Transcript (auto-generated, may contain errors; songs left out)
What's up? Thanks for tuning in to SoundScene Revolution. Today we have a very special guest that I'm really pretty excited we can get. Sacramento's very own Tara Mellos, who just recently released their self-titled debut, or untitled debut, I guess, via Springman Records. So you guys should be pretty excited about that. We've got to sit down with the guys after their show at the cave in San Jose, talking about everything from being an overlooked artist in 2005 to why they decided to be an instrumental band. So it's a pretty exciting interview. Warning ahead of time, some of the sound in the first half of the interview was a little messed up. There was a fucking Bulgarian clusterfuck of humanity behind us making a bunch of noise, and they were polite enough once they found out we were doing the interview, but beforehand they were kind of jackasses.
So we'll let it slide, though. Hopefully it doesn't interfere with the interview too much. But before we hop into the interview, we're going to give you guys a sample of the mayhem that is Tara Mellos. We're going to start off by playing Melody 4. If you're not aware, there are no real song titles on their album. It's all Melody. So Melody 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. We're going to play Melody 4 because it falls right in the middle, and that's how we do it. So listen to the song, and be sure to check out the interview. Welcome to Sound Scene Revolution. We are sitting here today with Tara Mellos. If you guys can all say hi, I guess. Hey. Hey, everyone. All right. Let's just start off, I guess, with the introduction.
If you could just say your name, what you do in the band, and I don't know, a random fact about yourself and whoever wants to start. Oh, great. I'll start. All right. My name is Jeff. I play guitar in the band Tara Mellos. And I like to build chopper motorcycles. That's a random fact. In that type of situation. Sorry. Hi, I'm Nathan. I play bass, and I like cats.
Man, we're all about true facts today. Hey, I'm Vince, and I play drums. And I don't want to bring a cactus on tour, so don't let Rob give us the cactus. It's true. I don't. Cactus facts getting booed. I'm Nick, and I play stage left guitar. And I painted my guitar green the other day. He plays lead, and I play rhythm. Just so everybody knows. Oh. That's right. All right, cool. So, I guess the first and most obvious point is just a real brief, well, it doesn't have to be real brief, but a history of the band. If you guys can give us kind of the background of you guys, how you got started and all that.
Yeah. Nate and I played in a weird progressive punk band a couple years ago, and that band kind of started disintegrating, and Nate and I knew Jeff from previous bands. And once that band kind of broke up or whatever, we decided to start a new band. And we all jammed and wrote songs and had a few pieces of music composed, and then Jeff met Vince in a jazz improv class and convinced him to come hang out and play drums. And, yep, that's the gist of it. We played in our practice spot for close to a year and then started playing shows.
So, you guys practiced for like a whole year before you had a show. Is there like a reason for that? Like you wanted to get it perfect or just weren't able to book a show? Not being able to book a show wasn't really a problem. We just didn't really feel that, A, the songs were complete, and B, the band was complete. We had a long period where we tried out different singers and stuff, and nothing just sort of stuck. And we got offered a first show, and we were just like, oh, well, let's just go for it and see what happens as an instrumental band, you know, and, and, you know, maybe, maybe it'll help us to find a singer or something, and we played it. I'm sorry. I guess my history's wrong. That historical fact was incorrect.
Uh, actually, we played that first show, um, to see if any potential vocalists would be into it, if I recall. No, you said as an instrumental band. Okay, let's, let's not argue, let's not argue.
Oh, I couldn't hear what he said. I'm, I'm sorry. This historical fact was correct. Okay, well, I'm gonna pass it. So, yeah, it's, it's frazzled now. Two sides of the same coin, we'll say. Um, so, yeah, and so we just played that first show, and the response was actually really, really good, and we just kept getting more show offers after that, and we started playing out of town because we were getting offers out of town, and that's just what worked for us, so we just kept going with it. Right on. So you guys didn't, like, initially start off with the intent of being an instrumental band. It just kind of happened that way? Yes, sir. Now, was it just none of the vocalists matched up, or just, you didn't end up liking, or it just didn't work, or, I don't know.
Uh, yeah, for the most part, it just didn't click with what we were doing musically. Nobody who came in to try out really knew how to sing, so, um. Doesn't help? Well, we thought it might be okay, just because we figured they'd come at it with a weird perspective, but, yeah, it ended up really not working. But we made some really good friends out of the whole thing, so. That's cool, that's always a plus. Um. I want to add something about that. Oh, okay. I guess I want to add that, um, when we were going through singers, one thing we also wanted to avoid was making it where there'd be, like, the singer that was up in front of the band, and that was louder than everything else. And we wanted to still maintain the music being just as important as the singer, if we found one, but we didn't find anybody that would match that.
And also, we didn't find anybody that was good enough, as Nate said, too. That's good. Nah, that's fair. Is there a vocalist who, if someone came out today and was like, I'd like to work with you guys, is there anyone, like, any names off the top of your head who you'd want to work with? I think John Lennon could dig up Freddie Mercury. You could, we'll go with Alive, Dead, whatever, here. Freddie Mercury. Freddie Mercury. Huh?
Stop saying, gosh! I can't hear him! Fuck! Alright, everyone, huddle in. Everyone get real close. Alright, so, yeah, so Freddie Mercury and John Lennon, I guess, are the two we've gotten. Any others? Nah? Other than that, that's about as far as far as I can. If they're listening, we'll see, we'll see what we can do on that. Cool. So, you guys, recently, uh, your debut came out, uh, as far as I know, it's your debut, you're right, on Spring Man? It's the first thing to be released by somebody besides us. We have prior, like, things that we just, you know, burned CDs and spray-painted and went to Kinko's and made stuff, I think. Demos. Demos, that's what they call that. Oh, demos. So. That's cool. How did it come about that you guys, uh, got together with Spring Man?
I like whenever I ask a question, you immediately know who should answer. Are you just, uh, that's insane. Uh, we played a few shows and this guy, Avi, who runs Spring Man Records, had just seen us and, uh, he actually wasn't going to do any bands, um, but he liked our band and just decided to put out a record for us. It was just really cool. Just kind of, whatever. That's awesome. And he didn't have any, like, restrictions. Like, he wasn't like, you guys should maybe look into getting a singer. He was just, do whatever? Yeah, it was, it was, yeah, exactly. Do whatever you want. And that's, you know, that's what we were going to do anyways. That's awesome. One of the things, um, that totally stands out on that other than the whole, besides the music, is the artwork on your guys' album.
Like, who did that? Where did that all come from? Oh. Uh, one of our good friends, uh, this guy Garrett Vanderlund did it all for us and, um, we just randomly came across, like, uh, a clip art image on the internet of, like, this guy holding a chainsaw or something and we just thought it'd be kind of funny to erase his head and have him kind of do a variation on that drawing. So, uh, I guess it was, it's really random. Like, we didn't really, we kind of just came up with all these ideas and then put, they kind of became thematic after we figured out what we wanted pictures of, you know what I mean? And then we kind of, like, put them together and was like, oh, wow, that actually works really well. So that was a good, good friend of ours that did that.
Very cool. Right. It's also kind of cool because if you're in the local area of, like, Sacramento where we play, um, he draws all of our flyer artwork. So, like, somebody who, you know, had seen flyers and come to all our shows would notice familiar, like, characters that he's drawn in the CD artwork that he had also put on flyers. That show up on flyers. That's cool. I have to say, I'm big on, uh, I think it's the Hamburglar on stand-up bass. Is that one? That's, I think that's in the fold. There's the Hamburglar somewhere. That's it. He also has made an appearance on a flyer, too. Has he? That's awesome. That's, I saw that and that was what first jumped out at me, so, big thumbs up on that one. Um, going along with your guys' debut album, I'm sure you guys have been made aware of the fact you guys were put on, uh, what was it, most over, or overlooked band of 2005 by AP?
Um, we actually didn't even hear about it until way after the fact, but this guy Ron Harris who apparently writes for the, well, he doesn't apparently write, he writes for the Associated Press, uh, he was nice enough through our, uh, publicist that we had for a while, uh, he had gotten our record and he was pretty pumped off it and he wrote a really, really nice review on us saying it was one of the most, uh, I guess overlooked albums of 2005 and he came out to a show in San Francisco and introduced himself and he was an awesome, awesome guy. So, thanks to him if he, for some reason, ever hears this, but. Has that guy, has it changed anything for you guys thus far? I mean, obviously you're not playing stadiums yet, but have more people come up and like recognized you guys or checked out your music, you think, because of it?
I don't think so, because that, that just came out probably like within the last month and a half and I don't really know if like a review is going to make a lot of people come and hang out, you know, I guess like, I don't know, lots of newspapers picked it up and stuff, so lots of people were able to, you know, check it out, but so far I don't think so, yet, you know.
Oh, okay, you look like you had something to say. You're good? I was going to say that our MySpace views have caught up a lot. Lots more friends on MySpace, which is good. A lot of, it helps sometimes, you never know. So, going along with that, I was reading the article about most overlooked bands of 2005 and you guys happen to share that list with Striper. Are you more or less excited about being on that list because you share it with Striper? I have no idea who that is. Striper? I'm pretty surprised to hear that Striper put something out. I know who Striper is. I haven't followed their career or anything, but I just assumed that they were that Christian metal band from the 80s. That's... They really overlooked them, you know.
So, I guess they were on that list for a reason. Yeah. Yeah, they were probably... I'm not sure they were overlooked, though. Like, so much is intentionally ignored, but eh. Yeah, you know, whatever. There goes my chance of ever interviewing Striper. You probably won't go out and check out that release, but... What if Striper mails it to you? Come on. What if Striper's like, I noticed we shared this, you know, list together. Here's our release. Check it out. We would politely decline.
I would probably listen to that, and then I'd take it back to a record store and try to return it. Oh yeah, we've done that for sure.
Thanks. Return it for sure. We would try and get store credit for it at a Borders and Books. Hey, it's not a bad idea, you know, if that's what works for you guys. So, talking, let's, I guess, move more back to the music than our opinions of 80s metal. What do you guys... You guys are obviously very diverse, and from what I've read, you guys don't say you pull from any particular influence. What are you guys listening to right now? If you guys have CD players for iPods or 8-tracks, what are you listening to do individually? For, like, the last month solid, I've just listened to this, like, electronic group called Underworld, and literally that's probably the only thing I've listened to for about a month.
So, that's what I'm listening to. Lots of electronic music for me. Oh, we're doing the one that you want individually. Okay, I'll say Apex Twin is what I've been listening to a lot. I can't think of anything that I've been listening to a lot just more recently that I just haven't been listening to for the last... Nothing has come out that I've just been, like, holy crap about, so I don't really know how to answer that question. I just listen to the same boring crap that I listen to all the time, I guess.
I've been listening to this really great band called Dessa a lot from here, and they're fantastic. And I've also been listening a lot to this band called Brilliant Red Lights, who are also from Sacramento. Man, they're great. And then this band called Bridges from Sacramento, they're really amazing, too. I've just had them in the triple CD changer, you know. Those are a couple Sacramento bands, and they're really blowing my mind right now. Pushing the limits. Fair enough. Do you guys, now, when you tour, it's all, I guess, all in one van, I take it? Yes, sir. Do you guys ever, like, decide who gets to play what, or is it just everyone kind of does their own thing? You mean as far as music? Well, yeah, we play the game, the iPod game, where we, uh, everybody does a song, so you just, you know, you pick a song and pass the iPod.
So that's our, that's our fun iPod game. And these guys are rich guys and have iPods, and I just work on motorcycles, so I don't have any money. Uh, so they really have the big music, you know, selections, which is very enjoyable.
Shut up about that. I, uh, for the, yeah, everybody's, you bought a car 100% made out of gold, it costs him three million dollars. No, he's lying. But for anybody out there who's into, you know, very traditional custom cars, I want to give a shout out to, uh, you know, Starbird, uh, Barris, uh, Barris Customs from the 50s, fantastic cars. I bought a 51 Chevy, and it's beautiful. And I'm going to chop the top five and a half inches, and you're getting punished now for bringing up the car thing. And, uh, yeah, anyways. Get out of here. Okay. You could not break the mics, that'd be huge. Other than, yeah. Are you never going to curse? No, you can, you can curse. Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't know. Well, because people have been, like, bummed on that before.
No, no, we're a lot, because we're all. Awesome. Yeah. Let her rip. Awesome. Um, yeah, we got eight. Yeah, don't fucking have to. We have eight and a half listeners. All right, we're going to take a break real quick from the interview. Um, hop into another track by the band. I thought you guys might enjoy that. We're going to listen to, uh, Melody Six off of their self-titled album. I'm looking at the back of the CD case right now, trying to remember the name. Like, it doesn't mean any good. There's nothing at all on this. So, yeah, stay tuned for the second half of the interview. Uh, I don't remember what we talked about in the second half of the interview, which leads me to believe it was really good. So, you probably want to stick around for that.
And, uh, yeah, after the second half, we got more music. So, you want to hear it. I know it. Peace.
Losing my voice. So, is there any, uh, I noticed there's a big difference, I guess, between, like, the recorded material and your guys' live show, a lot of, like, improvisational live. How do you guys go about that? Do you have an idea, like, set up when you go out? Or is it just kind of, you go out there and as it comes to you guys? I don't know if I'm going to answer it. Um, some, there's some parts where we'll just have, like, designated areas where we'll kind of do that and sometimes we have ideas and sometimes we'll just have no idea what's going to happen, which I guess makes it fun. Uh, and, um, but I guess we, we like that of just, of not making the songs the same because then it just kind of gets boring playing them over and over again.
Um, is it, now when you guys go into the studio or, I don't know where you record, do you guys, is it a lot more set idea? Like, you really, really know what you can do or do you guys kind of tool around as you record? We usually are very prepared when we go into the studio and, and, well, I mean, I'm saying it like we've gone in the studio hundreds of times, but, like, on our last record, you know, we knew that we wanted to have sounds here and soundscapes and, uh, but, you know, it wasn't like every noise was like thought out, you know, we'd have, uh, you know, a particular key in mind or, or a feel or something like that. And we'd know, okay, it's like, we kind of like wrote out the whole record as like a piece rather than, okay, well we have five songs, so we'll do our five songs and then we'll do something in between, you know what I mean?
It was like, we kind of built the songs to, to kind of go together. So it was, it was very linear as we like to say, um, with, uh, some noises and stuff. So, I mean, yeah, there was, there was lots of, um, lots of room, you know, to, to mess around, but you know what I mean? I don't know. So it wasn't just throwing a dart, you know, and you didn't just get in and you're like record 40 minutes and you're like, that's the album. We didn't just jump in the taxi and go, okay, anywhere, sir. You know, we knew we were going to Times Square or whatever, but wherever, you know, that's cool. But whatever streets they took, you know, it was, I like, I like the metaphor. It works. It's probably one of the better ones we've had on the show.
Fantastic. Uh, it's, it's good. We don't get a lot of, we don't get a lot of metaphors, so we're happy with what we can get. I'll work on that for you. Um, do you guys, do you have a preference between playing? Playing live and just like sitting down and writing music and recording it? I think all three of those things are, are very different in particular, you know, they, they all have their particular things. I don't think there's anyone that we dislike. Definitely. You know, I mean, um, obviously playing live is awesome, but you know, when you play 500 shows in a row, it can get like kind of tiring or like writing new music's great too, but sometimes, you know, when you run out ideas and everybody's trying to jam on something, it's not coming out, that can be bad.
I mean, there's good and bad for everything's give and take. And I don't think any one thing is better or worse than the other, you know, it's all, it's all fun. It's all creative. You know, it's like, what do you, do you prefer? Oh, nevermind. I almost did another metaphor. I do that all the time. You guys know, and I'm not going to do another metaphor because that's embarrassing. But, uh, okay. Oh, come on. We were going to compile a book of metaphors that we got and you were, you were the first one.
When you guys have been playing live, I've, from what I've heard and from what I've kind of seen, your shows have been, you're, they're kind of sporadic, a little destructive. Has there been like, what's probably the most damaging thing that's happened during any one of your shows? Do you have a person or an object? Oh. Because Jeff, Jeff had his, uh, head knocked open, but, uh, but basses and guitars have been like actually broken in half. A lot. And those don't just heal by, by, you know. Butterfly bandages or whatever. Yeah. Whatever it is. How would you like to add? Go for it. Uh, about a week ago at practice, I split my head open.
And that's not a joke, sir. At practice? Yeah. We were at practice doing our antics and I fell and I'd never blood that much out of my skull. Where? In the back of my skull. Well, you can't see it anymore because it's just about healed up, but there was lots of blood. What's wrong with your hand? Uh, Jeff and I were doing this thing where we were, uh, like playing this rock riff and attacking Nate and kicking him. It was, it was the Johnny B. Good, uh, riff. And if you've seen. Yeah. And we were doing the Chuck Berry hop on one foot with the other foot in the air. And then I approached Nate while playing the rock riff and I tried to jump kick him and get him with both feet. And I fell and hit the back of my skull on the corner of my amp.
And it was very scary and very bloody. Did he go to the hospital? Oh, it was, it was super funny for about the first 30 seconds. And then when he took his hand away and looked and it was just covered in blood, just the look on Nick's face. It was like, he was like laughing and then he was like, Oh, Oh, it was awesome. So yeah. Do you guys go to the hospital a lot or you just like throw a bandaid on it? Just bandaid, man. I don't have insurance, you know, time to wrap it, huh? Yeah. I don't have insurance. I don't have a job. I don't have any other stuff, you know? So yeah. We'll be sure to let people know to bring like bandages and stuff to your guys' show in case you guys need them. Fuck yeah.
Now you're just abusing the privilege. You're just taking advantage of the system, but that's fine. So what's the most, did you just say shit for no reason? Maybe. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. You guys have to listen to that on playback. What's probably the most expensive like piece of equipment that you guys have broken? We, everything's been broken. So, I mean. I have a Gibson SG that I've broken the headstock off of probably like five times now. So the amount of money I've spent on repairs for that guitar, like accumulated, I could have just bought another guitar with. But we have these really awesome people that fix all our gear for us in Roseville called Sonfather Guitars. And we bring all of our stuff to them probably like once a week and they fix all of our stuff real nice.
Yeah, literally. It's just a big joke when we walk in. Oh, look at these guys are back. You know? Because we always bring in like seven guitars. You see after tour, it's like ridiculous. We just drive the van straight to Sonfather. Just dump the stuff up. Just drop it all off at once. Yeah, exactly. We just throw them the keys. Just, you know, take care of it, you know? I picked my bass up on, oh, I picked my bass up on Monday and then took it back in this morning, which was Friday morning. And it wasn't just broke a tuning key. It was like broken in half in the first 30 seconds of our set. It's just really silly. Do you guys, I mean, obviously because you're instrumental, you've got to have pretty decent like equipment.
Have you ever just thought of scrapping that and getting like the cheapest, shittiest stuff because it's probably going to break in your house? Oh, sort of. But, you know, you get what you pay for. And we like quality instruments, you know? Like we all, we don't play Epiphone, SGs, you know, or fake ones. They're all Gibsons, you know? The bass he was just talking about is actually an American standard jazz bass, which is, you know, like a $900 bass or something like that, you know? It's like a really special guitar. Like all of our stuff, we have tube amps. He's got a triple rec, which is $1,500. Or whatever, you know? And like, I've got this vintage Marshall head that's all point-to-point hand-wired and really, really bitching.
And like, you know, just all of our gear, we like good quality gear. And like, I would say that we're all like pretty into gear too. Like we just like it, you know? It's just cool to collect cool stuff. Oh, yeah. I mean, we could just get Swire Strats and rip them, but it just wouldn't be the same, you know? They don't play the same. They don't sound the same, you know? So we like very particular instruments and we're into tone and sound. And I don't think that playing shitty, junky old guitars would really be – I mean, it would be great financially. Yeah. We just throw them off a cliff and who cares? And actually, recently we've started customizing a USA model like – like I have a Kramer from the 80s. It's just a goofy, shitty, like shred guitar with like a whammy on it, you know?
One of those crazy whammies. Style guitars. Yeah, probably Striper style, definitely. Striper would use that guitar. Yeah, but the cool thing is, you know, everybody just thought those guitars were nerdy in the early 90s or whatever. It's like nobody's shredding anymore. That's stupid, you know? Let's put on flannels and grow our hair longer or whatever, you know? And like so – The guy with long hair and a flannel. I know, totally. And let's listen to some grunge and, you know, act crazy. So those guitars are like dirt cheap now and like they have like really good parts, you know? Everything is the highest quality and – so we might start doing those, you know? Like we're – you might see some pretty strange guitars at the Taramelo shows coming up.
But they're all going to be good quality. They're going to be good quality, like good parts, you know what I mean? Cool, cool. So – To the good gear getting broken, I think it's funny sometimes when people will say stuff like, I can't believe they're doing that with a whatever or like they'll say, is that a – no. Somebody else – Is that a Gibson, you know, SG standard? Yeah, just like not believing that we would do it with like, you know, something that's that expensive. That's a $1,300 guitar. $1,300 guitar I just threw into the lights, you know? The cheaper stuff, it just seems like then it becomes like the act of just buying something and breaking something. So it's like – I don't know. It loses – it loses the value, I think.
So in term – One more thing. We don't do the – we don't break our stuff on purpose. That's totally incidental. Like, it's not a funny act where we started this banner like, hey, let's go crazy and be funny. It's nothing like that. It's just completely incidental that this bullshit gets broken and it's stupid. We don't like doing that, you know? I would say definitely we don't like doing it. I mean, it's – I bum out. Yeah, we bum out big time. Like, in fact, here, I think the first time we played here, I threw my guitar – see those lights there? They're like 20 feet up? I launched using SG into those lights. Which is now retired, by the way. Yeah, and I just bummed out on it, man. It's not funny. We don't like doing that.
Yeah, that shit is not funny. It's not amusing. So it's like not like Green Day where at the end of every fucking show you like light your shit on fire and you're like, that's it, we're done. Yeah.
Yeah, that's silly. They listen. They write us letters. They're going to – no. Yeah, no, I know. I mean, I wish we could be – I wish we could light our shit on fire at the end. That would be really fun. Yeah, if you had that kind of money, but unfortunately – After just saying that we're not – that – You'd have to sell about five million more albums. Yeah. You never know. This new – this record we put out might do that. All right. I bought it. And I don't buy shit, so – We're actually going to do our video on TRL for TRL pretty soon. It's going to be really good. I would pay money to see that. I would buy a good cable just to be able to see your video on TRL. I would. I would too.
Most bands do pay a lot of money to see their video on TRL, so be prepared for that. Okay. All right. So I think we're going to wrap it up here. If there's anything else you guys would like to say, you guys got some shows coming up or a website you'd like to plug?
Nothing really. Our website right now is www.terramellosmusic.com, so you can keep an update on that. Or if you dabble in the MySpace community, there's that also. And yeah, we'll probably pretty much be touring for a really long time off and on, so come check out a show or whatever. Thank you. All right. Yeah, you guys can say thank you.
That's the creepiest thing we've ever had. All right. Thank you guys so much for taking the time. Thank you very much. All right. So that wraps up the interview portion for this week's show. I hope you guys all enjoyed it. Be sure to tune in next week. We have another really good band lined up. About last week, if you paid attention long enough, we weren't around. We had a bunch of stuff going on. It was Valentine's Day. I was busy drinking myself into a stupor. Our producer, Nerman, was busy getting engaged to his one-time girlfriend, now-time fiance, who doesn't listen to this show, so it doesn't matter. We're going to make her listen to this bit just so we can acknowledge it. So write us an email and wish Nerman and congratulations to prove you're listening.
Otherwise, we're just going to be totally bummed. But we'd like to thank Taramelos for coming on and for taking the time to talk with us. Really fucking cool guys. We're stoked that they came by. And next week, we honestly, we have an interview lined up and set to go, so there's no kind of dicking around. We'll actually have it set up for next week. Send us an email, soundscenerevolution at gmail.com. We're on MySpace. You can hit us up on our message board, any number of ways. We got some good response after the LaPlebe interview. We'd like to kind of keep that up if you guys are interested because we know you listen and we just want to know what the hell you think about the show. Before we take off, we're going to play one last track off Taramelos' first CD on Spring Man Records.
We're going to probably, well, we are going to play Melody 7 off of it. So listen to that and enjoy and be sure to tune in next week for a lot more cool stuff that you wouldn't hear anywhere else because no one else has this much free time.
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