Hot Freaks; An Interview With Thunderbirds Are Now!

Ryan Allen is aware of the epidemic. He knows about the 80s fetish, the bands filled with bright colors, quirk and keyboards. He's seen the screaming boys slam tambourines against their thighs, spun in the sugar of indecipherable lyrics. Ryan Allen knows the epidemic because he lives it; as singer/guitarist responsible in part for the post-punk quirk that is Thunderbirds Are Now!, he understands the stigma.

But Allen isn't a revivalist or another cookie-cut part of the problem. Neither are his band mates. Despite the trumped-up synths and stage sass, they're just a bunch of guys with a taste for the dissonant who've learned not to take themselves so seriously. They may embrace the egotistical, but they've got the talent to pull it off. And Allen, though fully aware of a normal musician's vanity, is almost completely humble -- even self-deprecating. He knows how to work that stigma.

And he's funny. Really.

Interview conducted via e-mail by Mollie Wells.

Names: Ryan Allen
Band: Thunderbirds Are Now!

BW: How did TAN! start? How long have you guys been together?

RA: Well, Mike and Marty, the bassist and drummer, played together in a few bands before this one. They were kind of emo or like Tool or something, I don't know, I wasn't really involved. Then I changed my mind. Not about Tool but about playing with them. So it was sort of this non-serious thing at the start. Then I started writing songs, and we got a bit more fucked up and then asked Scott to play keyboards. Then the other band (The Red Shirt
Brigade, which Scott was in too) broke up, so we had more time to focus on TAN! Then we had a gay orgy together. And now we rule.

BW: TAN! Is kind of a departure from The Red Shirt Brigade. Was that completely intentional, or did it just kind of work out that way?

RA: In RSB the only input I had one the songs was from behind a drum set. And in TAN! I, more or less.well, I won't say I come up with the songs. But I don' know, since I play guitar, a lot of the ideas come from me. And it's just influenced by different bands and stuff. Scott has more room to do weird stuff, and he's got a sampler now. That has made a big impact.

BW: So TAN! Ended up being a bit more of your vision than The Red Shirt Brigade was.

RA: Yeah, in a way I guess so. RSB was really democratic, though, and so is TAN! In that respect, they're coming from the same place, song-writing wise. It's just that different people with different styles and musical tastes are generating the embryonic stages of the material. And also, I'm short. Trevor from RSB was tall. So more of my ideas come from the ground. His came from
the sky.

BW: Well, that makes perfect sense.

RA: I'm a bit more devilish if you get my drift.

BW: Had you worked with any labels prior to Action Driver?

RA: We put out an EP on a label from Michigan called Acutest, just kind of a one-off thing. It was offered, and we decided to do it. Emo kids like that label, so we thought we'd infiltrate their minds with DANCE PUNK!

BW: It seems that a lot of people have a hard time categorizing TAN! You often get lumped in with hardcore, do you think TAN! has a place within that scene?

RA: Yeah, we're all straightedge moshers. It seems to work out pretty well. We all like to just get in the pit and kick some ass. Actually, I don't think we really have much in common with hardcore, at least not in the way that I understand hardcore. Which is like a bunch of fucking dumb-ass meatheads pushing each other around. But if you're talking, like, hardcore in the Fugazi sense, maybe we have a little in common with that. I don't know if you're talking aesthetically or sound-wise. If you're talking sound-wise, hardcore is the furthest thing from my mind when writing a song for TAN!

BW: Well, hardcore's scope has broadened a bit. The Blood Brothers are sometimes thrown into that category too.

RA: I can't stand the Blood Brothers, for the record.

BW: Aesthetically, there are some similarities. Mostly in the way TAN! is able to get a crowd moving.

RA: Yeah. I mean, we're all about unity and stuff like that, and I think that in the hardcore scene, that stuff is encouraged. I just like it when it's not so extreme or violent. I'm a dancer and lover, baby, not a mosher and a crusher. I'd say that same goes for everybody in the band. Except Marty. He might want to crush people sometimes, he's the Punisher.

BW: Speaking of wanting to crush people, you guys were kind of picked on in a Pitchfork review.

RA: Yeah, yeah. It's funny though, because I agreed with some of it. I think we all did. I mean, I would never call us math rock.

BW: That review pigeonholed you as a kind of dumbed-down, tongue-in-cheek dance outfit. How do you feel about that?

RA: Um.

BW: I mean, your songs do have a tongue-in-cheek nature to them.

RA: Well, we kind of ride a fine line between not taking ourselves very seriously and taking ourselves very seriously. We're serious about being funny and funny about being serious, I guess. I think it's changing, though. Our newer stuff is a bit longer and maybe just more, I don't know, focused. But when we were writing for the last album we definitely let things stay in there because we thought they were funny. Plus, the song titles are totally not serious at all. I think that bands who take themselves too seriously totally ruin what's fun about music. I mean, being a musician is totally vain in a way. Like, if you play shows or do interviews.I mean, there's vanity involved. And it's kind of silly, really, when it comes down to it.

BW: So the tongue-in-cheek thing is a almost a way of keeping the vanity at an arm's length?

RA: Yes, but at the same time it brings on more vanity. I mean, we're total idiots when it comes down to it.

BW: You mentioned your song titles. Does the lyrical content of the songs directly relate to the titles?

RA: Not, not at all, usually. That one is pretty much related. It's about masturbating to internet porn when your parents aren't home. Which I'm embarrassed to say, because I think we're moving away from that stuff. But also, it's the truth. The lyrics really never mean much, and the song titles are just things we thought were funny. Marty is the mastermind behind most of the song titles.

BW: Do you think that inherent sense of humor is what makes TAN! appealing to younger audiences?

RA: Yeah, I totally do. Or, at least, I think it's part of it. Like, most bands tend to stand there and say really retarded shit between songs. We tend to just, you know, talk about stuff people think about all the time, you know? Like movies or something. Like Top Gun. I don't know, it's not planned. I like that. Some bands seem to have a rehearsed way of talking to their audience, and it seems like they are talking down to them. And then other bands are great at between-song banter, like the Unicorns or Les Savy Fav. It's a show, the whole thing is that the before and after song part is almost as fun as when they are playing the song itself. We try to exist along those lines.

BW: How do you guys generally go about writing songs? Is there a specific pattern, or is it completely random?

RA: Well really, there's only a few ways to write a song, you know? Usually what happens is that I come in with a few parts thrown together, but not always. A few songs have come from bass lines. A few have started on guitar with a lot of guitar playing, but I've edited parts out and let the keyboards take over. We're not totally into jamming. I mean, we start with something solid, mostly.

As far as the patterns, it's verse-chorus-verse stuff most of the time. The last few songs have ended with completely new parts. One of our new songs barely fluctuates between two notes. But it's still looked at as I'm writing pop songs. Then the rest of the guys fuck them up. Sometimes they retain a conventional pattern, sometimes they don't, but they almost always kick tons of ass.

BW: Do you prefer songs with a conventional pattern or ones that are a bit more experimental?

RA: When I'm listening to music, I listen to pop music more or less. The bands I really like, like the Zombies or Elvis Costello, I think even in a pop context, they had a lot of weird shit going on. So I think we approach it a similar way. Sometimes remaining a little more conventional, sometimes straying outside the lines a tad.

BW: Do you find any influence in more recent stuff, work done by your peers?

RA: Contemporary stuff has influenced us, for sure. I would say we're lucky enough to be friends with people who are our influences, which in turn influences us more. Like, Les Savy Fav is a huge contemporary influence. But then it's cool, because a lot of stuff that has influenced them -- like the Clash and Gang of Four and Monorchild and the Pixies and Brainiac and shit -- those are our influences as well.

BW: Do you hope to provide that sort of influence for another band someday?

RA: I think it would be pretty cocky to say yes to that, but I guess that's kind of imbedded in being in a band. That maybe one day you'll impact somebody strongly enough that they'll want to start a band. If some kid bought a Les Savy Fav or Brainiac record because they heard we like them, well, our job is complete.

BW: Right, that's kind of the DIY ethic at work there. Do you guys embrace that?

RA: We embrace it for sure, and I think we are a perfect example of it. We book our own shows locally, and our friend Steve does out of state. We're on a smaller indie label. We help our friends out when we can, and they in turn help us out. We do our own design work and run our own website. So yeah, we totally support that aesthetic.

BW: But if a major label were to grab you up, would you do it?

RA: Oh yeah. We'd totally sign to a major in a heartbeat. Well, not in a heartbeat, but we wouldn't scoff at it. There's a lot of successful bands on majors. And even though times have changed, Talking Heads, Television, Devo, Blondie.all those bands started out on majors more or less. And today you have Stereolab, Built to Spill, the Flaming Lips. So if we could get what we wanted out of it, yeah. I mean, the Rapture and Mars Volta records were both released on majors, so it can be done. You just have to be really careful, I guess. Or dudes with ponytails and shitty silk shirts will eat you alive and tell you that your songs need to be longer and you can't sing like a retarded banshee anymore.

BW: Major-label aspirations aside, what are TAN!'s more immediate goals?

RA: Basically to keep writing new songs that we can eventually call an album. Play great shows and keep people entertained. Possibly get Detroit to dance. And score all the best coke and pussy this side of the Mississippi.

BW: Any touring plans?

RA: We don't really have any tour plans right now. We're kinda bogged down by jobs and school. But we're working on a new record. Basically, we're just writing songs, playing shows, hoping that maybe something good comes along. It kind of sucks, because we can't sacrifice a lot right now to totally go and do it or whatever. But it's alright. We've got time.