MENDEL
Nathan

• 1. Life and career

Nathan ‍Gregor ‍Mendel is an American musician best known as the bass guitarist for the Foo Fighters, as well as a former member of Sunny Day Real Estate. He has also worked with musical acts The Jealous Sound and The Fire Theft. He has released one solo album, If I Kill This Thing We're All Going to Eat for a Week, under the name Lieutenant.

Life and career

Mendel was born on December 2, 1968, in Richland, a mid-sized city in southeast Washington. His first instrument was the violin. As of the age of 13, Mendel started to get interested in rock music and joining a band, a friend who played guitar suggested him to play the bass. Mendel stated that "as I picked up that bass I went on a 20-year detour into punk", helped by his town usually having concerts of DIY punk bands such as Scream. This led to a "pretty limited musical education", as despite taking some lessons with a bassist from a local band, Mendel mostly taught himself to play, and "it was all hardcore punk rock, like Minor Threat, Black Flag and Bad Brains. Instead of studying the bass playing of someone like John Entwistle, which would have given me a foundation of how to play. I just wanted to play a lot of notes really fast."

Mendel began his musical career in the hardcore band Diddly Squat, which only recorded a 7" single but did a national tour during the 1988 summer vacation. After Diddly Squat ended, Mendel moved to Seattle, where he spent four months on the straight edge band Brotherhood. Afterwards he joined the band Christ on a Crutch, which included bandmate Glen Essary and lasted until 1993. In 1992, Mendel and his University of Washington housemate Dan Hoerner decided to form a band, and invited drummer William Goldsmith to form the group that would end up being named Sunny Day Real Estate. Mendel added that SDRE was an attempt to "play more intricate, interesting music". While Mendel toured Europe with Christ on a Crutch, Jeremy Enigk jammed with the remaining members and eventually became a full-time member of SDRE.

Just prior to Sunny Day Real Estate disbanding in 1995, Mendel and Goldsmith were invited by Dave Grohl to join his band, the Foo Fighters, during the week of Halloween in late October 1994. He has remained a bandmember ever since, being one of the only original members in the Foo Fighters current line-up along with Grohl and former Nirvana live guitarist Pat Smear. Although Sunny Day Real Estate reunited for two more albums (How It Feels to Be Something On and The Rising Tide), he stayed with the Foo Fighters, in Sunny Day Real Estate, he was replaced by Jeff Palmer, and Palmer was replaced by Joey Skyward, when Skyward left the band, Jeremy Enigk (lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist) moved to the bass. After Sunny Day Real Estate disbanded once more, he joined with other Sunny Day Real Estate members Jeremy Enigk and William Goldsmith to form The Fire Theft, who released a self-titled album in 2003. In 2001, he played with Juno.

He scored a role in the indie movie Our Burden Is Light, in which he also played a minor role as the main female character's best friend's boyfriend and bassist. In the movie, Mendel plays in a band named Bleeder, consisting of himself, Jessica Ballard, and Taylor Hawkins.

In June 2009, it was confirmed that Sunny Day Real Estate plans to reunite again, with Mendel back in the fold. The band toured in 2009, confirming a new album in the works. However, recording sessions proved to be unproductive and by 2013, the group had broken up once again.