoot, it feels like a totally different band,” said Atkinson. “It’s definitely an evolution, and by us discussing how the songs are written, the time we take, the approaches, it’s all different. We’re on a different label, we’ve done a tour in a tour bus now. Even the luck of this band is actually a lot better than the luck of Braid.”
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Hey Mercedes plays at 7 p.m. Thursday at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St. $12; 312-559-1212.