hotel room in El Paso, Texas,

a local tattoo artist named Ray, a

dulcet, generous, and huge Modest Mouse

fan, had just finished--free of charge-- applying the image of a hot air balloon weighted by a maritime anchor to the right outside forearm of the band's singer, Isaac Brock. Moments later, Brock--who is rarely dissuaded from doing exactly as he pleases--had the tattoo stylus in his right hand, intent on tattooing himself. In thick black ink, and in only slightly cock-eyed lettering, he quickly inscribed the skin on his left wrist with the words "life is still sweet." Despite the time difference, he flopped down on the bed and called his girlfriend who lives with him in Portland (where he owns a house with a recently bought top-of-the-line Volvo station wagon parked in the driveway--"for her safety") and boasted of what he'd just done. I hugged a pillow and assumed the crash position as I endured my own tattoo on the skin that covers the ulna, trying hard not to eavesdrop on their conversation, but it did sound like they're a couple whose quirks fuel a deeply affectionate, and yes, sweet life.

After several years, Modest Mouse finally has a new album, aptly titled Good News for People Who Love Bad News. More than any other of the band's nine records (LPs and EPs, and not counting the singles), the new one sounds almost entirely joyful in tone. As with so many of his lyrical compositions--in which minor or major geographical differences, anywhere from 500 to 5,000 miles apart, are often referred to as planets--Brock begins this album by engaging listeners with "The World at Large," a story of unsteady change. "I moved on to another day/to a whole new town/With a whole new way/Went to the porch to have my thought/Got to the door/and then I couldn't stop."

Evidently, this song's indifferent traveler has amassed a world full of people to whom he'll always bid adieu, genuinely never meaning it to be forever, but unable to commit specifically as to when he'll return. He's a wandering thinker, aware that those left behind are not marooned unwounded--his only excuse being "My thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth." What follows that last, repeated lyric of "The World at Large" and carries the song to its finish is Tom Pelosa's powerful yet quietly restrained wail of strings, and the ambling pip of a piccolo, culminating in the building soundtrack of a restless floater whose heart has never known how to settle down in a way that feels entirely comfortable, not just for himself but for those who must endure the impact of his absences, too.

For a week the band--whose members I've known on a personal level since 1996, before their first full-length, This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, came out on Up Records--allowed me to travel with and/or follow them through the enormous state of Texas, happy my focus was not only on the new album and what it will mean for Modest Mouse's career, but that I wanted to connect with their fans, especially in a (rare) area of the country that Brock has not, at one time or another, sought out as a new planet to explore.

Meeting up with them at their show at the Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth, a town full of friendly folks who love to give directions but have little idea where anything is located, I found an opening band already in progress, and Modest Mouse tourmates the Helio Sequence (whose drummer, Benjamin Weikel, plays in both bands) warming up backstage. The place was packed, totally sold out and, in my unofficial opinion, populated by some of the more meatheaded variety of Modest Mouse fans, complete with stage diving and crowd surfing, which I hadn't seen in a while.

Afterward, back at the hotel, the band and crew crowded around a computer screen to watch the final cut of the video that will accompany the (at that time) just released single "Float On." With each member's melon happily viewing the scene and laughing at the screen, I missed most of it. The few seconds I did see, however, were funny and aptly surreal, directed by Toronto's Chris Mills and animated Monty Python-like with the members standing in front of music stands and Brock, fully live-looking and dressed in a black suit, wearing a mustache, singing in front of frolicking sheep lying on their backs laughing themselves silly after a bird lands on a transformer and electrocutes itself to death. The sheep mood darkens soon after as they realize they're being herded into a slaughterhouse. Brock removes his hat and places it over his heart as he sings, "Don't you worry/We'll all float on/Even if things get too heavy/We'll all float on."

The next day I rode in the van with the band to Austin. Given the size of the state of Texas, I thought the drive would be an all-day affair, but we arrived by mid-afternoon. The show, a SXSW showcase, was one of the best-given that entire conference because Pelosa flew in to back up the band with the strings that make Good News for People Who Love Bad News such a gorgeous- sounding record. All of their albums are beautiful, each for a different reason. But the new one is in a class by itself. From Dennis Herring's production, Pelosa's augmented involvement, and horns contributed by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, to input by the Flaming Lips' Dave Friedman, Good News for People Who Love Bad News is informed by noticeable and historical pop sensibilities not yet heard on a Modest Mouse record.

The hall in Austin was one of the conference's largest, and again, the show was sold out. Throughout the pre-Modest Mouse bands, kids sat on the grimy floor not really giving a shit until the headliners took the stage. Again, it was a beautiful show, full of grace and a whole new level of performance for a band that, on a few bootleg recordings I was given six or seven years ago, couldn't always pull it off live for its fans (verses were confused, songs were played shoddily).

During my observance of their sold-out shows across the state of Texas--a trip inspired by my personal and roiling irritation with a local belief held by the naive or the jealous that Modest Mouse sell out every single show they play in the Northwest simply because they're local boys--no city drove deeper the image of its fans' complete devotion than El Paso, a town across the border from Juarez, Mexico. Despite the fact that the all-ages show had sold out weeks earlier, the morning of the show there had been a hearty crowd (over 100, actually) of teenage fans amassed outside the venue in hopes of somehow, legally, illegally, or through the charitable nature of the band, acquiring entrance. When Modest Mouse pulled up for sound check in their nondescript white van, the assembled kids stood in united disbelief, having fully expected the musicians to roll up in a sparkling tour bus meant for the kind of rock stars these faraway fans believe the musicians of their favorite band to be. That Brock and his bandmates stood outside and chatted with nervous fans for hours before the show--occasionally selling T-shirts, CDs, and signing autographs--not only said a lot about how appreciative they are of their devotees, but also reminded me of all the work they had to do to get so big while remaining, for the most part, totally humble and regular guys. In a career of watching bands mature, I've never been more proud of any than I am of Modest Mouse. Not only did I see them grow up (bassist Eric Judy has a son named Milo, who can be heard on "Interlude (Milo)" on the new album), I saw them become a band that, with their music, and with no icky Dashboard Confessional cultishness, has saved many fans' lives, the way Morrissey did for another generation so many years before.

With a tape recorder and camera in hand, and feeling like a total dork on a mission, I shyly sought out some kids and asked them if they wouldn't mind talking about the band they'd come to see that night. Almost everyone spoke of Brock as some kind of genius who put words together in a way that, to them, seemed magical. "Magical" was used as a descriptor several times, actually. A sweet girl named Andrea, who came with her little sister Marianna, said one of her favorites of the band's songs was "Never Ending Math Equation" off 2000's Building Nothing Out of Something. Her favorite lyrics: "I'm the same as I was when I was six years old/and oh my god I feel so damn old/that I don't really feel anything"; a later lyric that goes, "Where do you move when where you're moving from is yourself?" is one she connected with especially. When she went on to mention her love of the song "Broke," I fought the urge to hug her, not just because she's young enough to be my daughter, but also because I hate to think of someone so beautiful and still blooming ever playing the sad track over and over again for hours at a time. Since first hearing "Broke" in 1999, it has remained my favorite Modest Mouse song. When my heart's been broken for some dumb reason, big or small, by my doing or someone else's, that is the one I want to hear. "Broken hearts want broken necks/I've done some things that I want to forget/but I can't" is a line that will never lose its ameliorating qualities, because at age 15 or 39, we all need to feel the brokenness so we can begin to mend. (After I finished talking to the kids and some really dull, drunken adults, I told Brock of the girl's hopes to hear the songs tonight, and he immediately added them to the set list.) A girl from Brazil said she knew of the band through the Internet because it's been only recently that Modest Mouse CDs have been available in her country. Another person waiting outside the show told me that Modest Mouse is the only band he would have packed his car full of kids and driven hundreds of miles to see. Ceasar, an 18-year-old dressed in jeans and a black button-up shirt accessorized with a skinny white leather tie, and with a face prettier than that of most female supermodels, confessed to me, as did many of the kids, that he had only heard Modest Mouse through mix tapes and MP3s and that this was his first time he'd be seeing them live. After the show, I spoke with him again and he was almost speechless because the show had been so much better than he'd even dreamed.

The set began with "Never Ending Math Equation," which immediately sent the kids ballistic. "Trailer Trash" came next but when Brock sang, "And I shout that you're all fakes" (at every show I've ever seen most of the kids scream back, "Fakes!"), not many shouted back. Maybe it's because so many kids in the audience drove in from Juarez, which, from my hotel window, I noticed was made mostly of shacks. It was amazing for me to witness the breakdown in The Moon & Antarctica's "I Came as a Rat" from behind the band, as their onstage energy, frenetic and conscious of each other's placement at the same time, was astounding to see from that vista. When I walked around to the other side of the stage, I had a good laugh between songs every time I heard this Mexican kid pump his fist in the air and holler out, "COCKAROACH!"--meaning he wanted to hear "Doin' the Cockroach." I felt bad that the excited fan never got to hear it, despite his determined requests.

The super-excited kid who informed me that Ray wanted to give not only Brock, but me, a tattoo, asked if I could ask the singer if he'd be cool with it. This led to a long drive to get the materials and then go back to the hotel, and as I sat in the back seat I loved hearing the two fans from Texas getting to talk to an artist for whom they had so much fucking respect. I was getting a contact psych just sitting back there listening. So many stories were told, and Brock reveled (and revealed a lot) in telling them.

When I got back to Seattle I called tattoo artist Ray to thank him again, and he told me that two days later he'd given guitarist Dan Gallucci the same tattoo as he'd given Brock, as well as Eric Judy, who, because he'll always look like a 4-year-old around the eyes, even when he's 60, was a hard one for the tattooist because he felt like he was marking up the skin of a child.

For most people, the immediate after- effects of getting a fresh tattoo manifest in elation or at the very least an unexpected, however brief, ramp-up in energy. For me, they induce a deep melancholia that lasts for hours and sometimes for days--or at the very least, they induce a crying jag. The latter happened after several subtle verbal attempts to rouse the snoozing Brock and request his availability in the following days to verify facts for this story. No response and a lack of time to fuck around led to my slapping the bottom of his tennis shoe and informing him loudly that he needed to answer his dang cell phone when I called him the following week. Full of fury he rose up and yelled that no one, "not even you," could tell him what to do. Startled and already at the emotional gates, I felt a familiar surge and fought to keep the tears from sliding down my cheeks. Seeing that he had hurt my feelings, he pulled me down and wrapped his arm around my shoulder so that the freshly tattooed message was positioned in front of my face. "See that?" Of course I did--at that point it was garish, swollen, and slick with ointment. He launched into a laundry list of things he'd been through over the years: accusations, geographical moves, arrests, jail time, family problems, the birth of a son--things anyone who loves him as an artist or a friend knows all about--and said how for him, despite all that, life was still sweet. "We've both been through hard times over the years, but you're still one of my favorite people," I said. Sounding sleepy, but authentically apologetic, he said he felt the same way and was sorry we'd lost touch until this trip. I reminded him he's afforded himself the luxury of living a life where he's allowed to come and go as he pleases. When his life begins to tang, he just moves on to a place where it smells sweet again, and his friends, family, and even bandmates have to understand that's just how it's going to be. He writes a record of stunning songs fans have been waiting for ages to hear and calls it Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Bad is turned to good (or maybe it's the other way around?), and it is because he makes it so. Yes, life is still sweet, and for him it gets only sweeter. And again, it's not just him, his family, or the band the sweetness affects, and he knows it, because Modest Mouse are in it for the fans, and Brock is known for giving back to the community as much as he gets. It struck me, as we watched the sky's morning colors stack on top of each other from the hotel window, that his future is as bright as the El Paso sun.