![]() Pitchfork: After OK Calculator, you guys signed to Touch and Go, made the Young Liars EP and Desperate Youth, and now you've got this album, and it seems like you picked the audience up as you went along. There's an animal shelter near here called BARC shelter, and I was thinking about maybe giving them 60 of them and saying, "Hey dude, sell these on eBay." And then if I find another band that I think is pretty cool I'll be like, "Hey, why don't you sell these on eBay, and then you can get some studio time." I want to find some cool use for them, and I have so many other things on the brain right now that it's like the last- it's like, "What am I going to do with this crazy record about spackling Gina with my ejaculate?" Hasn't hit me yet. But I haven't figured out what to do with them yet.ĭS: I was thinking about that. So I have a hundred and something of these things. The thing that's funny is, I've moved like three times in the past two years, and all my stuff's been stored at Gerard 's parents' house, and I found 120 or 130 copies of OK Calculator that we thought we left at a club. I can't imagine someone taking this Italian leather couch home and finding this record. Which has to be a riot, because we put them in some ugly shit. And tucked it in furniture at furniture stores. ![]() ![]() You self-released your first disc, OK Calculator, and pretty much handed it out on the street?ĭS: Yeah. Pitchfork: You've definitely shown steady growth. And I think that being on Interscope, if a volunteer firefighter in Montana wants to check us out, it would be easier to get our record. Pitchfork: What kind of new audiences do you want to reach?ĭS: I've just looked at it like, I didn't want to alienate anyone. Ultimately, we weren't just writing to an indie rock audience. And we knew that this was going to happen, so we were like, "How do we reach the most people before the next TV on the Radio comes out?" They end up being marketed like laundry detergent. You know how you read a magazine, and it's like all the music magazines have turned into Marie Claire? It's like "66 Hot New Bands With Hot New Looks," you know? It's new bands, new bands, new bands, new bands. But when it gets out into the world, you have a very slim opportunity. I make music to bring the dead to life for a couple minutes and then let it go. We're able to put on record what's happening in our times, and we want that message to be heard by the most amount of people. We write music because it's an immediate form of communication. I don't think that TV on the Radio is some dark mysterious band that no one can know about. We don't want to be hidden behind some shroud of secrecy. Was that mainly a means to improve distribution and PR support?ĭavid Sitek: Just to get the music heard by the most amount of people. ![]() Pitchfork: You guys recently signed to Interscope. This is the cost of helping to hype a neighborhood, but Sitek sounds resigned: "It just means I'll go make somewhere in New Jersey cool." One of the only blends of New York noise, beats, and soul that actually adds something to its influences, the five-piece has been called "Brooklyn's best band." But that tag might not apply anymore: not only does their new label deal give them a way out of cult indie status, but Sitek tells me his landlord is tripling the rent to try to drive out the nest of prestigious studios in his building and replace it with a high-rise. These days, it counts five members: Singer and guitarist Kyp Malone joined the band before their last album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, and drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith are the latest recruits. Sitek started the band in 2001 with singer Tunde Adebimpe. "I have saxophone players and flute players in here." But we were talking about the project that christened the studio, Return to Cookie Mountain, the major label debut by the band that Sitek produces, plays in, and co-founded: TV on the Radio. He was in the middle of a Beck remix- "It's turning into a free jazz song," he laughed. David Sitek spoke to me on the phone from Stay Gold, the studio he built from scratch over the past two-and-a-half years. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |