Tapes 'n Tapes can thank blog site Music for Robots for their rapid ascent from DIY enthusiasts to major contenders, frontman Josh Grier tells Brian Boyd
MUSIC blogs are the new hip record shops. The likes of Fluxblog and Largehearted Boy now wield a Pitchfork style influence within the music industry and are replacing more traditional outlets as gate openers for the new and interesting.
King of the music blogs is Music for Robots, an MP3 blog curated by a bunch of college friends. If Pitchfork came to prominence as the site that helped break Arcade Fire, then Music for Robots can claim the credit for the irresistible rise of Tapes 'n Tapes, a four-piece art-indie outfit from Minneapolis who were the breakout act at this year's SXSW.
"One of the first things we did after forming the band was to send a bunch of MP3s to the Robots people," says frontman Josh Grier. "They already had stuff from a bunch of bands we really liked and they're really respected for what they do. Thankfully, they liked the stuff and, the way these things happen, the songs we sent then ended up on a few other big music blog sites."
What it all meant for the band was that they could cease being a bedroom operation, sign to a label and get a distribution deal for their debut album that didn't involve all band members carrying parcels to the post office a few times a day.
The band got their name from Grier's pre-band habit of recording experimental music onto cassette tapes.
"I'd sit in the kitchen with a friend and we'd use an egg-timer so that we had a certain period of time to record some really mad music," he says. "After one particularly fruitful session, I just remarked that there would be tapes and tapes of this stuff and that's where the name came from. That's all there is to the name. I really had no intention of forming a band, but what I did was to register the domain name tapes 'n tapes. From there I thought that if I had the domain name I might as well form a band. So I set about convincing a number of local Minneapolis musicians to join this band who had a name but no songs."
After an intense recording session on a log cabin weekend, the band had enough songs for an album and didn't even think of going through a record company to release it.
"It was always going to be self-released, and we did that last November. Then all the music blog stuff started to happen for us and we ended up selling about 10,000 copies from our bedroom. It began to get a bit overwhelming for us, having to package and post everything. A lot of the orders came from our website, but then we started getting contacted by record stores looking for big shipments and then distribution companies wanted a certain amount of copies also. It was only at that stage that we began thinking about signing some sort of label/distribution deal."
Both majors and indies put in big offers for the band. "There was no way we were going with a major," says Grier. "We're only a young band, it's our first record and we'd like to develop a bit and get a bit of history to us first. Majors have their uses in reaching a really wide audience, but we didn't think they could really do anything for us so we went with the respected indie label, XL. It was a relief to have somebody else do our distribution for us."
XL simply re-released their debut album, The Loon, last month with no new songs or added-on frippery. "We told them not to tweak it, not to do anything with it and they didn't," he says.
The music blog were the first to pick up that Tapes 'n Tapes were a remembrance of things past (Pavement and The Pixies) as well as how they imbue their sound with rococo flourishes. Sonically they're dipping into the same musical palette as Arcade Fire and other contemporary art-rockers, but they also manage to get away with some polka-like embellishments. It's all very ingenuous in its loose-limbed abandon.
"We're always getting Pavement and The Pixies used about us," says Grier. "But that's not a problem for us because, the way we see it, those names could be a lot, lot worse. It's always better to be compared to something that's good rather than Ted Nugent or Sammy Hagar or whoever.
"We have been called a Minneapolis band in that both The Replacements and Hüsker Dü come from here, but I always find that funny because I grew up in the hippy town of Eugene, Oregon playing classical music. I played the flute for 13 years and only took up the guitar after that. I studied classical for years and years and certainly I think that listening to classical changed my approach to music.
"People do say we sound different but they can never quite put their finger on it. I think it's because, between my classical background and the jazz background of other members of the group, we just avoid the cliches. Different members of the band can play trombone and euphonium, and you don't always find that in rock bands."
You will no doubt be delighted to find out, as I was, that someone who plays the euphonium is called a euphoniumist.
Being a new band with a buzz around you can cause problems when it comes to touring. People are anxious to book you but perhaps don't know how to pitch you, which is how Tapes 'n Tapes recently ended up on tour with The Streets in the US.
"It worked out fine, but before us Dizzee Rascal had been supporting him and I think at one or two of the venues the crowds were expecting Dizzee's hip-hop, not us. We then went on tour with The Futureheads, who are more in a similar style to us."
As with many current American bands, Grier reports that European audiences have been far quicker to take to their sound. "I think people are still a bit wary about us in Minneapolis. Maybe it's because of our sudden rise, but in Europe we're getting a real raucous response.
"It's amazing to hear that people know all the words to the songs - and that was even before the album was released over there. Must be all the downloads."
Tapes 'n Tapes play Club Radar, Belfast on September 1st and the Electric Picnic, Co Laois on September 2nd. The Loon is on XL Records
