Philadelphia has long been home to a string of artists finding success on their own terms. From the hazy and meandering beauty of Kurt Vile to the scuzzy acoustic brilliance of Alex G, the city has proved the perfect launchpad for great songwriters who seem content to flourish at their own pace. Greg Mendez is the latest underground voice to finally have his breakthrough moment, after operating quietly in the city’s underground scene for the better part of two decades.
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After moving to the city from New Jersey as a teenager in 2006, Mendez started playing house shows in hardcore and punk bands, following in the footsteps of his icons splashed across television screens on MTV growing up, all the while sculpting his own tender recordings at home. “I just started recording my own songs with the built-in mic on my laptop,” he tells NME as the late-autumn sun floods his East Philly living room.
Mendez gently encourages his cat out of the camera’s frame as she stalks gracefully atop the back of the sofa, before he recalls how his initial output had been “terrible” but that he did them “very seriously”. He continues: “I was probably doing that for a year or two before I set up MySpace and started sharing the music with my friends at open-mics and basement shows.”
In an age when bedroom pop stars saturate just about every playlist, Mendez says that a lo-fi approach was anything but cool when he first began dropping his own DIY recordings. “It was pretty fucking embarassing to be releasing music under your own name, I was definitely an outlier.” He explains his hushed and almost nonchalant writing style was born out of necessity. “I was guarding my music like a secret, I would sing quietly because I didn’t want my roommates to hear me.”
That disarming intimacy is rife across Mendez’ game-changing 2023 self-titled album – which is being reissued through Dead Oceans this month alongside a physical pressing of his latest EP ‘First Time / Alone’ which dropped in October. The album has slowly snowballed since, connecting with listeners far beyond his own stomping ground, selling out multiple limited runs of the vinyl. “Things just started to feel different around then, we played two launch shows in Philly and New York and the energy in those rooms was just different.”
Written while he bounced between Philly and New York battling periods of addiction and even homelessness, Mendez says music quickly became an escape from those darker chapters in his life. “It was definitely an outlet,” he says. “I was like a child who gets too obsessed with model trains, I needed somewhere else to go in my brain and that’s where a lot of my story-telling comes from.”
As a result, the album is one capable of summoning a spectrum of human emotion as Mendez navigates personal trauma and romance atop of fragile acoustic guitars and moody organs. A particularly vivid example comes with ‘Maria’ as he ponders anxiously over a soothing guitar: “You wanna hear this story about this time we got arrested at a crack den?”
Having been active on the scene before the likes of Kurt Vile and Alex G, it would be unfair to say Greg Mendez has followed in their slipstream. At the same time – given the vivid storytelling and heart-on-sleeve approach – it’s also hardly surprising he has courted comparison to those names, as well as to legendary songwriting giants like Elliott Smith. ‘First Time / Alone’ has all the traces of peak ‘Either/Or’-era Smith, from the sweetened vocals to the grungy acoustic lines that carry a beautiful darkness. Though, Mendez takes the comparisons as a “big compliment”.
“He really showed me the way in terms of taking the feelings that I thought you could only express in loud aggressive ways and putting them across more quietly. He definitely unlocked that door for me when it came to appreciating music that was less abrasive,” he tells NME. “I really hold onto that and it comes through a lot in the stuff that I do. I remember hearing something off the ‘From A Basement On A Hill’ album and that just blew my mind.”
On ‘First Time / Alone’ though, Mendez was forced to move in new directions after undergoing intensive surgery on his right wrist after an overuse injury picked up from working construction jobs. Detailing the procedure, which saw his bone cut apart and plated back together, he flashes a particularly gnarly scar in front of the computer screen. “It’s like night and day now though,” he smiles, “even when it flames up it’s like a shell of the old pain.”
For better or worse, the surgery forced him to put down the guitar and pick up an organ on the EP’s first two singles, ‘Mountain Dew Hell’ and ‘First Time’, resulting in a kind of vulnerability even he hadn’t felt while writing before. “It forced me out of my comfort zone a little bit,” he admitted. “I worked pretty hard on those songs, there’s nothing to hide behind on the whole EP. It’s presented in a weird way but the songwriting feels stronger than anything I’ve ever done before.”
“The melody and the chords have to carry those songs,” he continues. “There’s nothing shiny to hide behind or production tricks. It’s always important to me to get to a place where the songs can just stand on their own. I don’t want to be adding things because something is boring in the songwriting.”
From a lyrical standpoint, the EP continues to grapple with matters of the heart. The likes of ‘Pain Meds’ is both devastating and tender as he processes the grief that comes with losing a loved one with a high-pitched sped-up vocal: “Think about you so much / every time I make coffee every morning / there’s your face so sorry and worn.”
“The lyrics feel more childlike in a way,” he muses. “That’s me processing the death of someone very close to me who I was pretty there for. I’ve used pain medication recreationally so it was me processing seeing somebody dying and needing those medications, I didn’t mean to combine those two things but the song weaves it together somehow.”
Looking into the future, with a trip to the UK planned in January for a show at London’s The Lexington, Mendez already feels like he’s already won. “It’s really cool to me that anybody believes in my music on that scale. Playing shows over the pond never felt like something I’d be able to do. We’re really excited to go and see new places and meet people.”
When asked about his ambition, it’s unsurprising it doesn’t stretch far beyond being able to support his family and remain on his own unique pathway. “I’d just love to be more secure I guess,” he shrugs. “It’s my job now, but if I was still able to be doing this for work twenty years from now that would be awesome. I feel like I owe it to myself and everyone I love to take it somewhere.”
Greg Mendez’s ‘First Time / Alone’ EP is out now via Dead Oceans.