By Megan McClure
A year ago, Josh Grier of indie-rock band Tapes ‘n Tapes had the perfect situation.
He was able to keep his day job as a data analyst while still living out his rock and roll dreams. Then he was laid off. Now, with the freedom to tour and focus on his music, he’s still living the ‘rock and roll dream’ part. And as lead singer for the Minneapolis based four-piece, he’s currently zigzagging the U.S. in the midst of a headlining tour.
When I spoke with Grier, the band was in Beaumont, Texas getting ready to head west to Houston where they were to play a show later that night. “We’ve been gone for three weeks,” he says, noticeably tired. “We have a week and a half left, then home for a week and then back out until the end of March.”
“What’s your favorite city to play in?” I then asked – because what kind of interviewer would I be if I didn’t?
“Er, whatever city we’re playing tonight…” was Grier’s pat, yet cheeky, response. Nice work, dude. Hello Cleveland.
Speaking to him through our cells, I get the feeling Grier smiles a lot. He seems a rather jovial guy who laughs a lot, and his happy, pleasant demeanor permeated over the phone, dropping any pretense of the I’m-the-lead-singer-in-a-band-and-therefore-too-cool-for-school vibe.
But he could act the typical lead singer if he wanted to. Tapes ‘n Tapes have been in business since the early 2000s and, as of this past January, with the release of their latest, Outside, the band has three full length albums and one EP on their resume. Their sound is catchy; perhaps best described as a good time indie, a departure from so many moden bands slowly moving from the blogs to the charts. The typical Tapes ‘n’ Tapes listen could go as so: Your toe starts tapping, your hips start shaking and, next think you know, you’re bouncing around the Living Room.
At least I was.
This is the infectious effect that Tapes ‘n Tapes’ sound has – peppy party anthems that make you shake your groove thang in a still very cool, very rock and roll sort of way.
The band got together in its most primitive form back in 2003 when Grier reached out to current keyboardist Matt Kretzmann and another friend. “I convinced them to start a band with me,” he says. They released their first EP, which they recorded all on their own and is since long out of print. On their journey to record their follow-up, 2006’s The Loon, Tapes ‘n Tapes saw some restructuring. The original bass player split for Grad school and Kretzmann went, well, somewhere else for a little while. “He was involved with the songwriting for The Loon, but then he took off for a year while we recorded it,” Grier says with a laugh though still laced with uncertainty as to Kretzmann’s whereabouts during his brief hiatus.
Nevermind the band’s need for a new collaborator and keyboardist, Tapes ‘n Tapes was also in need of a bass player. Erik Appelwick easily stepped into the role. Having done the production and recording of The Loon, Grier says, “Erik knew all the parts so it was easy for him to step in when our original bass player stepped out.” Kretzmann returned after the release of The Loon, and Jeremy Hanson stepped in on percussion, rounding out the “roundabout way” in which Grier says the current incarnation of Tapes ‘n Tapes got together.
Walk it Off, their second release, had a more polished sound. It’s still Tapes ‘n Tapes, but a little shinier, due in large part to the fact that the band was privileged enough to work with their dream producer and former Mercury Rev bassist, Dave Fridmann. Fridmann’s past credits include Sleater-Kinney, OK Go, MGMT and the Flaming Lips, to name a few. The album’s slightly fresher sound was also due to Tapes ‘n Tapes having been on tour in support of The Loon and the life experiences that come with traveling the world. Walk it Off debuted in April 2008 and a day later, the band played on Conan O’Brien.
Having both Conan and David Letterman under their belt at this point, I asked Grier, Letterman or Team Coco? “Letterman was very surreal because he was someone I watched growing up, but I’d have to say I’m more of Coco fan.”
Tapes ‘n Tapes also has South by Southwest (SXSW), Lollapalooza and Coachella behind them, having played the latter two only once each but having hit the Austin festival many, many times. Like Letterman, Lollapalooza was surreal because the band grew up hearing about the famous alternative rock festival, but Grier picks Coachella as his fave. The band never got the opportunity to meet Lollapalooza founder and Jane’s Addiction frontman, Perry Farrell at the festival of his own making but, ironically enough, Grier recalls the awe of watching Farrell rock out during Rage Against the Machine’s set at Coachella, relaying the story, once again, with that infectiously jovial laugh of his.
In a pop culture society that feels compelled to label everything and compare everyone to someone else, Tapes ‘n Tapes has, unfortunately, not gotten by unscathed. They have been compared to many, but mostly, press seems to hone in on comparisons to the Pixies and the Violent Femmes. Grier seems unphased and says the band takes a go with the flow attitude. “We’re compared to a lot of bands I’ve never even listened to,” he says, “You kind of have to just roll with the punches.”
Most recently, Tapes ‘n Tapes has been compared to North Carolina 90s band Archers of Loaf. Like Tapes ‘n Tapes, Archers of Loaf was a four piece under the heading of indie-rock and noise pop. Tapes ‘n Tapes’ trajectory seems similar to Archers of Loaf, but beyond that, the similarities end. Archers of Loaf is drippy and Southern twangy whereas Tapes ‘n Tapes is cleaner, perhaps more straightforward.
Grier also recalls one guy who wrote an article on the band comparing Tapes ‘n Tapes to Ween. The article’s author finally revealed his own fandom for Ween and likely found some way to weave them into anything he wrote. Grier said he never really listened to either Ween or Archers of Loaf.
When conjuring his own influences, which derive from the sounds of his youth, Grier says, “I go to the music that was the groundwork of my musical upbringing.” He tends to travel back in time to the days when his parents would play mix tapes featuring the likes of Buddy Holly and the Beatles. His grandmother listened to Classical. His dad loved old school Motown.
When asked who he wishes he could collaborate with, and it could be anyone – alive or dead – Grier replies with, “That’s a really big question.” After mulling it over for a bit, he finally settles on George Harrison, his favorite Beatle. As far as one song that stands out most prominent as one he wishes he could take credit for, there’s another pregnant pause as he contemplates this other big question. “Okay, here’s an easy one: Purple Rain.”
Giving a shout-out to his fellow Minneapolis native, he says, “It’s epic and amazing and so simple. It’s so Prince. Anyone who can do something that is so their own thing is pretty amazing.” He even started to go as far as to label Purple Rain, the movie, as epic but hesitated. “The sequel, Graffiti Bridge, however,” he says, “was not epic.”
For Tapes ‘n Tapes, touring is also not something Grier would label as epic. When a band tours, the stories they come back with can be the stuff of legend. But what happens when a band returns home? Grier says he has a harder time going from the day to day of reality to the grueling schedule of touring. A self-proclaimed homebody, Grier says doing all the homestead stuff is something he’s more used to, “Then, suddenly, I’m waking up in a different city every day, I have to check for bed bugs…Touring is fun,” he says, “but it’s less than a normal life.”
When Tapes ‘n Tapes first started touring, they were in their early to mid-twenties. A product of both youth and being green to the experience, there was a lure and newness to it. Now, a little older and Grier hopes a little wiser, he says, “It’s ‘get some sleep and don’t wear your body down.'”
“So many times we’ve played some really great towns,” Grier says, although, they sometimes don’t get to see very much of it. They spend most of their time at the venue they’re playing, getting there at two or three in the afternoon, setting up, soundchecking, playing the show and leaving again for the next town and the next show. Grier says the band’s relegated to seeing whatever’s within a ten block walking radius of wherever they’re playing. Luckily, however, Grier has a memory like a steel trap and can eliminate the searching for sweet spots in a certain city by referring to his photographic memory. He’ll remember minute details of a city they played four years ago, such as a tiny coffeeshop on a certain street corner in some random city. It totally freaks his bandmates out. “They’re like, how do you possibly remember all that? It’s the way my mind works, I guess.”
Tapes ‘n Tapes released their most recent record, Outside, in January 2011. All the work was done in Minneapolis. After recording they released it on their own, as they’d done with The Loon. The sound on Outside is very much of a band growing into who they are and a perfect progression in their catalog. The sound is even more straightforward than on The Loon and Walk it Off, but not at all in a bad way. They achieve that straightforwardness in a no-bullshit, straight to the point kind of way, leaving you with twelve tracks of pure enjoyment. The catchy melodies, the infectious, toe tapping grooves – they’re all there and they’re even better than the first go-arounds, which are already really good.
With the release of Outside, Grier says the new songs are always the most fun to play. He doesn’t discount playing any of their old songs, by any means, and says there’s still a freshness to playing them, as well. And that’s something that’s important to the whole overarching goal of the band: Enjoyment.
“There are definitely bands out there who have world domination as a goal,” he says, “but that’s a waste of energy in my mind.” He realizes how hokey and trite it sounds to say that he’d be happy just being able to play his music as an ultimate goal, but clich�s are clich�s for a reason, right? He looks for the milestones like building one great collection of songs after another. “As long as people like my music, and it’s something I can feel proud of, I’m happy.”
After the tour ends in March, the band isn’t sure which direction they’re headed in next. They already have enough material written to go into the studio and may go that route, or they may go out on tour some more. They’re taking each step one at a time, because they can. “We’ll see when we get there,” Grier says.
