Modest Mouse is an independent American rock band from Issaquah, Washington. He was trained in 1993 by guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green, and bassist Eric Judy. They are since 2000 at Sony Epic Records, the group has now reached a certain degree of popularity. Their name comes from a Virginia Woolf novel in which the author describes the working class with these words "modest, mouse-colored people".
Their early career is difficult since their first album was born in 1996, after failed attempts like the very pleasant Sad Sappy Sucker: this record, recorded in 1994 and composed of 24 songs mostly very short, does not will come out only a few years later, in 2001, following the success of the first two albums: This is a Long Drive for Someone with nothing to think about and The Lonesome Crowded West, respectively released in 1996, then in 1997. A compilation entitled Building Nothing Out of Something, which gathers their first songs, will be released in 1999. This is a very promising first album, containing songs like Dramamine or Talking Shit about Pretty Sunset that still make part of the fans favorite.
It is finally in 1997 with the release of The Lonesome Crowded West that Modest Mouse will take a new dimension and assert itself as one of the most important American groups. Modest Mouse becomes a cult group. The Lonesome Crowded West is now considered as a flagship album of independent rock from the 1990s. After the release of this album, major record companies, attracted by the obvious potential of the trio, snatch the signature of the group, which opts finally for Sony Epic Record. As so often in this case, Modest Mouse is then accused of having sold his soul to the devil by abandoning, on the purely administrative level, his status of "independent group". The group has yet lost none of its talent. He recorded in 1999 the album The Moon and Antarctica, released the following year. This worthy successor to The Lonesome Crowded West is unanimous: Modest Mouse seems to have reached its mature stage, with an album mastered from start to finish that leaves simply no room for criticism.
Some fans will again express their displeasure when the group gives permission to Nissan to use the song Gravity Rides Everything in one of their commercials. Isaac Brock later admitted that it was indeed a purely commercial act but necessary to make the finances of the group more comfortable.
