Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock recently shocked fans when he pulled out a knife mid-set during a South Dakota gig and slit his own chest while performing “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” in a gruesomely Iggy-Pop-esque moment that took his usual miserable-fuck antics to a whole new level of morbid bizarreness. Apparently, he’d lost his voice the night before, had been double-fisting single malt scotch (to open up his vocal chords, of course) and was feeling a little hyper, so he decided to get “punk rock.” When we caught up with Brock, the notorious cuss seemed to be on his best behaviour, saying he was trying to be more open minded and less confrontational. At least, that’s what he was saying between suspiciously drawn-out puffs of what we must assume was some sort of cigarette, telling us about his murderous thoughts and revealing his obsession with the sea.

“Oh, there were times when I literally wanted to kill him,” Brock says of producer Dennis Herring, who worked on new record We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. “But he kind of turned a page for me because he saw that I was working pretty hard on listening to people a little better. He was kind of touched. There were tense moments, which, to be honest, is just going to happen in a studio. With a whole bunch of people with different tastes, it’s an opinion-based deal, so that can get pretty heavy.”

Brock’s notoriously opinionated ways have caused him more than a few heavy moments in the past. After verbally flipping off a U.S. border guard early in his career by telling him he only purchased “fudge” while visiting Canada, Brock was thrown in jail after the ticked-off official ran him through the system and found the musician was wanted on an attempted murder charge. Seriously. Brock got off with probation (the charge stemmed from crashing his car while high on laughing gas), but, clearly, he’s no stranger to getting in hot water for his wild ways. Still, Brock insists he’s trying to turn a new leaf these days.

“I’m trying to have a much more tender grip on things these days,” he grumbles in his signature three-packs-a-day drawl.

Perhaps working with famous Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr on We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank has had a positive effect on Brock. Marr’s know for being a mild-mannered vegetarian, a subdued Brit with a smooth sound, while Brock’s notorious for his cigar smoking, hard drinking and mad, herky-jerky delivery. It might seem like a match made in Enigma Land, but Brock says the pair got along famously while writing the record — so much so that Marr has now official joined Modest Mouse and is touring with them.

“OK, well, it was great working with him. It wasn’t the main focus as much to us as it is to people who write about it,” Brock asserts, sounding a bit annoyed to be answering questions about the odd-couple pairing. “We had more an interest in making it feel like he wasn’t from the outside, so our focus wasn’t on how we used to do it or should do it. It was just, ‘Let’s get together and do it. Let’s write.’ There were very few growing pains as far as figuring out how each other worked. It was pretty natural.”

“What did he bring to the project? Well, he brought himself,” he begrudgingly continues. “I can’t put my finger on exactly what he brought to it. I know he brought a lot.”

The result is We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, a surly, off-kilter, nautical-themed record featuring eccentric-yet-danceable tunes like first single “Dashboard,” and jangly twisters like “Florida,” which also features the smooth croons of the Shins’ James Mercer. Originally, Brock had planned the disc to be a concept piece accompanied by a book he was going to pen about five sailors and their untimely deaths. Unfortunately, the outlandish idea proved too far-out for even Brock.

“There were these characters that, when I was writing off the top of my head with the band, kept coming back. It was a story about these five fishermen, so I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll write a little book with the more detailed story, and the songs will be the other chapters that aren’t in the book, per say.’ It was going to be about these five people that worked on a fishing boat who repeatedly got killed,” Brock explains. “The fact is, it’s really hard to write from an honest and emotional point if you’ve already got a fixed concept. I had to kind of shit-can it and be a little more broad with the use of nautical themes and the sea as a metaphor rather than a specific event.”

Still, remnants of the idea remain, as the album swells with sea-inspired lyrics delivered in Brock’s trademark, rapid-fire, half-slurred, crazy-hooched-up-sailor style. In the video for “Dashboard,” he even dresses up as an old fisherman and goes on a trippy oceanic adventure that climaxes in him being captured by fish people.

And you can expect to see many more of such bizarre clips out of the Modest Mouse camp: Brock is planning to release videos for every song on the record, and even one for an extra song that didn’t make the cut. Eight directors are currently working on the videos, which are being done on the cheap and left completely in the hands of the various celluloid mavens, with no input from the band. Hunky Hollywood actor Heath Ledger has even signed up to create a video for an unreleased track with legendary animator Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame.

“We kind of befriended Heath Ledger awhile back through our tour manager and he’d been wanting to do a video,” Brock explains. “Just recently, a couple of days ago, he [Ledger] said Terry Gilliam wants to animate it. So, that’s really fucking exciting. It’s for a song that’s not even on the record. It’s called ‘King Rat.’ It’s actually a song I really fuckin’ like.”

The song will also be available on a forthcoming Modest Mouse EP that will feature tracks that didn’t make it onto We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Brock says he isn’t sure when the second disc will be ready due to time constraints, but, whatever you do, don’t call it an album of B-sides.

“No, there are no B-sides. We don’t make B-sides,” he growls. “There’s talk of recording [the EP] while we travel on the road, which to be honest, sounds like complete bullshit to me. Anytime any of us say we’re going to do anything on the road, including just write, it never happens. The headspace gets weird on tour.”

So, maybe touring explains the chest cutting, the jail time, the murderous thoughts and the obsession with the sea? Or maybe that’s just Isaac Brock.

© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.