ACL Interview: TV Torso
So we hope all you people out there have enjoyed our interviews as part of our coverage of ACL 2010. To wrap up our interview series from the festival, we wanted to do another quick interview with local favorite TV Torso. Matt Oliver has been in the Austin scene for years so we were excited to see what he had to say about his latest project. Follow the jump for more.
ATH: So Matt had a large cult and underground following in Austin as a founding member of Sound Team. Do you think his reputation from that band, connections, etc. have helped the career of TV Torso?
Matt: Nah. I’d say the following we had might have been the same as a popular local weatherman’s or lawn-mowing service’s. Probably not that popular actually.
ATH: TV Torso stick to a very strict “old school” policy of recording only to tape for their releases. After listening to your old 7″s and the new Status Quo Vadis album, I think this strategy creates an incredible crispness and pop to your recordings that could be lost digitally. Is that the idea? Or am I way off?
Matt: I learned to record accidentally by watching engineers who worked with tape do it, and I never really learned how to do it correctly. There’s no computer at the studio and no Internet from any neighbors to steal. The crisp sounds might come from the reflection of sound off the cinder block walls at the studio or a particular type of stereo compression Stuart and I were using on the overhead mics and some of the room and ambient mics when we mixed those songs at Jim’s. We definitely love to record and mix to tape, which is why it takes us forever to get anything done. A big difference with a lot of this stuff is also that we’re recording everything super dry, none of my amps have reverb. Maybe that’s it?
ATH: TV Torso seems like they could be the next band to “make it” out of the Austin scene. You’ve received a lot of praise locally and nationally. Where would you like to see this band go in the next 2-3 years?
Matt: I don’t know what making it entails. We’re happy with the way things are going. We are selling the amount of records it makes sense for us to sell and we’re having a good time and I think we’ll stick with it.
ATH: I love that you are using bandcamp as your main source of band info/music. Myspace should go to a dark place and die. Any reason why you chose bandcamp over other hosting sites?
Matt: We just wanted to get the songs recorded and mixed and onto vinyl. Then once we got that part done we had to figure out how to make good enough quality digital files from the masters and come up with a way to get them out there. Bandcamp seemed like a good enough one, I think some of the other ones are kind of a bad deal.
ATH: Speaking of Bandcamp… You stream most all of your songs there for free. I think that’s super rad, but how can a band make some sweet cash giving things away for free?
Matt: Paypal.
ATH: And on the note of cash… Do you guys still work day jobs around town? Care to share what you rock stars do for a living outside of music?
Matt: I actually do music full time at the moment, but I think I might start selling fried chicken, candy and other “sundry items” to musicians on tour as they come off stage. Solomon Burked did that, apparently it drove everyone crazy. He was also a mortician, which is gross.
ATH: So let’s be honest here. You guys are playing super early (11:20) on Sunday of ACL. Why should someone get up early and come check you out? (we know why, but we’d like to hear what you have to say)
Matt: This is an excellent question. I think if I had done this interview when I was supposed to 3 and a half weeks ago I might have said, “because it’s going to be a very special show with special guest musicians” or some such. But now that it’s Tuesday October 12th, our ACL performance has actually already happened. So, sorry about that.
Thanks again for making the time for this Matt!