Interview by Monica Lyons and John Kritzman / photo by Kritzman. Also check out their show review here!
Monica and I managed to catch up with Nick Reinhart from Tera Melos this past weekend as the band made their way through Danbury in the middle of a month long road stand across the US. The band is fresh off of the release of their latest EP,
Zoo Weather, which came out Feburary 22nd, and their full length,
Patagonian Rats which came out at the end of summer last year.
Monica: So you guys just released an EP, can you give us a little background and how it turned out?
Nick: The EP is three songs that didn't make it onto our album [
Patagonian Rats]. Actually, they’re on the vinyl LP, the side D. We feel like they didn't actually belong on the record. We had initially planned to release an EP prior to the full length but it just didn't work out, so we decided to release it afterward. We were gonna do it as a digital release only but then we're like 'oh well a tape will be cool, to have a physical item, and we can sell it for pretty cheap too.' It's kinda like a neat little souvenir, I don't know how many people still listen to tapes, but it's kind of a cool thing. So, it's three songs that didn't make it onto the album and three remixes of one of the songs on the album, and we're really happy with it. It would actually be pretty cool to melt it into like a little sculpture.
M: It's funny how tapes are coming back.
N: Yeah they are, a lot of people are doing that these days. The coolest thing about it is that they're cheap to manufacture and you can just throw a download card with it. So instead of just selling a download card, you're selling a physical cool little piece of art. Actually I think melting down is really cool. I'd be interested in doing that, maybe I'll do that tonight with a lighter or something.
M: So you're on tour with Marnie Stern, how's that been going?
N: It's really good, I think our bands match really well together. We met her a few years ago at SXSW and we had always talked about playing together but our schedules didn't line up properly, so this finally got put together a few months ago and were really excited to do it with her. I feel like there’s a big crossover between both our bands as far as fan base goes, and the people who haven’t heard of her that are into our band, and vice-versa, are really stoked on the bands. In fact, the other night some kids had never heard of Marnie Stern and I was like 'dude stick around and watch her, you’re gonna like her,' and they ended up staying and really really liked it. I think it's really appropriate and we're having a really good time.
John: It's good to see you guys finally got out your first full length album, how do you feel it came out?
N: I think what we just did with
Patagonian Rats is what we've been trying to do since the beginning of our band, but it takes a long time to get good. Maybe we didn't know what we were trying to get good at or it wasn't in front of our faces. I think we finally got good at what we were trying to achieve. Now it's the question of, well we can keep progressing with that or we can just flip it and do any of these different ideas because our band will always progress and do new things that interest us. I'm not really sure what the next step will be but for all I know it'll be just going further down the middle of Patagonian Rats, however that could be classified, making more like weirdo pop songs that are freaked out. Again, it can go in any direction, I'm not really sure what.
J: So it seems like you guys finally found your sound instead of jumping from sound to sound like you did in the first few EP's.
N: I agree, just like anything it takes hours. Have you heard of that Malcolm Gladwell book? It's about what it takes to be truly great at something. I can't quote it exactly but he hypothesizes that it takes something like 10,000 hours of practice to be truly great at what you're trying to accomplish. This is what related to me about the book, that before The Beatles had ever recorded a note or made an album, a lot of people didn't realize that they had already been playing and performing in German Strip clubs and all this stuff, and they had completed their 10,000 hours, or at least more than broken. He scientifically breaks it down with basketball players and scientists and other stuff, where it's like to get truly awesome at your goal, you got to put in your 10,000 hours otherwise it's just practice. I kinda feel like we can relate to that thought.
J: You guys writing more any time soon?
N: I started toying around with new ideas before we left, demoing some songs. But, I'm not really sure what we really wanna do next in terms of doing an EP, a full length, a split or anything, not only that but what sort of vibe we want to give our next collection of songs. There’s a lot of ideas we have, where as
Patagonian Rats was our last record and was sort of neutral or right in the middle of the spectrum of our band. Part of me really wants to go more in that direction of songs like
Frozen Zoo and
Manar the Magic and kinda break it down, even more but keep it tweaked and weird, but then the other half of me and the band were really interested in going even further in the opposite direction of less accessible more fucked up and strange and faster, with thousands and thousands of notes and stuff. I don't really know what we'll do, but it kind of seems neat to do a really, really aggressive record, and then do a really like, not minimal album, but maybe more sample based, but still really out there. It's hard to describe. I guess I couldn’t even really articulate it with words until it was done.
