Having begun over a decade ago, the Las Vegas three-piece Mercy Music are often slackly thrown into the punk category, but the band’s vocalist and guitarist Brendan Scholz doesn’t necessarily see the project as neatly fitting that mould. Talking to Post-Burnout, he says, “When the Mercy Music thing started, when I had that batch of songs or whatever for the first record, like, my whole thing was just, ‘Fuck it, I don’t care where it fits,’ and through D.I.Y. touring and things like that, we get put in the punk scene quite often, and there are aspects of what we do that definitely fit that, but I just write pop songs and that’s what comes out of me. Maybe we pull it off a little better because I have a spider on my face!”

Brendan traces his earliest desires of wanting to become a musician back to his parent’s record collection: “I got into it I guess just [from] hearing what my parents were playing, and I was just kind of drawn to it, and before I actually started playing guitar, I remember having a little Fisher-Price tape and microphone karaoke thing when I was a kid. And then, when I was 9, I was finally able to talk my mom into trying guitar lessons, and it kind of just went from there.”

When it came to the music which was inspiring him, he says, “Again, I have to go to my mother’s record collection, honestly. Like, early on, The Jam and Elvis Costello and Squeeze, like that side of things, and, in the era that I grew up in, of course, there was Green Day bringing that back to the forefront again, with the ’94, ’95 thing, and I just kind of deep dove from there.”

When it came to starting Mercy Music in 2012, Brendan explains, “I started it as a solo project, ‘cause the band that I was in at the time kind of didn’t want to do it anymore, and I toured solo on it for a while and then I decided that I didn’t like doing that, so I just got it together in 2014 with the full band, and just kind of went from there, and put the first record out, and we’ve been going ever since.”

Today, the band release their fourth album, What You Stand to Lose. The album is produced by the legendary Bill Stevenson, best known as the drummer for Black Flag and Descendents, and as the producer for acts like NOFX, Rise Against, The Lemonheads, Lagwagon, among many more. On getting Bill to produce, Brendan says, “I met Bill Stevenson when I was in high school, through a series of emails, and I did a record with him with the band I had in high school and it was…[Laughs] it was definitely a learning experience for me, because, at that age, you’re cocky as hell, and you learn real quick that you’re maybe not as good as you think you are.

“But, yeah, getting to go back there was great. I mean, I personally knew what we were getting into, working with someone like Bill, and it was the most important thing for us to have our shit together, just based even on time and money constraints, but you don’t want to waste anybody’s time in that arena and we did this one in ten days, and we had our shit together and went as hard as we could. Working with Bill is always, always amazing and he’s someone that I have an unending amount of respect for, just as a person, as a songwriter, as a musician.”

A comparatively cleaner and nostalgic-washed record than previous releases and featuring mixing from another production legend Jason Livermore (Brendan: “Jason’s just fucking great and impeccable. Like, just look at the catalogue. Like, I know that I’m going to get something that sounds big, and I had zero doubts on that from the beginning.”), it’s their first album on Double Helix Records.

“We actually got introduced to them by Yotam [Ben Horin] from Useless ID,” says Brendan on Double Helix. “And he just introduced the three of us and we just kind of went from there. It felt good and they’re good people and I have absolutely nothing bad to say about them. It’s been a great experience, and they believe in the project as much as we do, and it’s always a good thing when you have a working relationship with someone.”

Having completed a U.S. nationwide tour supporting Unwritten Law and Authority Zero back in spring, the band are currently in the midst of a short Westcoast tour to celebrate the album’s release before they announce further plans. In the meantime, you can finally hear What You Stand to Lose for yourself from today.

Mercy Music’s latest album What You Stand to Lose is out today and available to purchase here. You can keep up to date with the band here.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.