It is a slushy day during the polar vortex’s grip over New York City and Shins frontman James Mercer and noted producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton have gathered at a restaurant on the first floor of The Nolitan Hotel. The swanky space is located on the edge of the city’s Lower East Side, a few blocks from the labyrinth of clubs and bars that helped reboot indie rock in the early ‘00s—and have continued to trend as the hipster movement has slowly meshed with high society culture.

Portland, Ore.-based Mercer is in town to meet with Burton—who keeps addresses in both Los Angeles and New York—to promote their second full-length collaboration as Broken Bells. Thanks to the successes of their primary projects and their self-titled 2010 Broken Bells debut, Mercer and Burton have crafted fully recognizable identities and those personalities are on full display at the Nolitan. The well kempt, but more reserved and reflective, Mercer—wearing a tightly fitting button-down shirt that’s tucked into his jeans—sports a trim, dad- rock haircut and beard, while nursing a glass of red wine. The fro-clad, verbose and expressive Burton—who is decked out in a vintage-looking brown jacket and matching dress pants, like he just walked out of wardrobe on an Italian New Wave film—is sipping something a little stiffer. They are nearing the end of a long press day and between questions about Broken Bells’ forthcoming album After The Disco, the longtime friends have a not-so-secret agenda to prove that, despite the differences in their résumés, they are not a musical odd couple.

“People think that we’re some kind of weird duo, but it’s not true,” Burton says almost immediately. “We actually have a lot in common as people. We had similar interests growing up, and we gravitate toward similar things even if we externalize them differently. We have way more things that we like that are the same than are different so that really helps.”

Burton, a single, 36-year-old hip-hop and indie rock producer with a soft spot for Spaghetti Western soundtracks and vintage, analog synths, has left his fingerprints on albums by The Black Keys, Beck and recently, U2. As both a producer and musician, he is also something of a serial collaborator who helped guide all-star projects such as Gorillaz, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Rome, Dark Night of the Soul and Gnarls Barkley, his chart-topping duo with CeeLo Green. In a separate but equal world, the married, 43-year-old Mercer has aged into one of indie pop’s most respected and reliable voices, thanks to his genre-defining albums with The Shins. After a few of his songs received prime placement in movies early on, he also ventured deeper into the film world by acting in Some Days Are Better Than Others and collaborating with Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock on music for director Chris Malloy’s 180° South. However, despite those impressive credits and uber- cool setting, their conversation veers toward geeky pretty quickly.

“I love situations in Star Trek that are set on some planet far away and basically there are just these hippies everywhere,” Mercer says with a laugh. “There’s something so fascinating to me about that—when you look back and see what they were thinking. It says so much about the culture at the time and reveals a lot about us now.”

“It is the idea of things you can’t predict and you never will, but it reminds you of having a big imagination because every year, you get older and you lose that imagination,” Burton adds, finishing his bandmate’s thought in a way that is reminiscent of their creative process. “We weren’t into the same science fiction, but it was a big thing for both of us growing up. James knows more about older science fiction magazines, but I was a comic book kid myself. It was another lucky coincidence.”

During Broken Bells’ downtime between records, Mercer and Burton’s profiles continued to rise. Mercer released Port Of Morrow with a new incarnation of The Shins and wrote an original song for the opening sequence of Zach Braff ’s conceptual Garden State sequel, Wish I Was Here. Burton busied himself with production work for Electric Guest, Norah Jones and Portugal. The Man, and he set his eyes toward a second Gnarls Barkley record. Broken Bells reconvened in 2012 to start work on After The Disco, using the same engineers from the first Broken Bells album. At first, they made a conscious decision to use minimal instrumentation in an effort “to make two people sound really big,” though there were subtle differences this time around. Later on, they solicited help from numerous vocal and orchestral players, including the Angel City String Orchestra, and received some outside guidance from Shins keyboardist and Foxygen producer Richard Swift, whose current projects include Marco Benevento and Guster. “I think the first record, lyrically, was a pretty good split. On this record, Brian does a lot more lyrics than me,” Mercer says before volleying his answer to Burton.

“James just got done writing an entire album’s worth of lyrics [for Port Of Morrow] so I think I felt like I was helping him a little. Plus, I had a lot to say,” he admits.

They recorded most of the album during two sessions a few months apart and also dusted off an unused track from Broken Bells. Despite the project’s high expectations, the recording sessions functioned as something of a vacation for both men. Burton says that he was going through a tough time, relationship-wise—which contributes to the album’s darker lyrical themes—and enjoyed the escape of hanging out with Mercer. After touring with The Shins, Mercer used the trips to California as a vacation from his domestic life in Portland and the stress of leading a band on his own.

“Working in the studio was such a pleasure,” Mercer laughs. “I can eat junk food and there’s no real pressure because you know something good is gonna happen— we have that in-built confidence now.” While songs like “Holding on for Life,” “No Matter What You’re Told” and “Leave It Alone” could have fit on the first Broken Bells album, this record is faster and sadder than its predecessor, flirting with a style that Mercer calls “speed melancholy.” They also gained a newfound confidence while working on the album’s title track “After The Disco,” a number that starts off at a frantic pace but segues into a slower waltz. However, despite the album’s title and occasional percussive pulse, there aren’t really any disco songs on the record. “It’s just a phrase about a genre,” Mercer says before recounting a rock-and- roll tale about how David Bowie once told Brian Eno that Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” was the future of music.

Mercer believes that their ability to mask the album’s sadder, darker themes with shiny technology and strong beats is a technique similar to the fantasy stories he has always loved. They also both point to The Smiths and The Cure as sonic inspirations. “That was the ideal thing—to make something that you could dance to and that can feel really good but still be melancholy,” Burton says. “The melancholy is still really what draws us to make music anyway. That’s just something we both have in common.”

At times, their partnership became so deep that they co-wrote certain lines together, and they actually are not sure who came up with certain song phrases. “Somebody came to me and was like, ‘That lyric right there— that was yours, right?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I think it might be Brian’s,’” Mercer says. “There’s some that I absolutely know are Brian’s, but then there are some that are wild cards.”

Burton interjects: “There are some lyrics which I am sure are James’ but I feel like they’re mine. They represent me and feel like me. We were really comfortable with the way we worked. It was easier for us. I’d play something on the piano and I’d look at James and I can tell whether he likes it or not.”

To the surprise of many Broken Bells fans who came to the project through Mercer’s guarded lyrical work with The Shins, Burton’s Gnarls Barkley partner CeeLo Green had a huge impact on After The Disco. “I didn’t write any lyrics for Gnarls Barkley, I just sat and watched and learned so much,” Burton admits. “There would be all this confusing music but then, this voice would cut through the whole thing and say some- thing in the middle of it. CeeLo is able to say something that sounds like it should be cliché but nobody has actually said it before. And it has a depth to it. I’m a fan of The Shins and James is one of my favorite lyricists—I like that sometimes you can only understand half of what he’s saying because the other half allows me to kind of make up my own interpretation. That is the risk when you’re very direct—you want to try to avoid something that is going to be too self- indulgent in any kind of way.”

Though they have grown into close friends during the past 10 years, Mercer and Burton are still visibly fans of each other’s discographies and listen intently to each other’s answers about their solo work. When Burton brings up The Shins leader’s seemingly veiled lyrics, Mercer is quick to set the record straight: “That’s frustrating for me because even when I was writing my early stuff, I was like, ‘Everyone’s gonna get this.’ I didn’t want to be too revealing about what my songs are about because then they won’t be interesting. It’s a complicated thing to learn the subtleties of that whole thing. You try not to be cliché, but you wanna say something universal.”

In addition to their offstage friendship, one of the reasons that Broken Bells has managed to stand apart from their primary projects is because both musicians bring a unique set of talents. Despite all of his accolades, Burton is not a lead singer, and Mercer enjoys the guidance of a producer who is used to working with career artists. “I really like the way Brian manages to keep a complex thought really simple,” Mercer admits. “There’s a lot that you can do with just sort of giving a picture, almost. So I took from that and I try and do more of that—for The Shins and for Broken Bells. I like being concise and relatively succinct but emotionally powerful. Being a producer is kind of like being the boss—you’ve got a lot of responsibilities.

“Dudes in bands who basically got taken from the pot-smoking, video game, couch lifestyle to playing festivals and having chicks actually give a shit about them have such a crazy transition. It’s so easy to go, ‘Well, let’s just fucking party our asses off for the next five years until there’s serious damage done.’ But what’s good about being a producer is that you’ve got to keep your shit together.”

“We both have strong personalities and opinions,” Burton admits. “I can be a very anxious person and at that time, I needed something like Broken Bells because [the creative process] can either make you more nervous or it can make you calm. It was very calming just how small we kept everything. We were trying to figure out what we were and what we looked like. We weren’t trying to put our faces on the album cover and as this was going on, our art person sent us back something that had to do with space. And we didn’t even tell him that we were talking about it; it just sort of happened. And I was listening to the record and it made the concept of the record completely change without even touching the music again. It was like, ‘Yeah, this is what this kind of is.’”

Besides proving that they are not a so-called odd couple, if Broken Bells has another agenda, then it is to show that they are not a short-term side project. It is evident from their fraternal banter that they enjoy each other’s company and Broken Bells’ duo format allows both musicians to access a different part of their musical personalities. For Burton, it affords him the opportunity to play in a rock band that he continues to steer outside the studio (which is also a reason that he recorded the album under his own name instead of the Danger Mouse handle).

“Broken Bells is a different way for me to express myself. It is a band and my most creative outlet. It’s just really lucky because it’s still within its own boundaries and James defines what those boundaries are,” Burton says of his varied career. “I feel like I can pour a bunch of ideas into this and because James has really high standards and his own tastes, anything that’s kept is gonna be the best stuff we did. So there’s a confidence that comes along with knowing that I can do that.”

Though The Shins are technically a band, in many ways, the group has always been a nom de plume for Mercer, who remains the group’s only consistent member. In that sense, Broken Bells has given him the chance to craft a canon of songs with a distinct creative partner. Their process influenced his recent work with The Shins.

“Lyrically I wanted to get a little bit more direct, but do it in that way where it doesn’t sound too heavy-handed,” Mercer says. “I also really like the way that Brian works in the studio—the way we write together. I kind of failed to implement most of that in my stuff. But nevertheless, it was inspiring. It still is. There’s a certain casual nature when Brian goes into a project. He’s just like, ‘Start working,’ like we’re digging a hole. It’s sort of nice to go into it like that though, like, ‘Don’t worry—we’re going to sort it out.’”

Mercer credits much of his long-term success with being something of a late bloomer. In fact, he didn’t achieve fame until he was already in his 30s. “I was a punk when I was in my 20s, so I don’t know how I would’ve handled it,” he says. “I think that it would’ve been hard for me to survive all the craziness that comes along with even moderate success. Early on, we had some great moments, but it seems like, for a couple of my bandmates, it turned pretty dark pretty quickly. I was a little older than them, and I think that’s why I didn’t have such a hard time.”

Burton scored his initial buzz in his 20s, but his own self-admitted anxiety has kept him guessing about his career. For him, collaborating with so many talented artists is, in certain ways, a safety blanket. His work with Mercer is not simply an opportunity to blow off steam but also a chance to bring a musician he admires to a different audience.

“The minute you get any extras and somebody gives you something for doing something that you really like to do, you almost feel like you’re cheating,” Burton admits. “I’ve been able to use any success to associate myself with people who I thought really were already great. Since I had those opportunities, it made total sense that my projects have been successful because I’m working with people who I already think are great anyway. If you surround yourself with great people, you feel stronger. That’s why you do it. It’s the association—it’s the people I’m around.”