Interview: Thunderbirds Are Now!
Thunderbirds Are Now! “We Win (Ha Ha)”
by Brian McKinney
Thunderbirds Are Now! are not just another one of those exclamation-point bands growing like a plague on Myspace. And with a name derived from a marionette sci-fi film from the ‘60s might suggest, Thunderbirds Are Now! are not guided by the strings of expectations, but by their own vision. Avoiding the stigma of dance-punk and post-whatever stereotyping, the band changed it up on their third full-length, “Make History” (Frenchkiss), and surprised audiences by curbing their devil-may-care attitude in favor of slightly more saccharine pop hooks and rhythmic refinement – though there was still plenty of their trademark energy and recklessness.
Formed around 2002 in the suburbs of Detroit as a five-piece, reduction and replacement has cemented their lineup as the sibling duo of singer/guitarist Ryan Allen and keyboardist/singer Scott Allen as well as drummer Matt Rickle and bassist Julian Wettlin, both of Detroit’s Javelins. This is the foursome that has toured with the likes The Hold Steady, Les Savy Fav and the Constantines across the US, Europe and Australia. The year-long thrill ride that was recording, releasing, and touring behind “Make History” recently culminated in a Midwest tour with Junior Varsity and Streets To Nowhere.
Thunderbirds Are Now! are taking a well-deserved break this summer and will only be playing a handful of dates while Rickle and Wettlin divert some attention to Javelins.
Modern Fix recently caught up with Ryan Allen as he was spending the day riding his bike to the grocery store with his fiancé to whom he is set to wed later this year.
Having never been to Detroit, all I have to go on are the stereotypes and jokes on TV. What’s it like living in Motown?
It’s awesome. People knock the city and a lot of bands don’t come here, but it’s a great place to live. The rent’s cheap and there’s good food and bars and my family lives here. There are some extremely dilapidated areas that I would recommend steering clear of. In the past, I’ve bashed the city unnecessarily. The more and more we tour, the more I miss being here. I’ve been to every other major city and they’re all great and fine, but I never feel a need to leave Detroit. I’m always happy to return to the clutches of the bombed out shelter we call a city.
Detroit’s got a mighty heritage to live up to when it comes to music – Insane Clown Posse, Uncle Kracker, Twizted – Where do you see Thunderbirds on that Wikipedia entry? Is it a close scene musically?
I say right between Twizted and Insane Clown Posse – that would be a dream come true. It’s a weird music scene, just because… [pauses for a minute as sirens fill the air] there’s some Detroit in the background for you. It’s a weird music scene in that it’s pretty separate. The garage bands don’t always intermingle with a band like ours, but at the same time there’s respect. Even if the bands don’t play shows together, they at least respect each other for touring, releasing records and trying hard to do well by the city. There’s a band called the Hard Lessons that are a lot different musically from us, but we play with them and they’re friends of ours. The thing that ties us together is that we both are dedicated to putting on an entertaining show for people who are paying too much for tickets. It’s a working class town and you gotta approach it that way. If people work all day and want to come out to a show then you want to entertain them as much as possible.
I’ve read a lot of accolades for your live show – heavy crowd participation, improvised props… Does a lot of planning go into it or is it pretty off-the-cuff?
The only thing that’s planned is that we’re going to perform our hardest. Which doesn’t always translate into the tightest performance every time, sometimes it does. Keeping the element of surprise squarely intact is something that we try to do, whether that’s playing a weird cover, somebody climbing the rafters or getting people to yell out some strange mantra – just keeping it as unpredictable as possible. We change our set every night. I always look at it from the perspective of being an audience member and a fan of music. I still get excited to see bands even though I’ve played a million shows and seen a million shows. If I was at the show, what would I want? So we try to deliver that. I want a band that’s going to surprise me, that’s not going to play forever, and that hopefully will look like they’re enjoying themselves and won’t make me feel alienated. I have always been into the idea of an inclusionary atmosphere at a show where the audience and the band has no barrier at all, physically or metaphorically. Sometimes it’s weird for people, but I think that a 16-year-old kid who comes to our show will at least remember it. Whether they remember it because they loved it or hated it, I don’t know.
Do you guys have day jobs when not on tour? If you weren’t in a band, what would you be doing for a living?
Yeah, we all do. We all work in retail pretty much. I work at Urban Outfitters. I would never work there if I wasn’t in the band, but at the same time it’s not a bad place to work. I went to college and stuff, so it’s not like it does much for my degree, but it’s a cool place to work and the people are nice. And they let me tour.
Being on a number of “Bands to Watch” lists, do you have any bands from your personal list that you’d like to toss out there?
Last night I went to see our friends The Narrator from Chicago. They’re always awesome live. They play a sort of scrappy punk with a ‘90s kind of indie rock that I have a huge soft spot for. They played with this band Get Him Eat Him from Providence that I’d only heard a little bit of before. They were fucking awesome. Their singer’s over six feet tall and gawky, but in this charming way. The Plastic Constellations, Rahim. The entire Frenchkiss roster are all bands that I support wholeheartedly. We played with Akron/Family in Rome a couple months ago and I hadn’t heard much of them either. I consider myself pretty in the know, but for some reason they didn’t really plop down on my radar. They were one of the most free-spirited shows that I’ve ever seen. They were amazing musicians. They’re another band that I’d highly suggest that anyone go and see if they get the chance.
You obviously found a home with Frenchkiss Records. How has it been working with them?
It’s awesome. They’re a label run by a dude that’s in a band, so that’s cool and he (Syd Butler) understands the whole thing. He’s got an approach of a guy who’s toured, played a million shows and put out a ton of records. He grew up in DC at the right time when Dischord was coming together. He’s got a perspective that’s great. It was a goal of ours to get on the label and we are happy with the way things turned out. I can’t say anything negative.
Some of of the lyrical content on Make History reads as pretty cynical. Do you consider yourself a cynical person?
I think cynicism is something that unfortunately develops with age. I love music and I don’t think that I’m a negative person by any means. I’m a positive dude. I love life and have a great life and I’m thankful for that. I have awesome friends and I’m getting married in a couple months. Everything’s great. My parents are awesome and supportive of the band. I think a lot of the cynicism comes from the current state of music. I got into music after the Myspace revolution. Seeing how things were done before that, I kind of long for that sometimes. I’m sort of nostalgic for that approach of handing out mix tapes and finding out about a band that way or finding out about music by going into a record store and befriending a clerk. That approach has sort of disappeared. I understand it and as cynical as I am about it, I support it because it makes things easier to communicate and makes your band more accessible for people. It goes both ways. For as much as a cynic as I am, I’m just as much an optimist too. But for my band, I really like lyrics that reflect the tone of the song. A lot of the music is on the aggressive side. In usual day to day things, I’m not sitting around saying how pissed off I am about this, that and the other thing. I don’t want to be that way, but when you’re writing a song, you can get out the things you wouldn’t say in everyday conversation. It gives me an outlet to be able to rail against whatever shit that I think is fucked up.
How have you seen your albums evolve since “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief”?
The most obvious evolution has been in the song craft. We’re paying more attention to doing things in a pop context. Which is not to say that that’s how it will always be. When we started the band, we were just fucking around. I think that’s true for a lot of bands. You start your band and you don’t know what you want to do, so you just go with whatever instinct you have first. That’s what we did and we exhausted it. All of us are huge Beatles and Zombies and Rolling Stones fans and things that are a little more classic like Elvis Costello. I’ve always grown up with that sort of pop music, so it was more of an experiment to do something different and a bit more abstract. If you paint yourself into a corner by being a sun-shiny pop band, it’s harder for people to grasp. Some people succeed. Of Montreal is a good example of Kevin Barnes doing whatever the hell he wants to do and making crazy David Bowie/Brian Eno electronic records after having a catalog of a more Kinks/Beatles kind of thing and that’s great. I respect that. But I think generally, it’s hard to do that. I’m glad we started with an experimental approach to rock songs and from there branched off. It gives us the opportunity to do what we want. Maybe the next album is going to have more elements of that. You never know. I figure a simple explanation is that people change and their tastes and interests change. We follow our heart more than our instinct to go where success will take us. We’ve failed along the way, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve tried.
You recently completed a tour in Europe. Many American bands really enjoy playing in Europe citing attentive audiences, cultural richness and venue hospitality. What was your experience?
Touring Europe is this little adventure. For our band, we snuck in a back door and somehow ended up in Europe. We went to Australia and it’s the same feeling. You feel like you shouldn’t be there, but now that you’re there it’s a sort of giddy, exciting feeling because it’s so new. Europe is strange because the countries are so close together. One day you’ll wake up in France and the next day you’ll wake up in Austria and you’re like, how did I get here? It’s insane. People are so different from country to country sometimes. It’s kind of a mind-fuck in a way. You’re trying to keep up with the changing cultures and be respectful and not act like a douche-bag and a stupid American. But it’s fun and the people are cool and the hospitality element is insane. They don’t care how popular you are or how many records you sold. They work at a venue and when you’re an American band or a foreign band they’re going to treat you like a guest should be treated. Tons of food, tons of beer. It’s like a vacation. More promoters in the US should travel to Europe just to see how it is over there and get a better understanding of how to treat a band.
I think it’s hard in the US because there’s such a money loss in promoting a lot of the time. But I think there’s a huge level of douche-baggery with promoters in the US.
The real bummer of the situation is that there’s a real money loss when it comes to certain bands. You want to do shows with a band because you think they’re great, but it doesn’t mean everyone’s going to think they’re great. Even last night with the Narrator and Get Him Eat Him, two awesome bands and there was ten people at the show. So who’s fucking up? Is it the band, the promoter, the people? What’s wrong here? Ultimately, if you ask me, there are way too many bands in the world vying for attention. For every one band that you hear that’s great, there are 150 of them that are just complete shit. And some might say that we’re one of those bands.
Having a brother in the band, one can’t help but think you must have some sibling rivalry every now and then on tour. It’s hard enough living in a van with four dudes that you’re not related to.
We’ve gone at it a few times. Not fist fights, but we’ve had our words. It’s gotten tense, but whenever it has happened, it’s because we’re very passionate people. Our dad’s the same way. He’s very passionate and very intense sometimes. He’s got his heart on his sleave and I think Scott and I are the same way. We’ve learned to chill before we freak out on each other for the sake of our friendship and for the sake of the band. Who wants to be in a band with two brothers that fucking bicker and fight all the time? That sucks. We try to be conscious of that and not put everyone in such an awkward position. Scott and I have such a strong bond, and I’ve been in bands without him, but it’s never the same as with him. I can’t imagine doing this without him. I’m so glad that I get to do this with him. We’ve seen some of the most amazing things in the world and we’ve seen them together. I always think about when we’re older and have kids and are sitting around the table at Thanksgiving and we’ll be able to tell stories and we’ll be able to share those stories together. Which is awesome and I’m very proud of that.
What about bloggers? Ten years ago they didn’t really exist and now they’ve become tastemakers. Do you put a lot of stock into what someone says about you on their blog?
No. I really don’t. Not at all. I went to school for journalism so I always kind of approach that kind of thing with some caution. My opinion on blogs is that I don’t think they’re a good thing or a bad thing. I’m glad that they exist because they’ve turned me on to some bands that I’ve never heard before. But at the same time, they’re just kind of a bunch of nerds sitting around. There are some good blogs. I read Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan, but I mainly read them because they talk about us. Which doesn’t happen very often. They’re entertainment, just like anything else. People put a lot of stock into it, but a blog isn’t going to teach you how to be a band. I always feel bad for these bands that have never toured and get all this blog attention and think they’re going to go on tour and it’ll be so great. It’s not that easy.
Speaking of blogs, what about MP3s and file-sharing?
I don’t know. I mean, I’m broke man. If there’s a record I want and I can’t afford it, I’ll get it for free. Just because I love music I want to know it and get a piece of it. If people steal our music and they come see us play and buy a shirt or whatever – and this has happened a lot – and love it so much they want to buy it from you, then that’s awesome. I want to see people at shows. You don’t make any money from record sales anyways. I long for the days of ‘90s indie rock and getting a Guided By Voices record and being like, “This is the most fucked up artwork I’ve ever seen.” That’s important to me and I have a huge respect for that. I hope that it’s still important to people, but at the same time, I know interest in that is waning. My goal is to have people come watch us play.
Where do you see Thunderbirds Are Now! in 5 years and without getting too political, who’s the US President?
Probably not a band. [laughs] But who knows? I don’t. I would like to see us, if not a band, then a very fond memory and hopefully people will remember us as being a band that tried their hardest to do something different each time they put a record out and put on good shows. It’s a hard question to answer. I’m 27 and I don’t know how much longer I can do this for. President-wise, I have to go with my boy Barrack Obama. I wouldn’t mind Hillary Clinton. I think either of them would be a step in the right direction.
2007 Spaceland Presents: Thunderbirds Are Now! (Kafala)
2006 Make History (French Kiss)
2005 Justamustache (French Kiss)
2005 Necks (Action Driver)
2003 Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief (Action Driver)
