On the last night Greg Mendez opens for Angel Olsen on her “Songs from the Archive” tour, everyone is settling into the shift of fall. It feels cozy and comfortable in the Academy of Music’s concert hall. Though some of the arriving concertgoers sound under the weather, all focus is on Mendez’s set. The audience softly nods along to Mendez’s stirring vignettes. It was his second time in the area after opening for Squirrel Flower’s sold-out show at The Drake in February. The red lights that backdropped his Feb. show swapped out for the Academy of Music’s purple curtain. When we discuss the show in our interview, he remarks, “those shows were really different for us in a cool way, playing rooms like that.”
In 2023, Mendez released his self-titled album, “Greg Mendez.” He had been a long-time figure in Philadelphia’s DIY music scene, releasing music since 2006, self-titled marked his third album. “Greg Mendez” garnered critical acclaim, notably from Pitchfork. The album and its track “Maria” were lauded by the publication for its lo-fi, soft melodies and sparse production. This earned him a cemented place on Pitchfork’s radar.
When I first met Greg Mendez over Zoom, he’d just returned home from touring with Olsen. His cat briefly appears in the camera frame; Mendez is home briefly before returning to co-headline a tour with Allegra Kieger, coinciding with the release of his newest EP “First Time/Alone.” Being away from touring is a time dedicated to creating music, but without forcing anything, allowing the melodies or lyrics to come naturally.
“Really a lot of the time I’ll just make a workday out of it,” he details, “I’ll wake up early. I’ll have some coffee and I’ll just sit on the couch with my guitar.” It’s part of Mendez’s creative practice to dedicate structured time in the day to create without pressure, a practice he’s found to be more cultivating with songwriting ideas in his present work. “I kind of go into everything very open minded where I’m not trying to do a particular thing, especially lyrically. Where I really just kind of let the lyrics come through me and I’m just an editor.”
Guitar melodies are the main approach in composing his music. The guitar melodies make his music sound soft at times though the lyrics are cutting, getting at tough topics. Nearly plucking at the emptiness this brings. His vignette focused style is what makes his songwriting memorable. The story starts when it needs to, traversing emotionally packed memorable lines. His music strikes at your emotional core with repeating loops and sparse production, putting the music front and center. “I used to add a lot more things happening in the songs earlier when I first started doing it. It was mostly because I was scared that there wasn’t going to be enough to keep people engaged. And I think with self-titled and ‘Cherry Hill,’ which came before it, I realized that I only wanted to add stuff if it really made it better.”
Gaining increased attention in the indie world has come with new experiences and opportunities to explore his career. Among these changes, the ability to dedicate more time to making music, “A lot of other stuff has changed around it like I’m doing this interview instead of going to work at another job.” Being able to balance being an independent artist while working has influenced the production of his music, Stereogum noting how “Greg Mendez” was produced when Mendez was on worker’s comp. A period where collections of music he’d written over the years coalesced into an album. He notes how in the past when he was working, he’d sometimes get song ideas but couldn’t jot those ideas down because he was in the middle of a job. “I used to lose a lot of things because I’d be tearing down a piece of drywall in somebody’s garage and think of a song idea. And then I would lose it.”
“First Time/Alone” is Mendez’s first body of released work since the self-titled album. He acknowledges that there are some new pressures that come with new releases “but I’m trying to kind of just keep all of that away from the actual creative aspect of it, which I think is just going to be me trying to do it like I’ve done it, but better.” Despite more expectations that come with increased attention, Mendez says “I definitely feel more free.” A sentiment that helped him in crafting “Pain Meds,” the final song on the EP.
The new EP is also Mendez’s first release with Dead Oceans. Signing to a new label can come with more resources to put into your work, an opportunity that arrived with Mendez’s breakout in the indie scene. He recently signed with Dead Oceans, a prominent independent music label. Dead Oceans has also recently signed acts like Jensen McCrae, adding to their roster of prominent indie talents like Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers and Japanese Breakfast. Another new labelmate, Wednesday, made Pitchfork’s 2023 year-end lists alongside Mendez.
The new EP has four songs, written after self-titled and while Mendez was in recovery from wrist surgery. The recovery period shaped how he approached the process of making the EP. “I was kind of coming out of wrist surgery. There were a lot of things going on where I just kind of wrote these songs. I was just originally getting them down really quickly and then they were feeling good.” For his past work, like “Greg Mendez,” he described how the music-making process “took a lot more time making [it] and was more painstaking” in comparison to “First Time/Alone.” Since Mendez couldn’t use both of his hands to play guitar, the instrument wasn’t much of an option to play music. “I couldn’t use my right hand, so I was just playing the keyboard with my left hand,” making the keyboard the focal point of “Mountain Dew Hell” and “First Time.” The process of incorporating the keyboard into the EP is something Mendez has kept in mind for future music projects, “I do have ideas of using more keyboards and maybe expanding the palette of sounds a little bit.”
The cover of the EP has sad stars falling, not the shooting stars you wish on. Loneliness is interwoven into the EP. “The sentiment of feeling alone is pretty present on the EP, which has a lot to do with the way it sounds,” Mendez says. The pangs of loneliness are immediate in listening to “Mountain Dew,” the song explores what comes from feeling alone. Sounds of losing oneself in negative cyclical thoughts come through in the haziness of the song’s texture. The cyclical thoughts are a response to the loneliness, which causes isolation from others, leading to more loneliness. Mountain Dew Hell becomes a symbol for a period of the liminal space of being stuck and alone.
The vocals and keyboard of “Mountain Dew Hell” transitions into “First Time.” The song is a late-night epiphany about an intimate relationship and the vulnerabilities of being seen. As “First Time” softly fades out, a guitar revs up “Alone.” Mendez had previously previewed “Alone” during his set at The Academy of Music. There’s a faster tempo to the song, the sharp guitar melodies emphasizing the rhythmic essence of the song. Mendez has a more pointed vocal delivery as he sings about how loneliness can easily pull us back into bad cycles, making us vulnerable to the intrusive thoughts that cause us to fall back. Late fall is becoming winter on “Alone” and this transition is heightening the emotional state of feeling alone. The natural world becomes part of the intrusive thoughts with the wind yelling “return to sin” and the “snowflakes are falling like lead on my head.”
Specific emotions attached to the winter in “Alone” are connected to the role seasons have played in Mendez’s memories. “That specific moment of fall changing into winter I think was really the start of the song. I feel like especially being from the Northeast where the seasons are very distinct … change of seasons is very baked into memories and nostalgia, like feelings of longing and regret,” Mendez explains.
The memories Mendez explains become grief on “Pain Meds,” a song whose production ties into the new direction Mendez saw for the EP. The track narrates grief and the last memories of someone. There’s desperation in the recollections. “Pain Meds” almost didn’t make it onto the EP until the voice recording was altered into high pitch vocals. “I did that because that was how the song felt good. I didn’t like it until I just turned the whole speed up on the whole song. I recorded the song and then at the end I wasn’t even going to use it. And I just was like ‘what does this sound like if it’s really fast?’ and turn the speed up. I think it fits the whole feeling of it to me. So, it kind of ended up being like a nice mistake or accident.”
Mendez found that the grief of “Pain Meds” explored the interconnections with grief in a way that he hadn’t depicted in the past. “I feel like it [the EP] has to do with life and death and grief in a way that the self-titled didn’t as much.” Including changes in production and instrumentation for the EP has been part of the new thematic of Mendez’s work. “This sort of feels like it’s from a younger perspective to me, even though I’m older,” he describes adding later how the EP’s songs feel like a childhood perspective coming through, though not “literally about childhood.”
As Mendez prepared for the EP’s release, he was already ready for the next steps for his music. The different processes of making the EP and the self-titled album have given him an image of how to approach his next music project. “I’m kind of starting to work on the next thing. I feel like it’s going to be a kind of a combination of the approaches from the EP and the self-titled because I think there’s things I like about both. Like the painstaking, very perfectionist process and then the very spontaneous quick version that was the EP. I’m kind of trying to figure out how to get the best things from both of those.”
Where self-titled became a turning point in Mendez’s career, the EP is the first step after this turning point. No matter what comes after the EP’s release, Mendez still has specific goals for himself that never changed even after the big reception to self-titled. He expresses, “I’m trying to get better at what I’m doing, make the best records that I can make and still follow in the same way I’ve always been. Because I think that’s the best way to make stuff you believe in and that’s the foundation of everything else that follows.”
“First Time/Alone” is now out on all streaming platforms.
Suzanne Bagia can be reached at [email protected]
