Accidentally Greg Mendez

After several years floating between New York and Philadelphia, dipping in and out of Philly’s music scene, self-producing and releasing his own albums, his 2023 self-titled full-length broke past his community’s confines and into end of year lists and critical acclaim.

Shortly after, he signed with Dead Oceans – home to the likes of Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers – who’ll re-release his breakthrough third album next month after its initial pressing sold out in a month. Packed with introspective and tender meditations on his past missteps and complex relationships, and with more than a hint of Elliot Smith’s melancholia and labelmate Bright Eyes’ stark lyrical turns, it’s a record that cuts across emotions with a wry sense of humour.

Returning with new material, last month’s First Time/Alone EP, he continues to defy expectations, eschewing the draw of large indie budgets and ceremony for an even more DIY, stripped back and laid bare approach. Opener “Mountain Dew Hell” has a Daniel Johnston intoned simplicity and rawness to it, while the whole EP acts as an invitation to join Mendez’s playfully disobedient journey.

Born outside Boston and raised in New Jersey, Mendez was coming-of-age at a time when pop-punk and rap metal were crossing into the mainstream. By the time he reached high school, his tastes had already refined to more discerning punk and emo. “I was trying to wear tighter jeans which didn't exist yet, so I’d just have to buy things that were too small,” he laughs.

His dad bought him an acoustic guitar and after a few basic lessons he began to teach himself, forming bands with other kids from school. “There was a bit of a music scene where I lived in New Jersey, but it was a small town so there were churches or community centres that would put on shows,” he says. “We would play these shows sometimes, but we were like fifteen and the bands coming through were in their twenties. I just didn't really understand that those people weren't rock stars. It wasn't until I got to Philly that I realised that people just did it in a normal way.”

Mendez struggled with addiction in high school, and after graduating he took a spot at Drexel University in Philadelphia on an art scholarship. He estimates he attended around a year and a half's worth of classes across a four-year stretch before dropping out.

Moving back and forth between New York and Philadelphia, he made music sporadically while experiencing homelessness and continuing his battle with addiction. “If I had a guitar, or access to one, I was always writing songs. I would record demos whenever I had the wherewithal and the ability to do that. It's always something that was in the back of my mind, even in my worst times of really not being able to care of myself,” he says. “I would maybe play a show here and there, but I was just a mess and I don't think that a lot of people wanted to be around me too much, and I don't blame them.”

He wrote and recorded his first record, 2017’s ¯​\​_​(​ツ​)​_​/​¯ (pronounced Shrug), while he was living in New York after getting clean. At the time he found himself not only disconnected from Philadelphia’s scene, but from music in general. “I wasn't listening to new bands and stuff like that. I was pretty isolated musically, and not in a bad way, it just is what it was,” he says. “I recorded Shrug pretty quickly over a month, or something like that, and it was pretty much just a very lonely endeavour.”

After self-releasing the album he reached out to Minneapolis-based indie label Forged Artifacts who agreed to release his follow up, 2020’s Cherry Hell. The next summer he played a headline show at Brooklyn venue Purgatory, which was later shared as a live record. Shortly after that, Mendez began to feel some momentum grow around his music. “Cherry Hill got me more attention than Shrug and then Live at Purgatory I think snowballed on that,” he says. “I think more people started coming to the shows and I noticed some kind of switch flip around that time.”

Self-titling his third effort the following year, in hindsight it presents like drawing a line in the sand, a fresh start. “Honestly, I just didn't know what to name it,” he laughs. “I think what ended up happening, where it feels like that, is cool but I didn't go in with this grand intention of redefining myself or anything.”

Packing insightful and compelling lyricism alongside dreamy, subtle melody, tracks like “Maria” and “Clearer Picture (of You)” hook the listener in with their profoundly quiet charm. The album acted as a catalyst for Mendez’s career, with a sold out run of vinyl and plenty of critical acclaim. “It felt gradual but much quicker, if that makes sense?” he says. “I could tell that there was an order of magnitude happening, but it was just very fast in comparison to how I experienced that before.”

Greg Mendez was recorded while he was living on compensation after an accident on a construction job. Similarly, his new EP, First Time/Alone, came into being after he was forced to take time out following surgery on his wrist. “I think the truth is that I'm just always injured in some way, like my shit is falling apart,” he laughs.

Unable to play guitar for several months, the EP’s opening tracks are based on basic chords played left-handed on an electric organ, while its second half showcases his rehabilitation on acoustic guitar, soft and simple melodies played with a raw warmth. Lead single “Alone” balances his experienced songwriting with an unembellished approach, allowing the honest personality of Mendez’s performance to shine through.

Mendez says he usually tends to avoid demoing, for fear of growing attached to the formative iterations of his work. “Honestly, the fact that I'm releasing this EP is why I don't do demos,” he laughs.

On “Pain Meds” he pitches up his vocal into an almost unrecognisable alter-ego. A direct meditation on addiction and loss, its rudimentary delivery juxtaposes with the heavy themes. Originally Mendez wasn’t going to use the whole take as it felt too muddy and slow. “I was at my friend's studio digitising the stuff from the four track and I just turned the speed all the way up,” he says. “Speeding it up took away the murkiness, because it made everything higher and it felt better at that speed. I was just like, this is it. So it was an accident.”

First Time/Alone makes for a curveball, as his Dead Oceans debut and as a follow-up to its acclaimed predecessor, but for Mendez the accidental takes precedence over anything too intentional. “I have a small group of friends that I send things to and pretty much all of them were just like, ‘You shouldn't re-record these songs,’” he says. “My gut was like, they feel good. I was trying to think of, what do I follow-up this thing that some people I don't know are calling a masterpiece, or my life's work? What the fuck do I do? Do I go and try to one up that immediately, or do that again? That just seems like I won't be able to do that, because I wasn't trying to do that in the first place. I just wanted to do something different and less stressful and something that I believed in.”