In February of 1990, influential Athens band Mercyland played their final gig at the long defunct Cavern nightclub on Roswell Road. Thirty-two years later, they’re back in town for a show on Friday night at 529. The group has reunited to support the release of We Never Lost A Single Game, a solid collection of authentic punk rock effervescence, recorded a few months before they publicly announced their dissolution.
By the time he’d formed Mercyland with Andrew Donaldson and Joel Suttles in 1985, Atlanta-born singer-songwriter-bassist David Barbe was already an integral part of the Athens music scene. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when, a week after the band’s farewell, he was offered a job as engineer at busy producer John Keane’s studio. The deal ignited a series of local, national and international projects that continues today.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
While looking ahead rather than wallowing in ‘80s nostalgia, Barbe says the Mercyland legend grew without reissues or reunions. He was otherwise occupied with myriad activities, including touring the world as a member of Sugar with Bob Mould, co-founding Chase Park Transduction, producing and playing on hundreds of sessions — and for the past decade, overseeing UGA’s Music Business Certificate Program.
This week, while juggling production duties for a number of clients — including Kevn Kinney, Five Eight, Stef Chura and Basically Nancy — Barbe and company are gathered in Athens to prepare for their long-awaited return to the stage. He spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by phone from his home studio.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Q: Every track is a winner on the new disc.
A: Thank you. When we made that thing originally, we were so happy with it. But we knew that as a band about to break up, the odds of somebody putting it out were pretty small, especially in 1990. We loved making music together, but we’d had a number of close calls, including one with a major label that was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. We decided privately we’d call it good in about six months but let’s not tell anybody. We sold our van and used the money to make this album — without any thought to what any other human being on Earth would think about it, other than the three of us. Once we completely embraced not giving a [expletive] about what other people thought, it was like, ‘Ok, now we’re finally getting somewhere!’ Planned Obsolescence put out a seven-inch vinyl of four of these songs. Then, during the week of the final Athens and Atlanta shows, we announced we were breaking up. No big, weepy build-up, just ‘if you ever wanna see us, here’s your chance.’
Q: Then, as you guys were busy with your lives, the Mercyland legend grew larger.
A: The myth grew, I guess. It’s like with vintage equipment. If it came out last week, it’s terrible. But what came out last week is gonna be an overpriced vintage thing in twenty years. I’ve had offers to put this stuff out again, but I resisted for years, except for little compilations and things. It intentionally wasn’t even available on streaming. I was too busy moving forward to look back. But out of the blue last year I got three different label offers for this thing. Jay Coyle at Propeller Sound Recordings was the true believer and wanted to put out both of our albums. One reason it was out of print for so long is that the legend of Mercyland had grown to be pretty good.
Q: You didn’t want reality to compete with the distant memory?
A: (Laughs) Yeah, it was like tales of the old west, like John Wesley Harding or Pecos Bill. I kinda like being the Pecos Bill of punk rock. I’ve been reading this book about Oscar Charleston, who is not only the greatest position player in the history of the Negro Leagues, but he may also be one of the four or five greatest baseball players in the history of anybody. The biographer talks about how tracing the history of this guy down was so difficult because the legend had become so inflated. You can’t tell exactly what actually happened. So I enjoyed our “legend,” but when I started getting real interest, I decided to listen to these tracks to see if I thought the performances were actually there. I thought the older — but probably not wiser — David Barbe could do something pretty good with this stuff. I also knew that Andrew and Joel are grown men with jobs and families and lives of their own, but they were both really into it.
Q: Now here you are, all these years later, coming back for a return engagement.
A: We’ve flown it up the flagpole to see who salutes and it seems like people are into it, which feels pretty great. This band has certainly provided me a lot of opportunities in life. Each one led to more things and now here we are again. I have to think that everything good that’s happened to me in the last 30 years in my career, all got started by being in Mercyland. If you’d told me I could make it three — or God forbid — even five years of making rock and roll, that would’ve been fantastic. But now, thirty-whatever years after the fact, I kind of feel like I already won the game. People who bring their kids to UGA to look at the Music Business Program sometimes ask me, ‘Uh, what’s your career outside of this?’ It’s kind of hard to define and it’s a simple thing at the same time. I usually tell them, ‘Okay, here’s my career: I travel around the world. I listen to music. I create music. I engage with other people who do the same.’ I think it’s been a pretty good run so far.
CONCERT PREVIEW
Mercyland
5 p.m. Sept. 16. $15. 529, 529 Flat Shoals Ave. SE, Atlanta. 404-228-6769, 529atlanta.com.
7 p.m. Sept. 17. $15 (advance). 40 Watt Club, 285 W. Washington St., Athens. 706-549-7871, 40watt.com.
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