Neal Langford, Former Bassist For The Shins, Dies At 50
28.07.2023 - 20:03
/ etcanada.com
Indie rock fans are in mourning.
On Thursday, The Shins frontman James Mercer announced the sad news that former band member Neal Langford has died. He was 50-years-old.
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“Just want to let you guys know one of the best friends I’ve ever had has passed,” Mercer wrote.
Calling Langford a “very important figure in my life,” Mercer wrote, “this is the guy who talked me into getting over my shyness and up on the stage. He put me in front of the microphone!”
Mercer continued, “He was the catholic school kid who showed me how to sneak into the back of the old El Rey theatre and get a ‘free; beer. An invaluable person! Who turned me onto Dinosaur Jr. and Interview Magazine and the Cocteau Twins and countless other piles of cool stuff. He would pick me up in his stepdad’s El Camino and we’d listen to his latest mixtape. With our swerve on. Driving when we probably shouldn’t have been. Where we shouldn’t have been. We were like that. A long time ago. There’s too much to the story but I loved him. And I owe him a lot.”
Finally, he added, “Neal Langford you were always loved and you always will be.”
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Langford played bass for the band for just a couple of years, from 2001 to 2003. He and Mercer first started playing together in 1992 in a band called Flake Music, which released an album in 1997.
In 1996, Mercer started The Shins, named after a Flake Music song, as a side project with Flake Music drummer Jesse Sandoval. Flake Music broke up in 1999.
Langford would go on to star a new band with Shins keyboardist Marty Crandall called Sad Baby Wolf, and released an EP in 2013.