Say cheese! Modest Mouse's new album hits No. 1

Modest Mouse continues its climb from indie-rock/underground legends to mainstream music stardom. "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank," the new Modest Mouse album, came in at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart, the first time at the top spot in the band's history.

From his Portland home, Modest Mouse leader Isaac Brock insisted Tuesday that he was paying no attention to charts and sales. Wasn't he planning to celebrate?

"No," he said definitively. "We finished our part of the record — the most exciting thing to us is when we finished making it. Everything else, that's for other people."

Besides, they did their celebrating already. After they finished the main recording of "We Were Dead ... ," Brock said he and his band — longtime members Jeremiah Green and Eric Judy, newcomers Johnny Marr, Tom Peloso and Joe Plummer — "cheered each other ranging from tea to whatever." Then Brock went into post-production work with Dennis Herring. "When we officially got done ... that day I kind of tied one on. It had been seven months of pretty long days, 14-hour days, six days a week. I just kind of let loose."

The Modest Mouse album sold 128,565 in its first week. This was a powerful vindication that the Issaquah-born band is no flash in the mainstream pan. Sales of "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," Modest Mouse's previous album, topped 1.5 million, pushed by the "Float On" radio hit.

"Dashboard," from the new album, looks like another big player, with single sales of more than 85,000. It's also being played on radio stations across the country, and the "Dashboard" video is in heavy rotation on MTV2.

This is a long way from the early days of Modest Mouse, when the then-trio was playing Seattle clubs like the Crocodile Cafe and RCKCNDY. Brock lived in Seattle during Modest Mouse's formative years but moved away about five years ago, drifting to Chicago and Florida before settling in Oregon.

He says he tries to spend as little time as possible in Seattle these days.

"It makes me kind of sad when I go there, because it really was an interesting place and I don't know what happened. Money became more important."

Speaking of money, the cash registers are ringing for "We Were Dead." With stand-out songs like "Dashboard," "Missed the Boat" and "Steam Engineus," plus another potential anthem in "Fire It Up," this is almost sure to be another platinum (1 million-plus) seller.

Modest Mouse, which got a big creative boost when former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr joined the crew, launches a national tour April 15 at the Paramount.

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com