Tyler Trudeau interview

I haven't posted any interviews for a long time, but today we have a long one to make up for it. Tyler Trudeau of Women's Basketball and The Tyler Trudeau Attempt replied to every single one of my questions. This is probably some sort of record, since some of them were rather stupid.

Anyway, I first saw Women's Basketball when they played in some divey rock bar in New Haven last year with Horowitz and Allo Darlin'. I think it was one of their first show...maybe even the first and it was exactly what the doctor ordered that day.

Here's a video clip from that very show...


Women's Basketball – Hold Me, Fuckers

You can download the Women's Basketball album for free from the February Records website. While you do that, you can also order the Tyler Trudeau Attempt's seven-inch single, These Are Dark Times.

OK...interview. As usual, this has just been pasted from the email without any editing.

So, tell me a bit about yourself and your various projects. What's the difference between Women's Basketball and The Tyler Trudeau Attempt? Who's in what band? Which one is your main thing? Do their paths ever cross or do you keep them separate? Please note that most of these questions will relate to Woman's Basketball, and not The Attempt….simply because I've only really listened to the WB album.
The Attempt is my main thing, and I've been working on that project in some form or another since I was in high school. I sometimes say the Tyler Trudeau Attempt is an umbrella term for the set of non-subgenre-bound pop songs I write and for any incarnation of the band that plays them, but that's kind of disingenuous, because obviously that description overlaps a little bit with Women's Basketball. Let me put it this way: Lately, and for a long time, when I sit down to write an Attempt song, I'm trying to create a steady lyrical and musical arc in a setting that's kind of like baroque pop played by a garage rock band. That probably sounds really pretentious, but it's also kind of true.

So there's this level of artifice in writing an Attempt song and arranging it with my bandmates that absolutely doesn't carry over to Women's Basketball. Women's Basketball is essentially a way for me to practice writing melodies and to make sure I keep writing songs all the time. There's a "four chords per song maximum" rule, and I try to stay under three minutes with each. I just turn on my four-track, lay down a drum machine beat, play a really simple chord progression over it, then listen back and start brainstorming melodies. Once I have a good melody, I'll scribble a few words on whatever I'd been thinking about before I started recording. Doesn't have to rhyme. The "best quickest" idea always wins out with both melodies and words. I don't like to spend much longer than an hour recording and writing any of the Women's Basketball songs.

The only overlap between the two projects is that I treat the Women's Basketball tapes as "sonic sketchbooks," and I use them for melody-mining sometimes when I write Attempt songs -- just scoop up a good two- or four-bar melody and drop it in the next room, basically.

Right now the Attempt has me on guitar and vocals and my friends John on keyboards and vocals and Bob on drums. We're between full-time bass players, but we have a couple pinch-hitters so at least we can keep gigging. Women's Basketball, on recordings, is me playing everything, plus a drum machine. When we played out as Women's Basketball last spring, I played keyboards and sang, and we had Derek on guitar and Rory on bass. We're gonna play some more shows again, because I'm putting out a new EP, and it looks as though Derek's still on and my friend Tim will probably be playing bass. All of my bandmates are righteous dudes, because that's just how I roll.

What do you do for a living? I assume Women's Basketball doesn't quite pay the bills yet?
Hey, whatcha got? I do a lot of freelance writing and proofreading. I do office temp work sometimes. Just started waiting tables on the side, too. Shit was bleak for a long time, and it's time to get paaaaaaaaaid.

You might already have answered this, but Women's Basketball has been called a fake band. In what way is it fake? I've seen you play live and you have an album.
Well, because it sounds like a full band on the recordings, but it's just me playing all the instruments.

Where did the name come from? Are you a fan of the sport?
About three years ago, I was in the newsroom late one night at the paper where I was working, getting some proofreading done. Y'know how sometimes when you get really depressed, everything takes on this air of gravitas and profundity? It was one of those nights. I came across the phrase "women's basketball" on the page and thought, "My god. This is important. If I ever start another band, I'm going to call it Women's Basketball." When I started messing around with these three-chord songs on my four-track, I thought, "Well, I think this is kind of a new band. Guess I'm going to have to call it Women's Basketball." That's honestly the sum of the reasoning behind the name.

I don't follow any sports, but there's probably some kind of subliminal trigger that made the phrase "Women's Basketball" stand out to me, probably related to the fact that I grew up in a deflated former factory town where University of Connecticut basketball was, like, a really big deal. Men's and women's alike. The women's team often advances farther in the nationals than the men -- I mean, they seriously kick a lot of ass and are zillion-time champs -- and they get a ton of respect. But the thing is, hardly anyone cares about professional women's basketball. Each year some Lady Huskies graduate, and some end up going on to the WNBA, and the give-a-shit-ometer amongst their old fans plummets. Bummertown. I'm not a fan of the sport, but now that I think of it, I guess I'm a fan of the poetic opportunities.


Tell me a bit about the WB album. I love the title and the artwork as well. Who did it? How, where did you record it?
I recorded it onto a cassette four-track by myself in the spare room of my old apartment in New Haven, Connecticut. I used a drum machine, a guitar, a bass and a keyboard... all of them on every song, I think. Every time I had a few songs that I thought other people would get a kick out of, I took my cassettes over to my friend Jef's recording studio and he digitized them. After about a year, I had 17 or 18 keepers and a lot of filler.

I drew the sketch that became the cover, too. I was hanging out in my apartment with a friend one night, and after a few beers I grabbed this stack of junk mail ads and started drawing stuff on them. I thought the lady on an inflated raft in a swimming pool ad needed more peril in her life, so I drew some shark fins and an octopus. But I drew the octopus above the water's surface, so of course it needed some wings. A few months later I found the drawing and was like, "That's the album cover. And I'm naming the album after this thing." I copied it over and Dan from February Records added some color.

What's the "scene" like where you live? Are there any local bands you feel any type of bond with. Any particular ones we should know of and check out?
Well, I've lived in Brooklyn full-time for nearly a year now, and the scene is somewhere in between "ridonkulous" and "batshit insane." Really, it's kind of overwhelming, still. I run mostly in powerpop/indiepop and post-punk circles, but even then there's this massive quality spread, from head-smackingly great songs played really tight, to total amateur hour starring motherfuckers who can't play. New York City attracts the best of the best and the savviest of the scammers. That said, I've found a pretty good crew of allies. People in pop bands tend to really want to help out other people in pop bands. You can't isolate yourself -- everyone benefits from working together. Off the top of my head, the Attempt has gigged with masters of jangle-pop Boy Genius repeatedly, and they get around and play Indietracks, so maybe you know about them. We like them a lot. I hang out a bunch with Slam Donahue, who have all these in-your-face catchy sing-along songs. They just put out a single on Too Pure, and I hope it goes far. We've been working on booking some shows with Life Size Maps, who are a great powerpop trio with an electric cellist instead of a bassist; those guys are in their very early 20s and are way beyond their years in terms of songwriting and playing. And while I have less of a personal connection with them than I do with the aforementioned bands, MiniBoone are probaby my favorite still-kinda-under-the-radar band in New York right now. Their songs are super-poppy, they have these great three-part vocal harmonies, and they destroy live. I know what a band on the verge of blowing up looks like, and they're it. That's just off the top of my head, and limited to pop music made by people who aren't famous yet. It's New York! It's massive! I could go on an on.

I used to live in New Haven, and I still get up there a lot. I like to say that New Haven is the kind of city that has one of each -- whatever you want out of a city, it has one. Maybe just the one, but still -- it's there. Same goes for the music scene. It's really diverse. There's a noise niche and an alt-country niche and a psych niche and... you get the idea. There are a lot of guys with beards. There are very few bands that just play pop songs on electric guitars, straight-up. Nevertheless there's a really supportive little audience for the pop thing. In terms of our pop comrades-in-arms: We like The Cavemen Go a lot. Bob from the Attempt also plays with them. Great '60s-inspired melodies and powerpop spirit. In terms of things that are unlike what my bands do: M.T. Bearington is a psychedelic pop band with crazy vocal harmonies and lush arrangements. Fake Babies are like this avant-dance/"weird party" band. Both put out absolutely world-class albums this year that I blast all the time. Those albums are better than most of what I've heard so far this year. I'm not kidding.

The Tyler Trudeau Attempt has a seven-inch out. Tell us about that. How did that happen and why did you decide to go for vinyl? It's quite a way from hand-scribbled CD-Rs and free downloads.
I like vinyl. A lot of my friends like vinyl. It seemed to make sense, anecdotally. When was the last time you saw someone holding a CD case? Meanwhile, most of my friends who are musicians and general music nerds have a record player and at least a few records. There's this mentality that if you're gonna buy a physical copy of anything, it might as well look as cool as a record and feel substantial when you pick it up and give you that tactile experience when you cue the first track. Plus it's just something I've wanted to do since I was a teenager, going to punk shows when every regional punk band worth its salt had a badass-looking seven-inch and I wanted one with my name on it. On a more practical level, unlike Women's Basketball, I put an awful lot of my own money into making a professional album-length recording with the Attempt, and I feel like I can't just give it away. A seven-inch is a cool-looking, cool-sounding teaser that people will actually pay attention to. Not to mention the status! Dude, I put out a seven-inch. The status for that is fucking clutch.

What are your thoughts on "illegal" downloading? I'm assuming from the free download of your entire album that you're not entirely opposed to people getting music for free? Were there any particular reasons behind making it freely available? Do you sell physical copies of it as well?
I think illegal downloading happens, y'know? And I think that if you download an album illegally and like what you hear, the ethical thing would be to re-download it legally or buy a physical copy. I think it's great that every album I buy nowadays is awesome, and I know it's awesome because I've had the opportunity to preview the mp3s. I feel like my generation is being vindicated for that time when we blew our paper route money on that Silverchair album. But downloading is all on the honor system. Some people are going to be ethical and some people aren't. Recording an album is usually really expensive. If no one pays for a copy, how many more gigs does a touring band have to play before they even recoup the recording costs?

Now, the Women's Basketball album was free for a few reasons: One, it didn't cost me anything to make. I recorded it in my apartment on equipment I already owned. Two, I never intended to, like, release it, release it. I made some CD-Rs and gave them out to a few of my friends. It was an elaborate in-joke, I thought. Three, February Records was brand new, and An Octopus... was part of a trial run of three initial releases. It was like an introductory offer kind of thing. The terms Dan FebRecs suggested to me were that the album would be available for free via the label's website for three months, and then I could do whatever I wanted. Totally fair, for this particular release. Three months went by and I was just stoked anyone outside of my immediate circle of friends was interested, so I decided to leave it up.

Your songs are very personal and often mention people by name…or at least in enough detail for the person the song is directed at to know you're singing about them. Some questions about lines in your songs. Apologies if they're too literal…

Who's Evan? And did he touch your stuff? Was there a particular event when you had had enough.
Evan was a guy who, for a while, hung around a newspaper where I used to work -- like a self-imposed intern or something. He just kind of showed up one day, got a story assignment and kept coming back every day, waiting to be hired at a job that didn't exist. One day I had my bookbag on my desk and a pocket copy of James Joyce's "The Dead" was peeking out, and while walking past, he spotted it... opened up my bag... reached in... and I said, "Evan, is there a sign on my stuff that says, 'Hey, Evan! Touch my stuff?'" Gotta draw the line somewhere, dude.

Are you still feeling lonely at the rock show? Or did she come along in the end?
Y'know, she never called me back! I think she's dating one of those New Haven beard guys now. Anyway, I'm done pining after girls who don't call me back. I'm comfortable with high-fives. These are the lies I tell myself, at least.

You use the word 'ass hat' at least twice on the album. Well done. It's an awesome word. I might have to start using it.

Speaking of 'ass hat'. Who's Andrew? He sounds like a fun but possibly bad influence. When was the last time he took you out for some "sheer and utter douchebaggery…American asshattery"?
Andrew is a good friend of mine who has the capacity to recognize the cataclysmic significance of everything and to make just about any situation both epic and weird. He and I spent a lot of precious broments together for about a year and a half. Whenever we made plans, he never said, "Let's hang out;" he'd say, "You should come rage with me." He'd show up on my front porch unnanounced from time to time. I remember one night we were hanging and we parted ways for a couple hours, and when I called him back for his bearings, he'd somehow crashed a Yale Class of 1988 Alumni party. He once promised me $135 and a harem for running promo for a music festival he'd organized. After Barack Obama was elected president, he held a dance party called "Discobama" and auctioned off titles of nobility from the Principality of Sealand. That's all just the beginning. He's since joined the U.S. Navy. I cannot make this stuff up. I just talked to him last week, but the last time I saw him in person was when he was home for Christmas in 2009. He rolled up in uniform and we went to a bar where we were immediately both served free drinks. He was like, "Ballin'." He had a lot of photos of himself posing next to powerful artillery.

How many percent of everything is alright these days?
65-70%.

What are your favourite bands "that sound like this"?
Haha! I like a lot of stuff that sounds like that. The Music Machine are a big favorite of mine that sound like that. A lot of their songs are very close to my doomed, anguished heart. Early Kinks sound a lot like that, don't they? Although I prefer the whole Face to Face through Muswell Hillbillies continuum, when they didn't really sound like that very often. Let's see. Guitar Wolf! I'm stoked Guitar Wolf is on tour now. I'd love to finally see them. The Sonics sound like that. The Sonics definitely sound like that. The Fleshtones sound like that, and they don't get a fair shake in 2011. My hair's grown out and I'm rocking some serious guy-bangs right now. On occasion I've endured accusations of having an "emo" haircut, and I'm like, "Think Peter Zaremba, jerkwad!" What else? I've been listening to The Griefs' Throwing a Tempo Tantrum album a lot lately. It's a few years old, but I'd forgotten how solid it is, front to back. And it sounds like that. My roommate works for Norton Records, so I hear a lot of stuff that sounds like that coming from his bedroom. It's pretty cool.

Are you still trying to answer the question "what the fuck"? or did you find one?
That was never my question! It was the question of the young lady who drove into the fence during the verse.

Finally, did you have to pay for that fence?
She didn't hit the fence very hard at all, actually. She just cracked maybe three wooden slats. "I fucked up your fence," she said, "but to my credit, there are other places where it's much more fucked up." I don't think the landlord ever noticed. No words were ever spoken.

When I saw you live you gave me a compilation of various Tyler Trudeau stuff. If I remember correctly it was called 'Hey Turdo', which is also your twitter/youtube/etc handle. Is that perhaps a school nickname that has stuck with you? Kids are so imaginative. I have a friend whose last name is Matusavage and he was called Tomatosandwich in school. Genius, huh?
That's terrific. I had to remember to switch to a British English pronunciation of "tomato" to get it, but that's pretty brilliant. The "Turdo" nickname didn't really stick to me at all until I was, like, 21. A friend of mine told me he'd imagined an over-the-top J-pop figure named Tyler Turbo, and then one of us hit on Turdo. Mostly I use it in talking to myself (i.e., "Shut up, Turdo"),

Have you ever played outside of the US? Any desire/plans to?
I never have. It would be cool to play in Canada. I wonder what the routing on that tour would be like. I've never been south of the U.S. border and lately I've been pretty curious about Latin America. I've been to Europe a few times, but not on tour. John, the Attempt's keyboard player, also plays bass in Apse, and they're on the All Tomorrow's Parties label and tour Europe just about every year. I'm super-envious (and also very happy for my friend that he's been able to have these experiences!). As much as I'd like to tour Europe, we'd need management or label support to afford the nuts and bolts -- driver and van, gear rental, etc. But I think my music would go over well in the U.K. I've been to Prague and Krakow, and I felt like my stuff would hit the right spot there, too. It's funny; my friends in Slam Donahue put out this record on Too Pure, and now I'm like, "Hey, I wanna put out a record in the U.K.!"


The Tyler Trudeau Attempt – These Are Bad Times

What's next in store for Tyler Trudeau? Will Women's Basketball ever graduate from being a fake band to a real band?
The very next thing is for the Attempt to make a new music video, thanks to the volunteer/portfolio-building efforts of a good acquaintance who is in her last year at Pratt Institute. It's going to be visually very different from the video for "These Are Dark Times," which is itself a bangin' piece of film. And then there's going to be a new Women's Basketball EP, which will again be released on February Records. It's called Don't Be Mad at Me Just Because I Challenged Your Worldview, and it's been recorded for months now. The only thing I'm waiting on is the cover art, which a friend of mine offered to do this time. Then we're going to have another round of Women's Basketball shows. I initially wanted to release the EP quietly and get on to doing whatever, but I finally realized that if people like Women's Basketball, I should just run with it for a while. Especially since the new EP is a lot more posi and hopeful and celebratory than the album. It really lends itself to being played live. I want to play shows in houses and DIY spaces, that's it. And then that'll be all for Women's Basketball. That project pulled me out of writer's block and taught me how to write better melodies. It's served its function. If I go through writer's block for long enough to put together 15 or so more Women's Basketball songs, there'll be another album. But the truth is, the Attempt is sitting on one finished album, I have songs for the next album written and demoed, and there are enough unrecorded songs in our repertoire for maybe a series of singles. The album we've finished is mastered and everything, and it needs a home. It's time to get moving on bringing all this music into the light of day.

If you would like to add anything, feel free to. Any questions I should have asked but didn't?
Phew, no, that's good, thanks!


That's it! Big thanks to Tyler for answering.

The Tyler Trudeau Attempt website

Tyler Trudeau on twitter

Tiger Tape interview!

Tiger Tape used to be called Moofish Catfish. I must say I love their old name, but as long as they keep making music, they can use whatever name they want. Tiger Tape's first album, I Woke Up In Hökarängen, is a strong contender for my album of the year...more on that when it's time for that inevitable 'albums of the year' post.

I sent the band a message a while back asking if they wanted to answer some questions, and last night they got back to me. As usual, nothing apart from spelling mistakes have been edited.



So, first. Who's answering the questions? Who are Tiger Tape? Who does what and what do you all do when you're not playing music?
It´s me, Agnes, who is answering the questions, but I would defenetly say that Tiger Tape is all four of us. Tiger Tape is kind of what happens when we meet. The band started on my initiative and I am the one writing the songs but still, they wouldn't be Tiger Tape-songs if all four of us wasn't arranging and playing them together. Wågis is, first of all, a genius and the one holding the songs together with the drumming. She is also a chef. Emilia is a note-fascist in contradiction to everyone else and she is also the shortest person in the band and she is studying to be a teacher. Kristina is bass ace and she can speak English really well, during daytime she takes care of kids. And me, ehm, I see myself as the “manager” of the band because I have to do all the dull stuff, like answering mails (not like this one because this is fun!) I´m no instrumental genious but I belive I know how to write a good song and that's better. When I don´t play music I hang out on Facebook.

I absolutely adore Moofish Catfish, both the name and the music. Why did you feel the need to change band name? How/why did you decide on Tiger Tape?
Moofish Catfish wasn't meant to last forever. I can't really say why but we had to kill it. I think the main reason for the change of band name was my need to put things behind me. We had to move on and it was the easiest way to do that without quitting playing together. Tiger Tape (like Moofish Catfish) doesn't mean anything and I already forgot why I chose it, but I like it! .

Moofish Catfish playing at The Buffalo Bar at some point last year

On the record and on your badges there's a full stop after the band name, but on myspace and last.fm and things there's none. What's the deal with the full stop? Is 'Tiger Tape.' or 'Tiger Tape' the correct way of writing the name?
Haha, Thats a good question. We have chosen to write Tiger Tape. with a full stop only when we use the “logotype” because it looks good. But when we just write it down we don't use the full stop because it looks weird. You can actually choose for yourself.


How would you describe the music of Tiger Tape? Is there a difference and if so, what is the main difference between Tiger Tape and Moofish? Do you still play Moofish songs live?
I would describe the music of both Tiger Tape and Moofish Catfish as something straight from the heart. We don't talk that much about what sound we want to create, it just happens because it´s the sound of the feeling that I want to express. Kind of desperate in a way and more feeling than perfection.

There is a difference between MC and TT but the difference is not really there because of the change of band name but more because now we have played together for a long time wich results in a certain evolvement. I think the diffrence between “On a sunbeam to your heart” and “Yours to share” is just as big, to be honest. Our next album will probably also be kind of different from our last. There's no point in doing the same thing over and over again, I think.

We do play MC-songs live, yes.

How do you make the songs? Is it a collaborative effort or is there a main songwriter?
I write all the songs. That was the deal from the beginning and it also happens naturally that way. Usually I sit on my bed at home and composing a sad (or happy) little song and at the next band rehersal I play it to the others. They don't look excited, but they are. And then we start to build something from there all together. I don't tell the others what to play. Everyone use their instruments how they like as long as it sounds good.

What are the pros/cons of being an all-girl indie band? Do you feel people treat you differently because you're all girls?
I play in another band as well were we are to guys and two girls and I have to say that it's not really a difference at all. At least not if you're at the level that we are (the small Indieband level). And I have no experience from being in a all-boy indie band so I can't compare. But maybe they have more girls wanting to make out with them after the shows. We only have a few.

Some random questions...any local bands you think I should be aware of?
At first I was like: this is easy and then I realised I don´t really listen to local bands so I will Hijack your question and change it to: Top five bands ever (this week)?

Comet Gain
Rough Bunnies
Pavement
Best Coast
Broder Daniel

What was the first concert you ever went to?
I don't really have a memory of my first concert experience. I think it might have been some local band in Lindesberg were I grew up.

What was the last concert you went to (not as a friend or as part of the bill)?
Haha, actually nowadays it feels like I ONLY go to concerts were I play myself or were some friend is playing. Im so boring. It might have been Adam Green or the Pastels. I wanted to go see Best Coast but something upheld me. Recently a friend of mine has become obssesed with black metal so maybe I'll join her some day to see insane people pouring blood all over the stage. But first I´m gonna see Television Personalities next saturday. I look forward to it even though I was dissapointed the last time I saw them live.

The new record has a Swedish song on it, Skanstull. Any particular reason you decided to do this song in Swedish? Any plans to do more songs in Swedish or was this a one-off?Actually, Skanstull was at first meant to be played in another band wich I play with. But then I changed my mind and made it a Tiger Tape-song but I didn't rewrite the lyrics because I really liked it and I thought, why not have a song in Swedish? And I still think, why not? I really like writing in Swedish so if I was to predict the future I would predict that more songs will be in Swedish.

Sweden is seen by some as a sort of spiritual home of indiepop and there's been a lot of Swedish indiepop band coming and going over the past years. Why do you think makes Sweden such a good breeding ground for pop music? How do you feel about it? Is Sweden a good place for making the kind of music you're making?
I usually don't pretend to know much about this because I don't. But I guess it could depend on the weather. Most part of the year it so horrible and cold that all you want to do is to sit in a basement playing music. Also Sweden is a relativly wealthy country wich means that there are a lot of spoiled kids out there whose parents could afford to buy them instruments when they were kids. I could also blame the “Public School of Music” (kommunala musikskolan) wich encourage a lot of kids to start playing an instrument at a young age. And I guess that the indiepop genre suits the swedish mentality in a quite good way. I don't think I can answer the question in a better way. It's so many things collaborating when a certain culture is created. I guess Sweden has the right ingredients to make an interesting music scene which seem to be appreciated in other places as well.

I think Sweden is an ok place for our kind of music. I think some people have a hard time categorising us and they get confused. But I guess that happens everywhere. We even have trouble with that ourselves.


What are your thoughts on "illegal downloading" of music? One of the Moofish albums was available for free download and was even called 'Yours To Share' so I expect you're not viciously opposed to it?
We are not opposed to it, no. I think that buying an album can be a really nice way to support an artist or band that you like. But I also think that music should be available for everyone to listen to even if you can't afford to buy it. Making “Yours To Share” available for free was a way for us to make people listen to it, it wasn't really a statement even though I don't mind if people think so. Our last album is not available for free download but if people share it anyway “illegally” I would only be happy because it means they like it. We don't play music to make money obviously, but if people want to support us by by buying cd's or bags or even pins it means a lot to us.

What does the future hold for Tiger Tape? Any major plans?
We always have, yes. We are in the process of making new material right now and we are really excited about it. So Tiger Tape will keep playing and we hope to release something within a year or so and we also hope that we will do a bit of touring in both the UK and other parts of Europe in a future not to far away.


Big thanks to Agnes for answering my questions!

Tiger Tape on myspace

Tiger Tape on bandcamp

Trouble Books interview!

Another interview popped into my email this morning. This time it was the lovely Trouble Books who had taken some time out to answer my questions. Their album The United Colors of Trouble Books is one of my favorite records of recent years and the vinyl copy is perhaps the nicest thing in my entire record collection. With screen-printed recycled charity shop record sleeves it is a thing of beauty. Apparantly, MIE Music still has twenty copies left, so I highly recommend you get yourself a copy. Their most recent album, Gathered Tones, is rather amazing as well and also available to buy now.

So...interview...same rules as usual. The below text has just been copied and pasted straight from the email. Nothing has been edited or removed...I've just added some pictures.

OK. Hi Trouble Books. Why don't we start with some basic facts and things. Or actually, let's just start with telling us who is answering these questions?
This is Keith answering the questions to take a break from chores.

You are not particularly well-known in the UK. Maybe I hang out in the wrong circles, but in general I don't think any of my friends know who you are. So, please, tell us. Who's in the band, who plays what, where are you from, what do you do, how long have you been playing? Do you have day jobs, are you students? You know, that kind of thing.
The band is always me and my wife Linda. Our friend Mike plays with us whenever possible, and we have several other friends who contribute to the recordings and often play live too. Most of us are in a post-university, pre-career drift here in Akron due to a combination of a poor economy, useless liberal arts degrees, and cheap living expenses.

How did you come up with your band name?
It's just an inside joke really. I didn't think we were going to play more than a show or so in our friends' kitchen, otherwise I might've thought about it a little more.

How do you make the songs? I get the feeling it's very much a collaborative effort?
I usually plant the seeds and everyone else does some nurturing and pruning. The songs are always started as recording experiments and later we figure out how we could possibly play them live. None of us are proper musicians technically, and nobody has any real interest in or ability to "jam". Instead, everyone tends to add their parts gradually whenever they have time.


Your first release United Colors of Trouble Books is one of my favourite records and the LP looks amazing. I love the recycled vinyl sleeve-screen printing thing. Sorry for being such a fan boy, but it's just great. Who came up with the idea/did the art work?
A lot of the ideas for "United Colors" came while Linda and I were spending some time walking around in the Black Forest region of Southern Germany. The house on the cover is from an illustration in Anton Müller's "Der Schwarzwald in 47 Bildern" that I made into a silkscreen. It's the type of architecture the old houses there are in, so we wanted to represent that. Also, the album has an indoors-y, at home vibe I think. Our friend Debra came up with the overlapping color design, and we printed them on inside-out garbage record sleeves from our friend's record store basement because we didn't have much money.

If I remember correctly you only pressed 100 copies. Any reason? I assume that makes no sense at all financially or can you still break even on such low numbers?
Actually, 300 LPs were pressed. We sold 200 here in the States and sent Henry at MIE Music 100 (with different covers) to sell in the UK/Europe. We pressed, and will always press, small numbers because I don't want to drag around boxes of unsold music for the rest of my life. I've found it's a better experience to be pessimistic and then pleasantly surprised with the results, rather than the other way around.

Sticking with United Colors for the moment. It sounds absolutely amazing on vinyl. How did you record it? When, where and with who?
We recorded it ourselves at home in our living room onto an 8-track cassette machine. The whole thing was written and recorded over about 3 months I think. I like to keep the writing and recording periods short and concise, I think it gives the album a more unified mood and sound, and tends to also make it mean more to us. "United Colors" is October-December 2008 for me, "Gathered Tones" is Summer/early Autumn 2009.

I just ordered the new record, Gathered Tones. Please tell me about the album? How did it happen? How is it different from the previous?
I think it's even more abstract that "United Colors" is. Linda and I were listening to Black Dice, specifically the album "Creature Comforts" a lot, and getting into how beautiful it was while also being so strange and insane sounding. The idea was to make the sounds on "Gathered Tones" be as unidentifiable as possible, whereas "United Colors" still had a lot of semi-traditional instruments and arrangements underneath the ambient sonics. Mike thinks the new album is both the weirdest-sounding thing we've recorded, yet with some of the catchiest pop melodies. We also got a chance to borrow and use a bunch of old analog synthesizers for "Gathered Tones", which definitely changed the vibe.

What sort of venues/shows do you like playing? I imagine it must be hard being a fairly quiet band and play bars etc.
Oh, definitely. We prefer to play in small art spaces rather than noisy bars. We can't really compete with cheap beer and rowdy friends on a Friday night.

Do you like touring? How do you avoid killing each other when you spend so much time together? Who gets to choose the driving music?
Well, Linda and I are married, so we're pretty used to spending a lot of time together, haha. Honestly though, I'm not terribly inclined to lead us out on any extensive tour. Coming back to Europe sometime soon is a goal, since bands are treated incredibly well there and everything seems so pretty. But we've reached a point where we're not interested in being some hard-working band, grinding it out at some shitty bar for 10 people to try to win a couple hearts & minds whenever we get the chance. If people find our music and like it and buy some records, we'll make some more. If not, whatever, we'll just make some tapes and drawings for ourselves whenever we feel like it.

What's "the scene" like where you live. What local bands should I check out?
It's small, mostly a handful of friends of ours here sharing members in different projects. Mike's stuff that he does under the name "Talons" is some of my favorite music from anywhere. Anything Gabe Schray does is great, and I've been spending almost every afternoon with the new Comfort Clouds album.

What was the first gig you went to?
Oh geez, probably some local punk bands when I was in high school. They used to have shows once a month at this hotel bar in Mansfield where I grew up, and I would go to as many of those as possible.

First record you bought?
I think it was "Odelay" by Beck on cassette. Or maybe an Offspring tape...

Last record you bought?
The new Emeralds LP, "Does it Look like I'm here?". It's great.

What was the last gig you went to? (As a fan. Not as a friend or as part of the bill?)
Hm. The bulk of the shows I go to are ones that friends do... haha. Oh yeah, I went with a friend and saw Horse Feathers play a week or so ago. I'd never heard them before, not totally my thing, but the set was beautiful. Good string playing can go a long way.

Favorite ice cream flavour?
Pistachio maybe?

What's your most treasured possession?
There aren't a lot of physical things that I tend to feel overly-sentimental towards really. Are pets considered a possession? I really love our cats, they're the only things I would rush to save from a house fire for reasons other than just money. I just learned about that parasite in cat shit that causes humans to become "cat people" though, and I feel a little tricked by our girls now.

What's your "desert island band" ie if you could only pick the discography of one band to listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Probably Eno's collection, although Linda's an even bigger fan of his than I am.

The very first post I wrote on this blog was after being introduced to Talons at the George Tavern in London. They mentioned Trouble Books and I think even played the song Personal Tornados. That's actually how I found out about both bands. As far as I understand Talons/Trouble Books are closely related. What is the difference between the two and how does a song become a TB song rather than a Talons song? Was that gig a rare occurrence or is there regular crossovers of songs at gigs? (I realise this question might be unanswered if whoever answers has nothing to do with Talons)
It's pretty simple. Mike writes Talons' songs, I write Trouble Books songs. We add parts and ideas to both bands. Although we've done shows and small tours where we play both Talons' and Trouble Books songs, there usually isn't too much of a crossover. Since the sounds of each band are pretty different, especially live, people usually have one of the bands in mind to play, so we just do that.

What are your thoughts on "illegally" downloading music? I confess, I downloaded both of your albums before buying the actual vinyl…and if I hadn't liked them I wouldn't have bought them. I do tend to download a lot to find out about new bands and then I try to buy stuff directly from the bands at gigs etc….or in this case at the MIE shop.
I definitely think people should get to hear an album before they spend money on it, and it's cool to see labels like Type and others put full albums up online to stream. Own Records did that for "Gathered Tones", and I've given blogs the go-ahead to post our full album for download in the past. I'm glad the days of buying an album and then finding out you don't like it are gone, but at the same time, I think that a lot of people are assuming that everyone else is picking up a copy and supporting the band, so it's OK if they just enjoy the mp3s this time.

We're not at all concerned with making any profit on our music, but we do need to cover the costs of making the records, so we hope people will want to grab the few copies we make. Because if we're not going to make some LPs or CDs, than honestly I don't think we're interested in putting the work into getting the songs "out there". I know at least for Mike and I, having physical copies is really fulfilling and important, and our music doesn't have much of an inspiration in a digital-only world. That might not make sense, but it's how we're wired I guess.

Have you ever been outside the US? Any plans to?
Linda and I were lucky enough to get a chance to do a small 2 week European tour last year, and we're hoping to put something similar together this fall. It was awesome. We'll see what works out.


Big thanks to Keith for answering my questions. Here's the first Trouble Books song I ever heard and fell in love with immediately.

Trouble Books - Personal Tornados (from United Colors of Trouble Books)

Trouble Books on myspace

Math The Band Interview!!

Woot! So, since the Christmas Island interview worked out alright I thought I'd try my luck with another band I've been listeneing to aot recently, Math The Band. I was hoping to catch them at South By Southwest, but their shows were always clashing with something else and it just never happened. Anyway, what can be said about them? They play some sort of messy-but-fun-and-mega-fast-electro-bleep-boom-chip-core-pop...yup, that's pretty much it. They're also very productive and have a lot of stuff out there for you to hunt down or buy from their webshop.

Both the below songs are from the record available to buy there, Math The Band Banned The Math.

Were Wolf Fever (Mediafire link, mp3)

Everyone Is Embarrasing (Mediafire link, mp3)

OK, on to the interview....again same rules from me. Anything I could think of without thinking about it too much. All the questions stay, even if they don't want to answer them. Nothing has been edited, apart from the occasional spelling mistake. Again, I can think of loads of other things I should have asked. Maybe next time.

Kevin is answering the questions...

What's the line-up? What software do you use for programming your drums/beats?
Right now, the live setup is I play guitar and sing, and Justine plays keyboard, a floor tom and a crash. We have had a drummer at a fair amount of shows, and are actually looking for a new drummer now.

On the albums, I do all of the work, from writing to recording to mixing and producing. I program/produce the music using the following things:
-a pc running acid, fruity loops, and max msp
-a mac running ableton live
-arp axxe
-yamaha cs15
-moog mg1
-nintendo entertainment system
-gameboy pocket
-commodore 64
-shitty guitars
-shittier drums
-even shittier homemade microphones

How did you come up with your band name? Are/Were you good at maths?
Neither of us were ever good at math at all. The band was named after pin on my backpack actually. I started the band when i was 15 years old, and had a pin on my backpack that just said "math", and had some numbers on it. I named the band after the pin, because that way my band had a pin.

Tell us a bit about your discography. First/best/current releases? Who does the art/videos and stuff?
The number of albums we have is a little bit fuzzy for a few reasons. I started the band when i was a young dude, and when the band was new i would write just about a song a day, put them on a cd when i had 80 minutes worth, and call it an album. At the time i thought it was great, but looking back on it now, ide rather call those demos, and dont really want anyone to have to be exposed to them. All together, I had 2 instrumental albums like this, totaling something around 70 tracks. Then I had 3 full albums with vocals. These 5 albums totaled something like 150 tracks, and were all made within a span of 2 years. After that, I actually made a couple albums that used electronics and acoustic guitars and banjos and things like that. I made 2 full length albums and one EP that got put out in mexico of that kind of music, but sometimes wish i had put it under a different band name, because it sounds dramatically different, and sometimes people get confused. After that point we recorded our first album to be actually pressed, math the band banned the math. for that album we basically took the songs from the old albums that we thought were worth revisiting, added some new songs, and ended up with a greatest hits of sorts. Almost exactly at the time this album came out, we changed the entire concept and lineup of the band. Until 2008, I had been the only member of the band, but after releasing math the band banned the math, we got a drummer and keyboard played, and i started playing guitar, and we started adding these sounds to the songs. If you listen to our last two releases, tour de freinds EP and Dont Worry, you'll notice a pretty big change between them and banned the math. this is mostly because the time span of writing one album to another there is 4 or 5 years. I would say we're most happy with our most current release, "dont worry".

Our artist right now is nick shively - http://nickshively.blogspot.com/
and we have done videos with a few people, check them out here - http://www.paperfortressfilms.com/ and here:



You're playing an insane amount of shows in May. Do you like touring? How do you kill time in between shows? How do you manage to avoid killing each other when you spend so much time together? What's on the Math The Band touring playlist/mix CD? What kind of venues/shows do you prefer playing?
We like touring a lot. We generally tour 100-150 days a year, but might be doing more than that this year. we've done 30-40 shows in 2010 so far, and are going to be on tour from may 1st til the 4th of july also. There isnt really time to kill between shows. any time not spent sleeping or playing a show is spent driving or maybe eating if there is time to eat. we dont really have trouble getting along on tour. its usually just justine and I, and we have been dating for 4 years now and have fun on the road. We have a giant ipod that we just leave of shuffle with the rule that nobody can ever skip a song. we have something like 3 weeks of music on it. We like plying shows in peoples kitchens because stage diving off a refrigerator is cool.

What's "the scene" like where you live. What local bands should I check out?
there is mostly a noise scene where we are from. we have a hard time finding bands we fit in with where we live

Favorite bands in general?
jingle cats

What was the first gig you went to?
mustard plug and big d and the kids table

First record you bought?
mighty mighty bosstones - lets face it

Last record you bought?
"why?" - almost live from elis live room

What was the last gig you went to? (As a fan. Not as a friend or as part of the bill?)
"why?"

Favorite ice cream flavour?
lemon jalapeno

I was hoping to see you at South by South-West and walked all the way to some weird backyard show behind a vintage clothes shop…it was that day when it was absolutely freezing cold….only to find out that you had cancelled. What happened? Did you play any SxSW shows? Was I just unlucky?
that show had a lot of technical difficulties, and the schedule was pushed an hour or two behind. we were playing another show across town that we were going to need to rush to right after our set, so we had to pick one show or the other, and played the other show. Sorry about the mixup! we had to choose one show or the other

What are your thoughts on people "illegally" downloading your music? I confess, I have downloaded a lot of your music and haven't paid for any of it. I do tend to download a lot to find out about new bands and then I try to buy stuff directly from the bands at gigs etc. For example, I actually just bought a t-shirt from your online shop. Who made the artwork? It was a tough choice, but I went for the red one with the little characters on the globe one, rather than the diver. It looks awesome!
I am all for people downloading music. That is how we have gotten any small amount of success. if we didnt put all our music up free to download for a long time, we would most likely not be doing this band anymore. i actually used to pay 100 bucks every christmas to host downloads of all of our albums for a couple weeks.

Have you ever been outside the US? Any plans to?
we have played mexico and canada, and really hope to play europe and asia soon. I have spent time in europe, but never to play music.

Future plans. What can we look forward to from Math The Band?
after our summer touring with mc chris, we will be finishing a new album as fast as we can!

What question(s) do you wish interviewers would ask? Please also provide an answer. Also, what question(s) do you wish they wouldn't ask?

And if you would like to add anything, feel free to. Thanks.


But he didn't, so I assume it must have all been alright. Thanks, Kevin! Woot. Have a listen and if you like what you hear, support the band by at least paying for some stuff. Personally, I just bought a t-shirt.

Math The Band myspace


Hmmmm....who will be the next interview victim?

Christmas Island interview

I've talked about Christmas Island a fair bit over the past couple of months. But, like so many other bands that I just stumble upon by accident, I didn't really know much about them. So, I sent off some random, fairly general questions in the hope that one of them might answer. Eventually, Brian did. Hooray. In hindsight there's a bunch of things I could have and should have asked, but hey, it was an experiment....and it worked...so maybe next random spur-of-the-moment email to a band will contain more exciting questions. Anyway, here goes....I haven't edited anything...not even spelling mistakes. The unanswered ones remain unanswered.

So, hi Christmas Island. Thanks for doing this…and sorry if I'm being terribly amateurish. But, but…let's start with the basics. There's not a huge amount about you on the internet, so please fill us in. Who's answering these questions? Who's in the band? Names, ages (if you feel like telling us) What do you play? Where are you from? What's it like?
Brian: Me, 29, Vocals and guitar. Lucy, 26, drums. Craig, 29, guitar and keyboard (live)

Apart from being in an awesome band, what do you do? Do you have "normal jobs"? If so, how is that working out with touring etc?
Brian: I work a 9-5er at a local alt-weekly. It sucks for touring because I have to figure it out based on my vacation time but it beats being broke. Lucy works at a gelato shop. Craig works at a video store.

General band-related stuff. Band name, where did it come from? How and when did you start playing together? When was your first show?
Brian: I stumbled across the name somewhere and I liked the ring of it. It sounded mysterious. Once I found out A-bombs were tested there, it sealed the deal.
Lucy and I had already been dating a while and when both of our previous bands broke up (The Cowabunga Dudes and Holy Boys, respectively), we decided to play music together. Our first show was in April '08. Craig joined the band in June '08.

Your album, "Blackout Summer" was out last year but I only just discovered it at the beginning of this year…and I absolutely love it….it's just great. How/where/when did you record it?
Brian: Thanks! We recorded it in Fall '08 with Mike McHugh at the Distillery in Costa Mesa, California.

Some songs are really quite personal (Weird It Out for example), while others tackle lighter topics (Dinosaurs springs to mind). So, first I guess I'm wondering how you write songs? And who writes the lyrics? Sharing of duties? And how did you decide what went on the album? Was it ever a concern that the songs tackle such different subjects? Personally, I think it's what makes the album so amazing; that you go from thinking "aww…that's so sweet" to screaming "Brontosaurus! Tyrannosaurus REX!" in the space of a few songs. And then the Nineteen seven-inch has a completely different feel to it from the album. Any particular reasons behind that?
Brian: I write all the guitar parts and lyrics. All the songs are pretty personal. Even "Dinosaurs" is more about feeling alienated and being a misanthrope...but it's also about dinosaurs, too. It's always been my intention to have each song be about a different subject just because it gets redundant to sing about the same stuff. At the same time, though, I think there's common themes that run through all the songs.

Hmmm….maybe I should do that horrible "what are your influences" question…rephrased as please tell me some random bands of personal importance throughout your lives. What did you listen to in school? First record you bought?
Brian: Personal importance? For my whole life? Man, it's all over the place. In chronological order: Richie Valens, Metallica, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, The Descendents, Operation Ivy, Dead Kennedys, Jawbreaker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, CAN, Television, Urinals, Desperate Bicycles, Tronics, Alex Chilton, The Terminals.
The first records I ever bought were MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice on cassette.

What was the first concert you ever went to?
Brian: Nine Inch Nails at the Universal Ampitheatre in '92. Marilyn Manson (who was fairly unknown at the time) opened. He sucked.

The last concert you went to, as a fan, not as part of the line-up?
Brian: The Strange Boys w/ Heavy Hawaii at the Casbah. Love both of those bands.

How do feel about "illegal" downloading of your songs, blogs sharing your album on the internet etc. I have to confess to having downloaded everything I could find by you, which was the album and the seven-inch….oh and some demos of album tracks. However, I am planning on seeing you at least once at South By Southwest (any show in a place called Beerland simply has to be awesome) and if you have anything to sell, I'm planning on buying it. Really. I promise.
Brian: I don't really give a shit about illegal downloading. I do it all the time. If I really like something, I'll buy the record...and sometimes I won't. Who cares.
If people want to download our music for free, that's fine. I'm just stoked that people want to listen to our band in the first place. We canceled SXSW. Sorry! We got kind of overwhelmed.

Everyone in a band has friends in bands. What local/friends' bands should I check out?
Brian: The aforementioned Heavy Hawaii are always great. I've also really been diggin' Nude Boy.

Future plans? More releases? Any plans to cross the Atlantic and come visit the UK?
Brian: We're just finished the songs for our split 7" with Meth Teeth on Sacred Bones. After that is a 12" EP on Woodsist which is about halfway written. We're adding a bass player so it's going to sound a lot different. Christmas Island 2.0.
We're planning on coming to the UK and possibly Europe later this year. Stay tuned!



That's it. Thanks Brian for answering my rubbish questions. I was completely bummed out that they cancelled South by South-West, but shit happens. Hopefull I'll get the chance to see them soon enough.

Christmas Island myspace

Two songs that I've already posted, in case you still haven't heard them. Both are from the album Blackout Summer, which is rather awesome indeed. Buy it!

Dinosaurs (Mediafire link, mp3)
Blackout Summer (Mediafire link, mp3)