Tulsa : Q&A

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/tulsainterview1.jpg" alt=" " />Ready to start recording their album, and in the middle of touring, members of Tulsa talked to QRO for a few. ...

Shedding light on their plans for their forthcoming album, and what the Boston scene has meant to them, lead singer/guitarist Carter Tanton and bassist Erik Wormwood, expressed that they're in a good place and about to get to an even better one.  If their EP, I Was Submerged (QRO review), is any indication, there are exciting times ahead:

QRO:  You've got the new EP out, how are things around that?

Carter Tanton:  Yeah, we've played Boston a bunch, but we went on a three-week tour right when the EP was coming out.  That was a good tour.

QRO:  Are you working on a new album?

CT:  We are.

QRO:  Are the EP songs going to be on it?

CT:  No, it's not like that.  

Erik Wormwood: We'll probably play a few tonight that will be on it.

CT:  The EP is just like seven songs that will not be on anything else.

QRO:  So what impressions did the Larry Clark book, Tulsa, make on you to make you actually name the band after it?

CT:  Well, you know, I've been saying that it's a matter of – you know you have a group of friends that you grew up with and the way that you watch everybody grow up… Just the heaviness of knowing people from birth or even just when you're a kid.  I think about that a lot, and loosely, I base a lot of lyrics on that, so i thought his book was kind of about that, too.

EW:  Carter came up with the name and the reference, but that's something that when you reach twenty years old, you start to look at.  If you move apart from your friends and if they stay or they go and how that relationship works out, it's always a weird thing to think about.

CT: But all the songs aren't like that.  They're not all about my friends, but you can touch upon a lot talking about a friend or group of people.

QRO:  Are you originally from Boston?

CT:  Baltimore.

EW:  Scarborough, Maine.

QRO:  What brought you here?

CT:  I love a lot of bands up here.  I have a lot of friends in great bands.

QRO:  Is the new album going to be like the EP?

CT:  Probably.

EW:  Yeah, it's hard to say exactly how it'll shape up, but…

QRO:  Maybe throw in a pipe organ…?

CT:  Ha, yeah, I'm gonna ditch the guitar for it…

QRO:  Have you started on it yet?

CT:  Yeah, we've got a lot of songs already, and we'll probably be recording in January or February.  We're trying to find out who we want to record with.

QRO:  Around Boston?

CT:  No.  New Alliance is a great studio and all, but I kinda want to make it more of an experience.

QRO:  So do you have a shortlist of producers?

CT:  Yeah, the last few days we've been mulling over people.  People like Phil Eck, or the dude from Broken Social Scene.  There's this dude, Scott Solter, down in South Carolina.  He produced some Spoon records and Two Gallants.

QRO:  What kind of influences have you had while making the new material?

EW:  Certainly the bands around here.  It's a healthy scene, and there's a lot of inspiring bands out there.  You go and see a lot of bands around here like Drug Rug or Amoroso, and they're in very different in the spectrum, but they're just awesome players.

CT:  It's definitely different with bands that you like or get to see live a lot, and there are bands from far away where you dig their record.  When I see Amoroso, I want to put on a show that's as awesome, but when I listen to a cd by Black Mountain, I want to make a record as cool as that.

QRO:  Do you try to do something out of the ordinary with your live show?

CT:  Nothing fancy.  Actually, we honed it down. 

I used to use two mics, one with an effect, one not.  We used to have a Rhodes, now it's a three-piece.  I sing through one mic.  It was just a hassle.  I felt like, if nobody else is doing this, why should I?

  I should just be able to get up there and sing. 

 
QRO:  What's your connection with the band Township?

CT:  I used to play in Township.  And Marc [Pinansky, singer/guitarist] played a huge part on the record.  I've recorded a bunch of bands, so I'm pretty close to them, too.

QRO:  Are you planning to SXSW this year?

CT:  Yep.

QRO:  You did it last year, right?

EW:  Yeah, as a band.  We had a good time there, for sure.  It's kind of hard when you have such a huge thing like that.

CT:  But you never know what to expect, but the Chicago Sun-Times guy wrote about us cause he was doing a pub crawl.  He was gonna see every band on a certain street, and we were the first band he saw.  So it was like a shot in the dark, but that's kinda the nature of that festival.

QRO:  What are you doing for New Year's?

CT:  I don't know, maybe I'll be in Nova Scotia…

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