Last week Michael Cera was in the news for something other than playing cute nerds on film.
He made his rock-star debut playing bass with Mister Heavenly, a new band featuring Nick Thorburn (Islands), Ryan Kattner (aka Honus Honus of Man Man) and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse). While Cera’s involvement was a surprise, NOW’s been waiting for the band’s debut for quite some time.
Thorburn first told us about his idea for a “doom-?wop” band over a year ago, but he didn’t have a name for it yet. Then last spring, Kattner let slip in an interview with NOW that the band had considered naming itself Lee’s Palace (after the Toronto live music institution) before eventually settling on the variation Mister Heavenly.
Given how long this project has been in the works and its strange concept of doo-?wop mixed with doom metal, we’d suspected it might never surface. But the concept band is now signed to Sub Pop, and their first show last Tuesday (November 30) in Seattle made headlines worldwide thanks to Cera’s involvement.
Cera already had a connection with Thorburn, having appeared in Islands’ 2009 video for No You Don’t. Thorburn joked to us that he’d blackmailed the young actor into being in the video, but considering the boost his involvement has given this new band, maybe Thorburn really does have some, say, scandalous photos on a hard drive somewhere.
If the live video footage floating around YouTube is any indication, neither the doo-?wop nor doom influences are as upfront as expected, but Mr. Heavenly’s sound is still distinct from the members’ other projects, and Cera has no problems keeping up.
