Heatmiser: Back to Mic City

On July 25, Third Man Records released a really cool deluxe edition of Mic City Sons, the third and final album from Portland, Oregon indie greats Heatmiser for its 30th anniversary.

Across two LPs, this amended version includes a remaster of the original 12 tracks augmented by a collection of demos and unreleased songs from the era that provides a new perspective on this grand last stand from Neil Gust (vocals/guitar) Sam Coomes (bass), Tony Lash (drums) and the late Elliott Smith (vocals, guitar).

A step forward from the scrappiness of their first two albums, Mic City Sons — produced with future Elliott solo collaborators Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock (also of Beck fame) — is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s great final works from a band whose time in the sun has finally come.

Lash, who now works as a mental health counselor, was the party responsible for putting together the generous bonus disc of odds and sods.

“I started to go through and found stuff that was pretty much finished, but just never mixed, and some other things that we had run out of time to fully develop,” he says. “It brought me back to that time in a really visceral way. It made me appreciate this creative space and creative life that we were able to sustain there for a little bit. If only we could have somehow worked our way through all the interpersonal issues. I think the record shows that we could be a really good band.”

Rock & Roll Globe had the chance to catch up with Neil Gust to discuss the MCS reissue and more in this exclusive interview.

 

In the rock version of “Christian Brothers” at the end of this new edition of Mic City Sons, why is it cut off at the end?

We probably thought we weren’t going to keep that take and someone stopped the tape machine while Tony was still messing around.

 

Is there a story behind the creation of “Get Lucky”? It’s got such an unstoppable melody and I would love to hear how it came together.

I don’t remember how it came together other than this: Elliott had an idea for backing vocals to swoop down and then back up, like “I Am the Walrus.” Aaron Day dropped by the studio while we were recording it and his talking bit was improvised on the spot.

 

How did you and Elliott work together as songwriters? 

We’d play each other our song ideas and come up with interconnected guitar parts before showing the rest of the band. Sometimes we’d take parts from each other’s unfinished songs and rework them into something new.

I always admired the cover art for Mic City Sons. What was it about that particular image of the plane taking off that drew you in and made you decide on it for the cover?

The cover art was the last thing made for the album. I used our song titles as a search prompt for stock photos and “Low Flying Jets” came up with that one. I thought there was something hopeful about it. But I also liked how it wasn’t clear if the jet was taking off or coming in for a landing. Or if it was sunrise or sunset; the beginning or the end. The descending jet on the back felt like an ending. In retrospect, I might’ve wanted to show the band wasn’t achieving a proper altitude.

 

I’d love to know the story behind the album title as well, which I know comes from a lyric in “Pop in G.”

The lyric was a placeholder that Elliott intended to rewrite but never did. We liked how it sounded as a title. Unfortunately, for decades, people didn’t know Mic was short for microphone, and pronounced it “Mick” which sounds terrible.

 

What inspired the change of direction on Mic City Sons from your first two albums, sonically?

We knew we wanted to start experimenting a lot more after our first record. The long term plan was always to build our own recording studio. Our second record had a lot of different sounds and more quiet songs like “Why Did I Decide To Stay” and “Antonio Carlos Jobim.” So by the time we started Mic City Sons, we didn’t feel like we had to follow any template.

 

Do you wish there could have been a fourth album?

It might’ve been cool to give it another shot when Elliott suggested it in 2002. But he wasn’t ready, and nobody wanted to be in a dysfunctional band again.

 

“Cocksucker’s Blues” — I’d love to know its origins and why it was left unfinished.

The title came from Robert Frank’s unreleased 1972 documentary of the Rolling Stones. I loved both those artists very much, but that title bothered me. I doubted those guys knew anything about the blues of a cocksucker. It pissed me off as a recently out-of-the-closet gay man. When I was younger, my dad would lose his temper and throw his tools and scream “Cocksucker!” instead of something normal, like “Fuck.” It was a term loaded with anger and derision. So I thought I’d try to write about it. I don’t remember why we left it off the album.

 

Is there a particular anecdote you can share about the recording of Mic City Sons in terms of moments in the studio when you were working on the LP?

There were many days I went to the studio by myself and instead of working on songs, I played solitaire on the computer all day.

When we finally started getting some momentum, we ran into a technical nightmare. We were using new digital 8-Tracks called DA-88s. We had three synced together to give us 24 tracks. But whenever we’d punch into a song to work on a single part over and over, the DA-88s would re-write all 24 tracks. Eventually data corruption would set in. An audible SNAP would suddenly appear across all the other finished tracks. We thought they were ruined. Weeks of work, gone. But Rob and Tom transferred everything to ProTools (newish at the time) and sliced out the snaps.

 

Of songs that didn’t make the final cut of the album, which one do you feel should have been included on the LP and why?

I think the record sounds great as it is, but at the time I was bummed “Dirty Dream” didn’t make the cut. Rob Schnapf called me up and said he didn’t think there should be two songs on the record that took place in a bathroom. He was referring to “Rest My Head Against the Wall.” By then I didn’t have any fight left in me so we dropped it.

How do you feel the indie rock world has changed since Mic City Sons was released?

Social media, streaming, videos on phones, playlists on computers, nobody has to buy recordings to hear them… It’s like a different planet.

 

Of course, but I meant more sonically speaking. How do you feel about the evolution of that “indie rock” sound these last 30 years?

If I zoom out and look at Western pop culture in general, I think we’re in a rut. People still make cool stuff but it’s not changing very fast. I’m hoping we climb out of that in my lifetime so I can witness a creative explosion. And maybe participate in it myself.

 

Are there any current acts you listen to in 2025 that you feel keep the legacy of Heatmiser alive?

Though not necessarily keeping the legacy of Heatmiser alive per se, I really do love Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee.

 

What do you personally wish you’d like to see fans take away from this expanded edition of Mic City Sons?

The same thing I wanted everyone to feel when it came out, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

Assuming you guys got your name from the character in the Rankin/Bass Christmas special, The Year Without a Santa Claus, I’d love to hear about your history with that TV special and how it factored into your youth.

Yes, that’s where the name came from. It was the late 80’s and irony was The Thing. We thought it was funny. The same way we thought Disco and KISS were funny.