~An Interview with Planet Mercury~
Planet Mercury is an American band that formed in 2017 with heavy influences from the early 2000s rock and punk styles. The bandmates (Pat, bass; Michaela, guitar; Chris, Drums; Jerry, Guitar and Vocals) are all twenty-four and are working on a debut album!
A Fun Fact About Each Band Member:
- Jerry can’t swim.
- Pat loves to hike and camp.
- Michaela is a big fan of rock climbing.
- Chris, along with the drums, is also an amazing guitar player.
To the Bandmates:
Thanks for doing this interview, guys! Hope you come to South Carolina when you start to tour again!
Interview:
1. “How did you guys meet?”
Pat and Michaela met first on Craigslist and had been jamming together for a little bit with a few other people. That slowly fizzled out, but Pat and Michaela continued to jam together. Then in the summer of 2017, they met Jerry from another Craigslist ad and our first drummer, Mike, went to school with Pat. When Mike left the band in 2019 to pursue other passions in life, we met Chris through a friend of Pat’s brother.
2. “The lyrics to ‘Comatose’ are clever. What’s your writing process? Is there a band mate who tends to write most of the songs?”
Usually it will start by one of us bringing a riff or a piece of a song to practice. Some songs come quick, some take a few months to get them exactly the way we want them to be. Jerry handles a lot of the lyrics, but the rest of the band is always there to help with lines if he needs it.
3. “Do you like to cover songs? What is the hardest song that the band has tried to cover?”
We definitely love to cover songs. It’s always an easy way to connect with the crowd, no matter who you are playing to. Whether it’s friends of ours or a bunch of people we have never met in a basement in Philly, covers always prove to be a good time. Honestly, we haven’t played many “difficult” covers. A lot of times, the covers will be something that we just start jamming to at practice, and it’ll end up in the rotation. We started trying to cover “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne one time and for some reason, that quickly fell apart after about 15 minutes, and we never revisited it.
4. “Where did your band name come from?”
The band name doesn’t have a crazy deep meaning. Michaela used to record stuff and put it up on Soundcloud as ‘Planet Mercury,’ and when it came time to figure out a band name, we just kind of rolled with that!
5. “Why did you choose ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ to cover for your X-Mas single?”
This is the perfect example of a song that we just started jamming to one time, and it ended up being a cover that we play. We were rehearsing the day of one of our Barn shows that we host, and it was a holiday show. We realized that we should probably play a Christmas song to go along with the theme and we quickly threw it together. Everyone loves a good Christmas song, and we try to find ways to switch up our content. We figured “What better way to do that than record a Christmas song!” We recorded the cover in the summer so it had us all going a little crazy.
6. “I read in your Instagram bio that you guys are influenced by Green Day. I’m a fan myself. The band has to agree on a single answer here: what is their best album?”
We are all pretty big fans of 21st Century Breakdown.
7. “Two funny stories from touring.”
The first tour we went on, our buddy, Steve, came along and drove the van. He was hyping up this one rest stop, saying the while time how he couldn’t wait to show it to us and how awesome it was. The rest stop sounded like it was an amusement park or something, and we couldn’t wait to stop there. We ended up stopping at the rest stop, and it turned out it was just some run down construction site. More of a let down than funny!
The second story is involves a lot of moonshine in a hotel room somewhere in South Carolina. We had the whole night on film, and we ended up finding out that we lost the footage somehow. We’ll wait to tell this story in the hopes that one day we will recover the footage.
8. “Do you have any gigs coming up in March? If so, what states do you think you might be going to?”
Unfortunately, with COVID we don’t have any shows planned for the foreseeable future. We hope things are back to normal sometime this year so that we can start playing again. We miss playing out and can’t wait to tour again.
9. “Does the band have a favorite gig?”
There was a show that we hosted at Jerry’s barn a couple of years ago that was an absolute blast. There were a ton of people that showed up, and house shows always seem to pop off which is cool. Not to mention, we had like 50 blow up aliens that were being thrown around.
10. “Do you have anything to say to your fans? Any parting words?”
We really can’t wait to get out there when things open back up and start touring again. When that time comes, it’ll be great to get out and meet new people and people that have been following us for a while that we haven’t gotten a chance to meet yet. We hope you’re all as excited for our upcoming debut full length as we are! And if you haven’t checked us out yet, please give us a listen and let us know what you think. Our DM’s are always open!
Thanks, Planet Mercury, for taking the time to talk to me about the band! For anyone looking to listen to their work, click here and here to listen to them on Spotify and YouTube, here to follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter, where you’ll receive updates on their progress and latest originals and covers.
