A kick with the Shins: Band coming to Spokane in support of ‘Heartworms’

James Mercer is having fun these days. More fun, in fact, than he ever has while touring.

The Shins’ frontman – only man, really, as he’s worked with a rotating cast of musicians for the past two Shins albums – will have the chance to show off that sense of fun for Spokane fans on Sunday at the Knitting Factory.

“I think I’ve found the right balance of my multitasking,” he said in a recent phone interview from his home in Portland. “I’ve learned how little I can actually multitask. I’ve got a terrific band, and I’m not really having to concentrate too much on the rhythmic guitar stuff that I used to really have to do. I can concentrate on singing and engaging with the audience more, and it’s giving me the room in my head to have more fun.”

Mercer formed the Shins in Albuquerque in 1996. The band’s first two albums, “Oh, Inverted World” (2001) and “Chutes Too Narrow” (2003) already were critical and commercial successes when actor Zach Braff featured their song “New Slang” in his 2004 film, “Garden State.” Their Grammy-nominated 2007 album, “Wincing the Night Away,” was a major hit, hitting No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.

But within a couple years, Mercer had disbanded the original Shins’ lineup, citing “an aesthetic decision.” He then joined with Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton to form Broken Bells. It would be five years between the Shins’ “Wincing” and 2012’s “The Port of Morrow,” and another five years before “Heartworms.”

For fans who may not have seen the Shins in awhile, Mercer said Sunday’s show will be quite different. In the band’s original incarnation, keyboardist Marty Crandall was often the one engaging the fans, as Mercer kept the music on track. There was a memorable Bumbershoot in 2007, for instance, when Crandall got the crowd doing the wave.

“That was fun, though. We used to have good times then,” Mercer said, “and what I think I sacrificed in order to concentrate, I had Marty, and Marty could handle the crowd.”

These days, he’s touring with Jon Sortland (drums), Mark Watrous (guitar), Casey Foubert (guitar), Yuuki Matthews (bass), and Patti King (keyboards), and he describes the live show as more organic.

“We just run with it,” Mercer said. “Mainly, we’ve got really strong musicians, and they are all really wonderful, sweet people, so it’s been really fun.”

The set list, he promises, will be eclectic, only because the Shins’ make music in a bunch of different styles: country, indie rock, weird electronic stuff, and even R&B moments.

“As much as we’re excited to play the new stuff … we’re going to mix it up from the set we’ve been playing in the last few months. We’re going to switch things around a bit. It’ll be fun.”

The show will be heavy with the old stuff, with a few songs from “Heartworms” sprinkled in.

“You’re going to see some interesting stuff because both of our guitarists, Mark Watros and Casey Foubert, are really consummate violinists. And Patti King, who is now playing keyboards and singing, she’s an even better violinist. So we have three really strong violin players, and we kind of break things down into a chamber music situation on each song. That’s really cool.

“It’s a combination of really great musicianship, and they’re all a bunch of freaking goofballs as well.”

That musicianship is translating itself into the Shins’ catalog as they’ve gone to back to rework some of those older songs. “New Slang,” for instance, gets a string treatment with King on violin. “We love playing that song,” Mercer said. “The violins add this whole other … dimension. That’s Patti. She’s good.”

And as much fun as he’s been having playing live, he admits to already thinking about making more music once this touring cycle wraps up. The chemistry he has with this current lineup is strong, he said, and he can envision bringing them all back together in the studio.

“There’s magic happening and I want to tap into it, honestly,” Mercer said. “There are moments when we’ve been just sound-checking and stuff and they’re screwing around with some weird groove, and I’m like, ‘Somebody record this (stuff). Let me sing on this.”