Pitchfork

It was October when we last spoke with Josh Grier of Minneapolis' Tapes 'n Tapes, and he and his band were in the middle of recording with megaproducer Dave Fridmann at his Tarbox Road Studios in upstate New York. In the interview, Grier described the big changes between these sessions and the far more modest ones that resulted in The Loon, the band's 2005 debut LP. He also touched on a reticence to lean too heavily on the studio setting and the oft-complex Fridmann style, preferring to "spend a couple days [on each song], get it right, and that's how it is."

The fruits of those sessions arrive in the form of Walk It Off, Tapes 'n Tapes' sophomore set. Sporting a bit more nuance and a heap more expectations than its spare and seemingly out-of-nowhere predecessor, Walk It Off will emerge April 8 on XL. (Check out the tracklist at the end of this story. There are songs called "George Michael" and "The Dirty Dirty"!)

The album all finished, we spoke with Josh about his impressions of the record months after its mixing and months still before its release, his take on lyric writing, and why you probably shouldn't expect another Tapes 'n Tapes disc any time soon.

Pitchfork: How did you come up with the album title?

Grier: Well, our drummer [Jeremy Hanson] came up with it. We were throwing around titles, and he was like "I've always liked the sound of the title Walk It Off." And we were like "oh, that sounds cool." At that point we had thrown around a lot of stuff and nothing had really passed it, so it was like "all right, let's go with that." It could be so many different things, and taken so many different ways, and then we realized like three weeks later that there's a lyric in the second-to-last song, "Lines", where we actually say "walk it off." And then we were like "oh, it's perfect!" [laughs]

Pitchfork: Are you pretty pleased with how the record turned out?

Grier: I'm really excited about it. It's cool that it's finally getting sent out to people and other people can finally hear it because, you know, we've been sitting on it for forever. [laughs] We haven't ever had to do this. Like with our last record, we recorded it on our own and when it was finished, we put it out. [laughs] There wasn't any "oh, it doesn't come out for five months..." So I'm really excited for people to hear it.

It turned out better than I ever could have imagined. Going into it, I had an idea of how I wanted it to sound but I had no idea how it was all going to turn out and it totally turned out better than I could've expected.

Pitchfork: Sonically, there's definitely a little more going on than there was on the last record, but it's not particularly busy or complicated. I'm sure the temptation to pile a lot of noise on the record is fairly strong, especially when you've got Dave Fridmann there, but you largely avoided it.

Grier: Well, we definitely were trying to keep it from being busy [laughs], so that's good to hear. When we talked last, I was saying how we were trying to not get too bogged down by the fact that we had all this crap that we could throw on it. You're in a studio and there's all this stuff and we were trying to avoid that temptation and focus on "all right, these are the songs and this is what it's like when the four of us play them." So that was kind of our attitude when we were recording it: "all right, I want it to sound like us playing these songs and not some crazy orchestration or something. I want it to sound how it's going to sound when we play it live."

Pitchfork: These songs definitely seem like they're made for the stage. Even the few sort of strummier, low-key songs have that punch. I wanted to ask you about those: they're not singer-songwriter songs per se, but there's definitely more emphasis on getting lyrics across. Would you say you're coming into your own as a songwriter a little bit more on this one?

Grier: I don't know, that's a tough question. I've definitely been writing for longer, but I wouldn't ever presume that I'm coming into my own. [laughs] You know? I'm definitely happy with how everything turned out on the record, and I always like to try different things out, so it's like "well, we're making a different record, so let's try some different things out and not try to do the same thing all over again." [laughs]

Pitchfork: Did you spend a lot of time on the lyrics? They definitely seem to be more of a focus this time out.

Grier: To be honest, there were some songs that I spent a little bit more time on. But for the most part, I was writing over the last month or two before going into the studio. Typically how the songwriting would go is I would write the song, get all the music, and then we meet up and practice it as a band and figure out everybody's part. And then once all that's done, I would have sounds, like vocal sounds, and then I would make words kind of to match the sounds as the last part of the process. So definitely the vocals came in last. There were a lot of them that I was touching up still while we were still in the studio. Or writing while we were in the studio. [laughs]

Pitchfork: A lot of songs seem to be based on sort of a central riff that drives the tune.

Grier: Really, most of them come out of me just playing by myself. I kind of just sit in a room by myself and mess around with stuff a lot and then I'll kind of come up with something and then I'll lay it down. I think a lot of the times I'll have ideas on what the bassline might be or something. I really like the interplay between all the different instruments, so when we're playing the songs it'll be like, "oh, Erik [Appelwick, bassist], that bass part's really melodic" or "let's make that a melodic bass part." For me, I think it's fun to have melody in a lot of different places. You have them on the guitar sometimes, you have them on the bass, and then keyboard.

Pitchfork: I've gotta ask: you've got a song on here called "George Michael". What's the deal with that?

Grier: To be honest, when I was first playing around with it I thought the riff kind of sounded like the beginning of "Faith". And then it kind of progressed and moved away from that. But it was kind of like a joke, I had nothing to call it, so I was like "oh, I'll just call it 'George Michael'." And then as it progressed further and we started playing it more, we all kind of thought it was funny to call it "George Michael". And then it stuck. [laughs]

Pitchfork: Yeah, it's definitely not a literal thing with that song. You tend to write fairly open ended lyrics that could be taken a number of different ways. Is that done on purpose?

Grier: A lot of times I like leaving things to whoever's going to listen to it. To me it'll mean one thing, and for other people it's totally open to interpretation. I like being kind of ambiguous about things. I think it's more interesting when you can decide for yourself what somebody's saying as opposed to having it shoved down your throat.

Pitchfork: Yeah, there are lots of moments on this one that are far closer to wordplay than storytelling.

Grier: To be honest, all the songs, for me, on this record, I can figure out a meaning for them. You know, I have in my mind what they mean or what the words are getting at, but for the most part I like to leave it so that people can take it for whatever it is. They can interpret it for their own.

Pitchfork: You've had a few chances to play these songs out. Has the response been good to the new stuff?

Grier: Yeah, it really has been. I think on our tour back in April and May of last year we played maybe five or six of the songs live. And people definitely seemed to be into them, which is always a tough thing, playing new songs. At least for me, when I'm at a show and somebody plays a new song, it's like "okay..." It kind of throws you off balance. But people seemed to really enjoy them. I can't ever tell, you know. People are showing up at your shows and hopefully they're not going to boo you, or at least they're going to clap for you when you're done playing, you know. [laughs]

Pitchfork: Have you or the powers that be picked a single yet?

Grier: I think that the first single, from what I'm hearing, is going to be "Hang Them All".

Pitchfork: Oh yeah, I like that one. It's a little raucous. Do you have plans to get out on the road again anytime soon?

Grier: Yeah, we're going to be down at South by Southwest, yeah. I think we'll be touring, we're going to go on tour again starting in April. Tour the U.S. and stuff.

Pitchfork: This might seem like a crazy question to ask somebody who just finished a record, but do you have more plans in the foreseeable future? More songs, more recording?

Grier: Not really. I'm sure we'll be touring a fair amount this year, and then after that we'll probably try and make another record. [laughs] I don't know, this one isn't out yet. So yeah, we're focusing on getting this one out. It's interesting because we do have a lot of time at home now and I think "oh yeah, I could start writing some more songs." But, you know, then if I write a bunch of songs I really like, I'm going to just want to play those on tour instead of these songs. So I'm just taking it easy.

Walk It Off:

01 La Ruse
02 Time of Songs
03 Hang Them All
04 Headshock
05 Conquest
06 Say Back Something
07 Demon Apple
08 Blunt
09 George Michael
10 Anvil
11 Lines
12 The Dirty Dirty