With diaristic songwriting and gritty production, mercury deserves its place in the indie rock spotlight. A project by 23-year-old alternative artist Maddie Kerr, mercury has captivated over 600 thousand monthly listeners on Spotify since its 2022 debut.
Raised in Nashville, Kerr started writing songs long before she ever considered releasing them, treating music as a way of navigating life. The band began as a high school project that Kerr pieced together with a rotating cast of friends. Over the years, that early sketch solidified into the fully realized project she now confidently leads, mercury evolving alongside her.
Across EPs and singles, mercury’s music covers anxieties of growing older and seeking connection in tracks like “I Don’t Know You Like I Used To” and “Special.” Working heavily with producer Alex Farrar, the band consistently releases new singles, with “Heaven” on Nov. 12 being the most recent. The band spent most of the last year supporting Arcy Drive on its North American tour, and is now preparing for a full 2026 tour with Colony House.
On Nov. 13, NYU Program Board hosted mercury in Kimmel E&L. Student openers DJ Sean Green, a junior at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, and the band Verna Codeine warmed up the crowd before it took the stage.
Ahead of the performance, WSN sat down with Kerr to discuss mercury’s evolving sonic identity and her hopes for where her career is headed.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WSN: How did you choose the name mercury, and how does it reflect your music?
Kerr: My friends, who I started the project with at the time, were sitting on the floor trying to find words that sparked, and then it just came out of nowhere. I felt connected to it. The music that I wanted to make made sense with that name. Mercury is obviously an element that is poisonous and there’s so many cool, mysterious kinds of things about mercury which connect to my sound.
WSN: Your sound gets compared to everything from Big Thief to Wolf Alice. Do you feel like your music belongs to any specific scene right now?
Kerr: I really, really love heavy alternative music, but I feel like the roots of my music come from a lot of different directions. I’m really leaning into the grunge space right now which definitely has roots in the way that I sing and the instrumentals, similar to Deftones, Radiohead and all that stuff.
WSN: How does it feel to play to an NYU crowd full of aspiring artists, writers, musicians?
Kerr: It’s really cool to be in a space where there’s a lot of people doing similar things. It brings appreciation and makes me excited. There’s only a few cities you could play that have this energy. Hopefully people leave maybe inspired to do music, or carry a connection further than just tonight.
WSN: Recently, you played at Webster Hall with Arcy Drive. Do you have any pre-show rituals before a big night like that?
Kerr: I definitely get nervous before big shows, so I keep it simple. I drink a lot of water, breathe and try not to eat right before I go on. I just try to get excited. I try to divert that nervous energy into excitement.
WSN: Your recorded tracks are very dynamic and emotional. What changes when you perform live?
Kerr: We try to get all of that in there, lots of noisy guitars and feedback. The set doesn’t really change that much from recording to live. It’s all guitar and bass making noises. We have a four piece band tonight, which has been a fun challenge, because usually we’re three guitars. Today will be one of the longest sets that we’ve gotten to play for anyone.
WSN: What’s one thing you’ve learned from this past year, as a person or as an artist, that you want to carry into your next tour or project?
Kerr: It’s filtering out what other people say. I can get super in my own head, like the tiniest things hurt. Sometimes a random stranger’s comment destroys me, but I just have to remember what I want and what I’m doing. And to fight for the things that I want to make too, like creating an album. I’m learning to stand up for myself, both internally and externally.
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