Greg Mendez talks Nirvana, coloring, and short songs ahead of recordBar appearance

January 8, 2025 – Philadelphia, PA, Greg Mendez photographed in Philadelphia, PA for upcoming record release Beauty Land. // Credit: Stephen Yang

Greg Mendez. // photo by Stephen Yang

Greg Mendez is whistling while he works.

Birds outside the Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter’s apartment are chirping a cheerful tune during our phone interview in late July. It sounds like they’re about to help Snow White tidy up the place.

“Dude, I wish that they were,” Mendez said. “Because it’s a mess right now.”

His newest album, Beauty Land, released in May on Dead Oceans, is another humble accomplishment in gentle, emotionally affecting songwriting that contains the level of honesty support tends to find. But his poetry is more akin to the Brothers Grimm than Mickey Mouse. Following anecdotes about a new job, getting robbed, and a lonely New Year’s Eve, halfway through lead single “I Wanna Feel Pretty,” pianos emerge like a pang to the heart.

“I drank till I couldn’t remember my name,” Mendez sings. “But all through the night, I’d pick someone to blame.”

Light, bedroom poppy sketches of heavy themes like dependency, isolation, and love are plainly colored with a self-awareness and sincerity that make Mendez a sympathetic figure – and that’s before his songs worm their way to the part of the brain where songs get stuck for good. Consider the time he was arrested at a crack den, outlined on the endlessly catchy “Maria” from his 2023 self-titled release.

“Krys and I jumped out the bathroom window when they came in,” Mendez sings. “Krys and I came crashing out the window, but they were waiting. Earlier that day we were both clean.”

Mendez has expressed surprise and gratitude since a breakthrough in exposure courtesy of Greg Mendez, especially because he stayed true to his artistic instincts, rather than trusting a “social ladder climbing,” or algorithmic approach to increased popularity.

“It would be kind of counter-productive to do that,” Mendez said. “I think, because then you wouldn’t be you.”

The Pitch caught up with Mendez ahead of his Saturday, August 22 show at recordBar.

Greg Mendez. // photo by Stephen Yang

The Pitch: I understand you injured your wrist recently. How’s it feeling lately?

Greg Mendez: It’s okay. It’s kind of like, it has better days and worse days. But I’ve figured out how to play with this splint on. Just kind of biding my time.

Have there been any setbacks?

If I get too sure of it, like if it starts feeling better I’ll come out of the splint thing and do too much and then it’s fucked up for a bit. It’s just one of those things. I feel like soft tissue shit just takes forever and is so not linear, and I might need surgery on it at some point.

It’s kind of fucked up still. Better days. I figured out how to play with this splint on.

I’m sorry to hear that.

It’s been a thing.

I guess I didn’t realize how much of an effect that would have. From a listener’s perspective, it’s like, “Well, the album came out and he’s still doing shows, everything’s fine.”

I mean, the album was fine. I actually had a surgery on the right wrist a few years ago after the self-titled. For recording Beauty Land, I had two pretty good wrists, and then shortly after the left one has the same thing going on. I’m kind of like, looking down the barrel of having do that surgery again on the other one.

I learned about your music through another artists like Sadurn and Heart to Gold singing your praises on social media or at shows. Have you observed this level of support from fellow artists? How important has it been to your own journey as an artist?

I think it’s really important, and honestly it’s some of the most validating feelings that I get, really. And I’ll rep both of those bands to the grave. They are all really good people. It’s just like a testament to making connections with people, honestly. Not trying to social ladder climb or network or whatever. I just don’t even think about that stuff. Just do your thing and be a nice person, you know?

Yeah, it’s not transactional.

It really feels good when other artists, especially ones that I myself admire, are into it and tell other people about it. And it kind of gives me hope, because everything is so like, social media and you gotta do this, this, and this, and algorithms, and streaming, and stuff. There is all that stuff in the same way that there’s always been something like that, but there’s also no replacement for like, actual people sharing stuff.

When I saw you perform in Lawrence, it was pretty sparsely attended. I think you were disappointed, but you also seemed more concerned about the bartenders rather than your own crowd.

I always feel bad about that when the room is too big. You know, it wasn’t not enough people, the room was too big. [laughs]

How do you reckon with a room that’s too big?

I just try to play the show like any other show. People who came deserve a good show. Sometimes it’s difficult to get your ego out of there, but also it’s like, why should I fill up 400-500 cap room in Lawrence, Kansas? I’ve never been there before. It’s kind of like, not quite the right room for it. But that’s fine. I still love playing music and I want to make sure people who came to see me play music have a good time and that it’s a good show.

I really do feel for the bartenders there. I’ve been a bartender in a venue and it’s not like you’re mad at the band when that happens, but you show up to a shift and you’re like, “Oh damn, I’m not making any money tonight.”

I came away thinking it was a week night in a college town, what can you do?

It wasn’t a bad night. Let me know if you know this, actually. The green room there had literally every band. Every alternative rock band written in Sharpie, and I fucking saw Nirvana. Like, is that real? They really wrote that?

I would like to believe they really wrote that, but I know they were there.

They were there, yeah. With all the other bands there, I wrote mine pretty close to it–not disrespectfully close. … It was super cool, it was kind of an honor to play there even if it was a small crowd.

I read recently that you “can’t write a single word right now, which is okay,” and you move on to something else during those times. What’s that something else, lately?

I usually try to play guitar a lot. Even if it’s just for fun, even if I’m not trying to write something. I never really try to consciously improve at that, but it does just kind of happen if you just do it.

I really realized this with touring a lot, and playing show, where all of a sudden I realize like Whoa, I’m way better at this and I wasn’t trying. Like, you can’t help it. I kind of feel like that with playing guitars, writing songs too, I just try not to put too much pressure on myself and just do it because I like to, and eventually something will come out of it.

In the past month I’ve been on tour, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Not really thinking about writing. But I did write a song after I got back and I’ve got a couple ideas kicking around, so that feels good.

I believe you have a visual art background, and you’ve had a hand in coloring and sketching your album arts dating back to Cherry Hell, many of which involve colored pencil or crayons. What do you like about those mediums?

They’re just kind of easy and also I have them. Those two things really are a lot to do with it. I guess I’m drawn to strong colors also. Maybe art background might be strong word for it, to be honest, but I do like it – I like making stuff. I feel like one of the things that comes more naturally to me are like, colors.

There’s something about the colored pencil lines, it’s kind of messy but you can still see motion.

It is kind of like an old carpenter thing, the best tool is the one you have.

Between your mention of carpentry and your current wrist injury, I can’t help but think about how it’s important, even for musicians, to take care of their bodies.

It only gets harder over time, too. Just like things that would not have injured me in my twenties fuck my whole shit up.

One of my favorite songs of yours is “Goodbye / Trouble,” and “Mary / Dreaming” is also titled in that format. What draws you to a two-part song?

I’m not particularly drawn to that–I don’t think I’ve gone into it wanting to do it. With “Goodbye / Trouble,” they were originally two separate song ideas and the “Trouble” one was earlier, actually, the second half. When I was working on the “Goodbye” portion, I kept going into that chord progression and that rhythm it goes into and I was like, “Wait a minute, I’ve done this before,” and went and found the voice memo of “Trouble” and they just really fit together. I kind of wrote the lyrics to them to get more together. Sometimes it works out like that.

“Mary” was a complete song and then “Dreaming” felt like this snippet and I really liked it and I wanted it to go on the album, and that was kind of place where it sounds like it clicked in.

It makes sense that they started out separate and something organically brought them together.

I like that “Dreaming” feels like a weird emotional resolution to “Mary.” It brings it somewhere else.

Speaking of snippets, many of my favorite songs of yours–“Frog,” “Maria,” “Sweetie”–are short. How intentional are the brevity of your songs? Do you field suggestions to “expand” or “build” on songs like these? When is a song finished, to you?

I haven’t really had to field suggestions from anyone I’m working with or anything. But I’ve definitely seen some negative reviews about some of the song lengths, and people also like, harping on them, I kind of think that’s a little bit silly. Alright, so it’s not a 3-minute pop song, does it have to be?

I respect brevity. I think that’s what it comes down to. My way of doing things is I always want to do things with as little as possible and also like, I like being direct. I appreciate directness in art. I never want anything to appear overwrought, and maybe sometimes I go too far in the other direction for some people’s tastes, but I honestly don’t give a shit. [laughs]

When I’m making an album I think of it like an album. If you’re like “Oh what’s with all these short songs?” it’s like, listen to them together.

Even as I’m asking that question it’s like, what even the correct length of a song? What are we comparing it to? Which is sort of how I came to the question of when you personally know a song is done.

It’s just a feeling that I get from it. There is something to the three-minute, or the 2 1/2-minute pop song, like it feels really good. So sometimes I do second guess myself when I come up with something that’s like a minute and a half or two minutes or whatever, and sometimes I try to elongate it, and pretty much 100 percent of the time I try to do that it’s not as good. I really try not to force things and really try to let the music writing be as not conscious as possible because I do feel like there’s something else that comes through if you just let it be what it wants to be.

Sometimes I wish I wrote more 3-minute songs but also, maybe I don’t really like my hair or the sound of my voice or whatever. This is what comes out when I do this. You can try to go against that natural state but I don’t know if that’s always wise.

Greg Mendez plays RecordBar on Saturday, August 22, with Maria BC. Details on that show here.