Modest Mouse will hit the road this fall for a tour commemorating the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough 2004 album Good News For People Who Love Bad News. Featuring their hit “Float On,” the album elevated the band from the indie underground to the rock mainstream and remains their most commercially successful work. The tour will kick off in Honolulu, Hawaii, on October 28th and wind up with a series of Brooklyn shows in late November. Earlier this year, Legacy Recordings released an expanded edition, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, augmenting the original album with eight bonus tracks, including brand new remixes from Poolside, Jacknife Lee, Dan the Automator, and MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden.
Formed in Portland, Oregon, by lead singer-guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green, and bassist Eric Judy, the band first found widespread attention with their landmark 1997 album The Lonesome Crowded West, which still ranks among the best indie-rock records of the late-Nineties. They signed to Epic Records and released The Moon & Antarctica in 2000. But with Good News For People Who Love Bad News, they found commercial success thanks to the hit single “Float On,” a song that set Brock’s sanguine lyrics about dealing with life’s hassles to a bright, buoyant track that sounded closer to Talking Heads than any of their peers in the Upper Northwest indie scene.
In an interview earlier this year with Brian Hiatt for Rolling Stone‘s Music Now podcast, Brock said, “It’s easy to sound angry or fucking agitated or flippant, but owning feelings without sounding super-sappy — or even being sappy without sounding too saccharine and crappy — is a real fucking trick and shit. I’m always really happy when it works out.” Later in the interview, he added, “‘Float On’ wasn’t really written until the last couple of days of tracking. Once it got done, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is fun.’ I mean, lyrically, I kind of felt like maybe it was a bit too goofy, and shit. Like, ‘This is fun, but is it silly?’.”
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Good News For People Who Like Bad News went double platinum and was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Alternative Music Album category. The band followed it with We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which featured Smiths co-founder Johnny Marr on guitar. Modest Mouse continued releasing albums with Brock at the helm despite cycling through a rotating cast of band members. Their most recent release was 2021’s The Golden Casket. In 2022, drummer Jeremiah Green (the longest-serving member of the band with the exception of Brock) died of cancer.
Good News For People Who Love Bad News‘ 20 Year Anniversary Tour:
10/28 – Honolulu, HI – The Republik
10/30 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theater
11/1 – Portland, OR – Rev Hall
11/2 – Portland, OR – Rev Hall
11/3 – Portland, OR – Rev Hall
11/5 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater
11/6 – Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
11/7 – Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
11/8 – Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
11/9 – San Diego, CA – The Sound
11/11 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
11/12 – Omaha, NE – Steelhouse Omaha
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11/13 – Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater
11/14 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed
11/16 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore Detroit
11/17 – Toronto, ON – HISTORY
11/19 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
11/20 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore Philadelphia
11/21 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
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11/22 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
11/23 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel