Modest Mouse founding member Jeremiah Green dies at age 45 | Modest Mouse

Jeremiah Green, founding member and drummer of American rock band Modest Mouse, died on Saturday after recently being diagnosed with cancer.

“I don’t know how to calm down: today we lost our dear friend Jeremiah,” Modest Mouse wrote on her Instagram account. “He lay down to rest and just passed out.”

Last week, frontman Isaac Brock confirmed that Green had been “recently diagnosed with cancer” without going into details about his condition. It was also said that Green pulled out of touring because he had stage 4 cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy.

Green, 45, helped found the four-piece post-grunge band in the early ’90s in Washington state, but they quickly became a fixture in the less abrasive music scene in Portland, Oregon. .

Their core songs, described by Spin magazine in 2000 as “about being stuck in rising America”, made them what he called an “independent torchbearer”. Green and Brock had originally met on the way to a free lunch sponsored by a group of followers of the Hare Krishna movement.

The magazine described the band as something of a rarity – “a charismatic rock band from the chaste upper northwest indie scene”. The article described the mice, other than Brock, as “quieter than Belle and Sebastian’s doorbell”.

“I’d rather hide than be the center of attention,” Green told the magazine.

As their name suggests, they came from humble beginnings and rehearsed their music in a shed. In 1996, the group released the song This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About and, a year later, the album which is generally considered their best, The Lonesome Crowded West.

It wasn’t until 2004 with Good News for People Who Love Bad News that Modest Mouse hit the mainstream. Although Green was not on this album and Modest Mouse had gone through many line-up changes, he had been a consistent member.