The last time that I saw you was at South by Southwest and you've been on tour with Touch Girl Apple Blossom ever since. Tell me about your experience at South by… and has anything crazy happened on the road so far?
I mean, it's all been crazy. We don't know what we're going into any of these nights. This is all towns that we haven't played before so we have no idea what to expect.
I noticed that you recently reformed into a four piece, how has that changed the dynamic of the band and how you play live?
I think from the beginning this [group] has been the core and while I love the other people that have been in the band, this is the group that hasn't changed and I think that there's a reason for that. Ever since doing the four-piece, it's been so magical and I think we work really well together and people have been complimentary on it being a little more rock-and-roll in that way, and having a little more space. So I think this is the way we're going to be from now on.
I've also heard some of the demos from…sources that shall remain unnamed… but what's some of the new music that you're working on and how has it been changing? Are you still going down the same rock and roll route?
No, I think it's pretty different. I think I am trying to disregard any boundaries that I would have previously had about the concept for this project. Like if there was some blueprint that was based in 80s and 90s indie pop through lo-fi rock and roll, I would like to just abandon that because I mean at my heart I just write songs. I think not having a set goal in mind for their production and presentation opens up everything a lot more.
You recorded the last album to tape, yeah? Are you going to go for more high fidelity with the new tunes?
There are moments of that. I think it will again just be a mix because every time I try to do something that isn't just in my bedroom, I end up really not stoked on it. So that can look different ways. It could be hi-fi or lo-fi but I think it will be another mainly solo project.
Another thing that I love about [Talulah’s Tape] is all of the sampling on it. I know a lot of it is very based in online culture and I was wondering what sort of things were you up to on the internet as a kid? What's your relationship with the internet now?
I think I came into the internet at a really dark but also an exciting time where you are getting sent these terrible websites by your friends with traumatizing imagery and just constantly being thrown into the deep end of what you're able to access on the internet… without getting into specifics just all the terrible things. But in that it's like the world feels so close and like everything is accessible and I think that's empowering in a way.
I heard from Cole and Eli [TV Buddha] that you are going to be moving away from Indiana for Chicago!
Kellen: I'm planning to move in with them later this year.
How do you feel about leaving? What's that going to look like for the band?
I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and I feel like Indiana is very much a part of my identity and I will inevitably feel like an Indiana person who's living in a different town but I think that's part of growing up and exploring. I have been driving to Chicago every weekend pretty much and I'd like to not be driving six hours every weekend.
I saw today that you started a new label. Is it named after the 800 Cherries song?
It absolutely is. That's one of my favorite albums. 800 Cherries was something I stumbled on completely randomly as a young person who was obsessed with the Velvet Underground because I was digging through every single cover of “Here She Comes” that I could find on the internet. Some of them are really bad but the 800 Cherries one is just as good and different and I got really into Romantico and then their other albums and I think the fact that they're a band that still is so anonymous with so little information or pictures is so cool. Everything is so torn apart to a microscopic level on the internet and they still are mysterious! I love that album and I just think painty pots is a cool phrase. I just think it's sweet so I want to put out sweet music on a label with a sweet name.
Can you tell me about the record you announced today?
Yes, it is called Happy Loving Couples by The Goobs and My Friend Cowboy who are good friends of mine who were already individually making great music and then Logan, My Friend Cowboy, made these instrumentals and just sent them to Carson kind of thinking “Hey, what do you think of these? Would you want to maybe make something together?” and Carson just sent them back with vocals and there's the album as we have it and it's fucking brilliant. It's really creative pop music, really interesting chord progressions and production choices and I think they are thinking completely outside of the box.
Going back to your comment on 800 Cherries, I know when you started putting out music I think that the whole point for you was for it to be pretty anonymous. Is there anything you miss about that?
There's a lot that I miss about that. I think that gave me so much freedom to present myself online when I wasn't concerned with any preconceptions and I miss that a lot. But I think you know, there's benefits to bringing yourself truly into it as well. I think I'm growing in that but I do miss being anonymous.
One of your side projects is a character of sorts, Johnny Skin. How and when did the idea for that persona come into place?
That was my last summer living with my parents in Fort Wayne. I really, really wanted to move out and was really unsatisfied with my home life and was in a dark place and just listening to Suicide a lot so I thought “I'm gonna go in the basement and make as much noise as possible.” I got the cheapest four-track I could find and all my equipment was somewhat broken and I just tried to make an album.
Where did the visual for the album cover–the sunglasses, no shirt, leather pants– come from?
There's a Suicide album of their early recordings before the self-titled record And it's just them against a white wall in black and white and I just thought that was the coolest and I just wanted to do that!
What is some music that influences what you make that people might not expect you to listen to?
Old Western, Swing, Rockabilly, Bluegrass… all of that guitar based traditional American music because that's really where I grew up. I thought I was gonna move to Nashville when I was sixteen and I was gonna be like a chicken-pickin’ Telecaster guitar player on Broadway. I pretty quickly realized that was just an annoying cosplay in and of itself and got really burned out on it after going down there once… But all of that early rock and roll is really big for me and my guitar playing. That's where all the songs kind of start and end up.
What was the first record that you ever got?
Thee first 12-inch vinyl LP that I ever got was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band because I was in a Beatles cover band growing up. But my parents were big on bluegrass and I went to a lot of bluegrass festivals growing up so technically the first concerts I went to I was a baby rolling around in diapers on the grass at Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.
Did you know that Amelia from Heavenly was also in a Beatles cover band?
Are you serious?
Yes! They were “The Peedals!” “Band” is sort of a stretch but Amelia was Paul!... I know that Heavenly has also had a profound influence on your music…
I mean all I can say is that when things were really crazy in my life and I had decided to move to Indianapolis, I had a long-term relationship end and a band end and it's all good there now… I just you know, I had lived my life in Fort Wayne and needed to leave. I listened to Talulah Gosh and Heavenly end-on-end and watched live videos and had already fallen in love with Orange Juice and Belle and Sebastian and things like that, but they just really really spoke to me as like the epitome of sensitive-but-rocking pop music. So yeah, it's incredible… and Amelia recently personally reached out to have us open for Heavenly and was so incredibly kind, so, that was a bucket list item.
When we saw you three times in Austin you were playing a cover of the Gizmos’ “Bible Belt Baby” in every set. What is your relationship to The Gizmos?
Well, I learned about The Gizmos through playing with one of The Gizmos because an old band I was in played in Bloomington, Indiana where they were based. We were completely unaware and we stopped at the record store in town and the guy said “Are you the band from Fort Wayne?” We said “Yeah!” and he said “You're playing with Heavy Mother!” and I said, “Oh, yeah, we don't know anything about him.” He's like “Are you serious? You don't know the singer was in The Gizmos” and I was like “Oh we’ve never heard of The Gizmos.” So we spent the next hour before the show driving around listening to The Gizmos and it was a total revelation. I'd never felt a sense of hometown pride in a way like that. It is such incredible punk music at such an early stage. It is true proto-punk. So yeah, Eddie [Flowers] was in Heavy Mother and I eventually joined Heavy Mother when their guitarist moved to Mexico. It was really cool being close with Eddie and that band's amazing… And Dale, the guy who wrote and sang “Bible Belt Baby” lives right down the street from Ari in Indianapolis. So it's all still very close to home.
Last question– What's the last voice memo on your phone?
The last voice memo on my phone if I'm being real… Luke and I love YouTube poops. We watched a lot growing up and we try to, you know, replicate the sounds and Luke will always ask me to go “Gay, Luigi?”, so that would be my last voice memo…
Perfect.
