TLOBF Interview :: TV on the Radio

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TV on the Radio broke onto the music scene in 2003 with the phenomenal Young Liars EP. Its five songs offered such a fresh, exciting approach to post-punk and electronic soundscapes that it came as no surprise to find that principal members Tunde Adebimpe and David Andrew Sitek shared a background in the visual arts. Soon after Young Liars’ release, guitarist and vocalist Kyp Malone joined the band and they dropped the drum machine in favour of a proper rhythm section, annexing drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith. Their first full-length release, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, was the beautiful if imperfect product of five musicians who were overflowing with ideas. Its vibrant density of sound was channelled through meticulous production for their breakthrough major-label debut in 2006, Return to Cookie Mountain, which included guest spots from David Bowie, Celebration’s Katrina Ford and Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. Vocals melded into impassioned choir-like harmonies, politically charged themes floated over hypnotic grooves and syncopated percussion clashed with trippy sitars and brassy horns. Dear Science, their new album, sees TV on the Radio shift to a more polished, sleeker, sexier version of themselves. Balancing craft and inspiration was always bound to impress the critics but for a band that was almost accidentally formed in a Brooklyn loft, coming within a few places of the mainstream charts’ top 10 must have been an unexpected bonus.

TV on the Radio’s members boast universally impressive accomplishments outside the band. Multi-instrumentalist David Sitek’s production credits include the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, Foals and Scarlett Johansson. Tunde Adebimpe co-stars in Jonathan Demme’s new film, Rachel Getting Married, alongside Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt. (The movie features Adebimpe’s character singing a strangely powerful a capella cover of Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend”.) Meanwhile, Adebimpe’s Fake Male Voice solo project will release a 7” called “Cou Cou Sous Les Nouages” later this month on Heartfast. If B-side “OMG!!!FMV!!!” is anything to go by, it promises to make a great stocking stuffer for anyone who wishes Prince had been around to sing on the soundtracks of camp 1950s science-fiction films.

TV on the Radio recently granted a rare interview to TLOBF. We wanted to know why the man David Sitek says is “fucking bananas” on guitar is most frequently found behind the drum kit, so we went straight to the source. Jaleel Bunton also graciously shared his views on politics, Jimi Hendrix and why the internet might not be so awful after all.

A friend of mine insists you’re a political band. I say you’re hopeless romantics. How would you describe yourselves?
I don’t see where they’re mutually exclusive, why we can’t be hopelessly, politically romantic. If there’s any evidence of that, it’s the recent election. If that’s not hopelessly, politically romantic, I don’t know what is. We’ll see how it pans out, especially after the oppression of the last eight years. But you have to be a little romantic and a little dreamy to think that we can go from bullshit to someone who has actually read a few books.

Regardless of political ideology, I think everybody agrees Americans have done something historic by electing Obama.
Obama’s progress is something I’ve been following for a long time. I really like what he has to say; I think he’s going to be an excellent representative for the people. Politics is a very strange world that I really don’t know shit about. Who knows what’s going to happen? Long story short, look at the country 40 or 100 years ago: progress is undeniable. Every second, every minute, the country explores itself. It fucks up, and then it tries to fix its mistakes.

Tunde has said he wouldn’t want to write a love song when he’s in love. How will it feel to write songs without the foil of the Bush administration?

I don’t know, man. I was looking through a bunch of songs I haven’t released and a lot of them have a slanted political agenda. Maybe I’ll have to find a different direction to rant. Maybe the silver lining is that the rant was a distraction, and now I’ll pick out what I’m really supposed to be doing. I don’t have to be complaining any more. We’ll see.

You’ve downplayed yourselves as black musicians in an indie music scene that, despite its liberal politics, is largely dominated by white musicians. It feels like a luxury you’ve taken with journalists, because racism and oppression have been a recurring theme in your music.
I wouldn’t say racism plays such a big part in our lyrics. There are a few songs. But I’m not the lyricist for the band; that’s not really my department. But the racial content of the band is pretty arbitrary. We’re artists first and I think that’s kind of the point. Actually, as a black artist, growing up, I’ve avoided calling any art “black art” or “white art”. I’d never qualify it that way. I’ve always shied away from any minority artists who use their minority status to qualify their work, be it homosexual, Latino or whatever. It seems like you’re begging people not to take you seriously. If all you are is your minority status, if that’s all you have to say about the human experience, then that just doesn’t really appeal to me. It should be more of an afterthought, and stay that way.

How do feel about the way the internet has been reshaping the music industry?
Part of me feels the same way the steam engine felt when the automobile came. But, you know, it’s inevitable. I’m sure the people who made horse-drawn carriages were pissed at Henry Ford. But that’s how it is. I mean, I download music; I pay for a lot of music too. It’s part of this growth. And part of me thinks it’ll just trim the fat. Maybe that’s the most capitalist way of seeing it – how competition sort of streamlines everything. Do I miss the million-dollar music boat? Yeah, a little bit. “My future is set because I’ve had a few successful records” – that would be a great feeling. But for a bit of perspective, this is really great. I have a middle-class job. To go from college dropout to middle-class adult, it’s not so bad. I don’t need a million dollars.

You’re in the midst of a whirlwind world tour – give us a story.
My favourite show was our first show in London. It was part of , kind of like our CMJ, and I guess it wasn’t organised that well. It was sold out but the venue didn’t get a permit so it had to move from a place that could fit about 800 to a place that could only fit 400. It was a madhouse. I don’t know what the word for it is, serendipity maybe, but whatever the chemical equation was, it made the show really intense. From the moment we went onstage it was like something out of the Bible, everybody screaming. It was a little dangerous. I had a great time; the kids were really awesome. But it was a little dangerous, like a European soccer match.

Hopefully there were no bottles thrown around.
No bottles, but the whole crowd moved at the same time and no one could stand up. All they could do was get crushed. It was hectic but it felt really alive. I guess there’s a bit of tragedy and a bit of victory somewhere in that story. We had a really good time.

You’ve taken part in a fair number of charitable events. Are you just suckers for anybody with a good cause?
Mmm, no. (pause) Um, yeah. It’s just a funny phenomenon. Your friends ask you to do some stuff once your band is doing well. And some of it’s cool, but sometimes it’s like, “Where do I know you from again?” But we try to do as much as we can. I guess you can’t be suckers for every cause, but we’re suckers for a lot of them!

Your bandmates have some well documented side projects. What about you? How do you spend your time away from the band?
Before this band I had a band in New York called the Pleasure Unit. We did all right. In that band and other bands I’ve always been a guitar player, keyboard player, singer and other stuff – very rarely a drummer. So when I’m not doing this, I try to get back to playing other, more melodic instruments. On record I do whatever, but live I’m the drummer almost by default.

From what I understand, Kyp and Tunde bring skeletal demos into the studio and the band massage these ideas into songs. Can you elaborate on this process?
Yeah, that’s really it. Kyp or Tunde will bring in rudimentary songs – sometimes they’re more concrete than others – and I’ll try to articulate that through a personal filter. Together we’ll just feel it out; it becomes a more collaborative effort at that point. We just throw shit against the wall. And that’s it. There’s very little ego-crashing. Everyone has their particular expertise. If it’s a production question we all chime in, but we give final say to Dave. Dave is obviously a great producer.

The band have never really sat back and let the production overtake the actual songs. Do you guys sometimes have to tell Dave to go out for a coffee?
That would be a little misleading. Dave is also in the band. He produces other bands, but with us it’s different. Everyone here is a solo artist who’s made records on his own, made songs on his own. Everyone has pretty concrete ideas. I knew everyone as a solo artist long before we came together as a group. Dave is definitely the engineering expert: “We need to take the MX22 and take it up to 7 and blah, blah, blah”, which I don’t know shit about. And he makes it happen that way. But everyone has artistic input. It’s not just a producer project.

The new album is magnificent in a completely different way from Return to Cookie Mountain and the albums before it. How have your relationships evolved inside the band?
We’re family now. We weren’t when we started. We’ve been through a lot, never mind this music thing. When it first started, it was just Tunde and Dave and now, with Dear Science, five people were writing demo songs that turned out to be TV on the Radio songs. But we’ve been through a lot of extremes together, from changing managers to signing and getting a record deal to touring ad nauseam to losing our minds to getting them back again. We’ve really grown as an entity. I don’t know if that makes for better or worse art, but it’s the nature of this kind of life. The outside gets kind of out of focus.

You’ve avoided the curse of diminishing returns – you guys keep getting better and better.
I don’t know. I hope so. It’s a difficult compliment to take. We just kind of do what we do. The only way to respond is to go back to the day I fell in love with music – not with stardom or any of the accessories – and to remember that I have a certain debt to that moment. I try to recreate that moment. I’ve never really felt successful in the way that (Jimi Hendrix’s) Axis: Bolder Than Love made me feel. But that has to be my attempt. And I think everyone in the band has had the same moment and the same debt.

But you are pretty successful. How are you handling it?
Well, it’s easier now than having a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. I feel very lucky. But we don’t get paid a lot of money. I don’t get all the chicks; I’m not doing coke up Stevie Nicks’ ass . It’s pretty easy, pretty regular. So if this is success then, yeah, I can handle it.

Dear Science is out now and nominated for TLOBF’s Album of the Year – vote here.

“Dancing Choose”, the album’s second single, is out on January 12.

TV on the Radio play their last European date at Carling Academy Birmingham on December 7.

Photography by Michael Lavine

www.tvontheradio.com