The Foo Fighters

Born December 2, 1968 in Richland Washington, he grew up with heavy musical influences. First learning to play the violin Mendel started to gravitate towards the rock scene at the age of 13 joining his first band. One of his friends in the band suggested he try the bass guitar and Mendel said  "as I picked up that bass guitar I went on a 20-year detour into punk". Having limited influences in his area he was mostly self-taught in which he took the mindset " 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." He would join the band Diddly Squat and would tour with them in the summer of 1988. After Diddly Squat ended he would move to Seattle and after a couple of other bands 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. Just prior to Sunny Day Real Estate he was invited to join the Foo Fighters by Dave Grohl in early 1994 in which he is still an active member. Only Nate, Dave, and Pat remain of the original line up.