HARD ROCK INTERVIEWS 2013 - TEENAGE CASKET COMPANY INTERVIEW 2013
TEENAGE CASKET COMPANY - ROB WYLDE AND ROB LANE TALK TO THE ROCKPIT ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM 'STILL STANDING', MUSIC, AND THE MEANING OF LIFE... |
|---|
.jpg) |
TEENAGE CASKET COMPANY have it all: the songs, the hooks, the attitude. After a break of almost eight years they return with their most complete album to date. It should be the one to make them household names. |
|
|---|---|
Hi Mates, how’s things back home?
Wylde: Wet, cold, miserable, the usual haha!
I think I first heard of TCC back in 2009 when Rob (Lane) sent me a few releases from TRASHPIT records. I loved The Erotics but he also sent me your debut ‘Dial It Up’ from 2005 which I was blown away by and we’ve been in touch ever since. He didn’t even send me ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ but I soon tracked it down! There are some amazing songs on there. Why weren’t you immediately a household name?
Wylde: We've been asking the same question for the last ten years! It really all comes down to money. If you have enough money, you can take a tone deaf singer, put him in a studio and make him sound amazing. Then if you have enough money to market that tone deaf singer enough he will become a star no matter whether he has any talent or not. It happens a lot over here in the UK unfortunately. To be able to get ahead of the game and get exposure, you need money simple as that. It's not right, or how it should be but that's the reality unfortunately. Without that, no matter how good your band is, you will always end up flying under the radar as we have. Money Talks, bullshit walks.
Laney: I think we achieved a heck of a lot back then and I guess you could say we totally earned our stripes. We took the old fashioned route by getting the word out there by doing great live shows and writing great songs. We still stick solidly by our phrase ‘A Honest Band makes it’s own friends’ – we’ve just gone out there and done our own thing and when people like yourself ‘get it’… they’re hopefully on board for the long run! I’m not gonna deny though that it would be great to have the financial backing to push through the illusive glass ceiling!
In 2011 you put out ‘Best Kept Secret’ that collected the best of those two releases and included a new song ‘Best Friend Is My Radio’ which you have on your new album.
Wylde: The reason we included ‘Best Friend Is My Radio’ is because when it was released we only did a small run of physical copies. It's a real live favourite nowadays so we just wanted to give it the exposure it deserves. We also included the single ‘Without You’ on the new album too, as that wasn't released at all on physical CD, just via download.
Laney: How many bands get to release a ‘Best Of’ after just one album and an EP?! It’s kinda nuts, some may say a little self indulgent, but that collection TOTALLY holds up! I was touring as bass player for The BulletBoys in the US during the spring of 2009 when I met with the head of their label at the time who wanted to re-issue the first two TCC CDs. I was totally flattered but as they were a couple of years old I felt it was treading over old ground so I suggested mixing up the best songs to make a whole new album. We added ‘Best Friend Is My Radio’, got all the tunes re-mastered and got our good friend Derric Miller from Hardrock Haven to do us a cool write up for the booklet. I think it all turned out great.
‘Still Standing’ is your best yet, there’s a definite sense of progression but somehow the sound is more complete than on previous releases, with the exception of ‘Best Friend…’ is it all relatively new material or a collection of songs from the years between the gap between ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ and now?
Wylde: ‘Best Friend Is My Radio’ was written and released at the end of 2009 but all the other songs on the album were written over the past two years right up until the album was pretty much done, so no leftovers.
Laney: It was a really cool way to go about things. Wylde would literally send over a new song, we’d jam it out over one or two rehearsals and then just go in and record that one song from start to finish. I remember Van Halen did a similar thing on their ‘F.U.C.K’ album. The songs sound fresh and it’s exciting to hear how they grow and take shape in the studio.
|
|
 |
|
Why such a long gap between releases?
Wylde: We released ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ in 2006 and just went crazy on the touring side of things. We played nearly 150 shows in 2006 and that was without a label, management or even a road crew! Everything we made happen, we made happen ourselves. The band became a 24/7 job and it came before everything in our lives, girlfriends, jobs, bills, you name it and we kinda just ran ourselves into the ground then eventually just hit a brick wall. We finished up a UK tour in November 2007 and had no idea where to go next. We'd exhausted the touring thing and didn't have the money to record the next release so we just went on hiatus. Rather than breaking up the band, which seemed to be on the cards at the time, we just decided to all go and do our own things for a while. This led to us taking the whole of 2008 off. Laney, Spike and Jamie began playing in various other bands and I moved to the States to form Sins of America. In 2009 we regrouped for a small tour which went well. We then played a handful more shows in the UK and that's when things really started to boil over between me and Jamie. Tensions had been riding high for a while leading up to those shows and the whole thing just exploded during that time. I could go into the gory details, but I won't. Let's just say that things didn't work out and Jamie left in 2009. A couple of months later we released the ‘Best Friend Is My Radio’ single and played a few shows as a three piece before I returned to the States. Things didn't work out for me there so I returned to the UK for good in late 2010 and that's when we started to pick up the pieces and do TCC full time again. Although we weren't as busy as we were earlier on in our career, we still stayed pretty active and toured in both 2011 and 2012, releasing the ‘Without You’ single and video along the way. I then started writing songs for what would become this album.
Still Standing has some interesting moments lyrically - from heartbreak (‘Without You’ and ‘Make It through the Night’) to defiance (‘Still Standing’ and ‘First Night of Your Life’). Is writing lyrics a particularly personal thing for you?
Wylde: Very much so. All my lyrics come from personal experiences, good or bad. Always have. I was a big fan of Duran Duran when I was growing up but if you look at their lyrics, they are literally just words that rhyme and don't really make sense. A lot of bands write like that, not me. Every song that I've ever written was written about something I had or was going through at the time. I find writing lyrics very therapeutic to be honest.
Laney: I’m not a massive lyric guy, never have been. You hear a lot of people talk about how they love a song because of what the person sings about and the tune is almost irrelevant. I can understand that, but for me it’s all about the melody. I think the only people I pay attention to what they’re singing about are probably Butch Walker, Jaret from Bowling for Soup and Wylde… they make the subjects so obvious and interesting in their storytelling but also bolt it to a great melody so it’s a win all the way.
Can you shed some light on the lyrics to ‘Dead in America’?
Wylde: In late 2007 I moved out to the States as nothing was really happening here in the UK. I got married, formed a band and got to live out an almost fairy tale - like American dream for a while. Needless to say, the honeymoon didn't last. My ex wife filed for divorce, making me lose my American Visa in the process and was left with no other option but to return to the UK. I literally lost everything through no fault of my own and returned to Heathrow with just one suitcase and a guitar. I literally had no other possessions in the world, lost them all. Not only did I have to deal with the agony and heartbreak of losing my wife and going through a hellish divorce, but I also had to deal with saying goodbye to all my friends, my band, my job, the lifestyle I loved so much, and my entire life that I'd built up in America, whilst she came away clean as a whistle. I had no money and nowhere to go so I had to return home to my parents house fourteen years after leaving home, and try to attempt to rebuild my life somehow. It was the toughest thing I've ever been through, but in the midst of it I would write a song every now and then, ‘Dead in America’ was one of them. Musically the song had been kicking around for a while, as had the title, but once I was back home I got to work writing the lyrics which are all directly related to my ‘American adventure’. It's probably the angriest song I've ever written which is unlike me really, but sometimes things just need to be said and put straight. My ex wide also makes an appearance after the solo for good measure.
I’m a big Butch Walker fan – but why cover ‘Girl’ in particular?
Wylde: In early 2007 (before I was living in America) I went out there to play some solo acoustic shows. Whilst I was there I got a random email from Erik Turner who said he'd got our ‘Dial It Up’ album and really liked it. I was blown away as I'm a huge Warrant fan. I emailed back to say thanks and we emailed back and forth for a while. He asked what we were up to and I told him that we planned on recording a new album later that year (which didn't end up happening at the time). He seemed really interested in getting involved with us somehow and told me that he had a few songs that he'd like to send me, so he emailed me over about five songs. Although all the songs were good, I didn't personally think they fitted all that well with what we were doing and that's when I thought of the song ‘Girl’. Erik released a CD in 2007 called ‘Demos for Diehards’. As a Warrant fan I bought it back then and remembered really liking that song. I got to hang out with Erik a few times and asked him about it. He told me it was a song that he'd written with Butch Walker around 92/93 and said we were more than welcome to use it. I sent it to the other guys in TCC and they liked it, as it kinda had a TCC vibe anyway. In the end the song, and the proposed album got shelved and it was only when we were halfway through recording ‘Still Standing’ that I thought about it again and put it to the band that we should include it on the album. We figured having two big names like theirs on our album couldn't do us any harm.
You also re work one of my favourite songs ‘Believe in you’. Why take that song forward rather than some of your other great songs from ‘Dial it Up’ and “Eat Your Heart Out’?
Wylde: That came about as a fluke really. I was playing bass in the band Vega for a while a couple of years ago and we were in Sweden when the idea hit me. We were all in a hotel bar waiting to get picked up to go to the show and their keyboard player James Martin found an old piano in the corner of the room. The place was empty, so he walked over, sat down and started playing all those great piano ballad's like ‘Alone’ by Heart, ‘Right Here Waiting’ by Richard Marx and ‘I Saw Red’ by Warrant. Then out of nowhere he started playing ‘Believe in you’. I almost didn't recognize it at first, but it just sounded amazing being played on piano, and that's when the idea hit me to re record it that way. I'd just bought the last Trixter album around the same time and really liked their reworked bonus track version of ‘Heart of Steel’ on there, so the idea was a combination of the two. Although there were a lot of keyboards on the original version of ‘Believe in you’, there was no piano and stripping it down to just the piano and vocal seemed to take the song to a whole other level and really got the sentiment across even more. I think it came out great.
|
|
.jpg) |
|
‘Takes a Little Time’ is one of our favourites – eighties essence brought up to date how do you manage to write songs that addictive?
Wylde: It's just something that comes naturally to me really. But a lot of it has to do with the bands and songwriters I grew up on, like Desmond Child, Diane Warren and bands like Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, KISS and Danger Danger. All those artists wrote amazing melodies and hooks, and all those influences just come out when I write. Unless a song has a great melody and hook, I'm not interested really and I think it's become more and more a dying art these days for most bands which is sad.
Laney: Probably my favourite song on the album both from a song writing point of view and how it turned out sonically. It sounds great. When I heard the demo I liked the acoustic format and didn’t see it changing that much but Wylde wanted it to be a full on rock tune which I didn’t think would totally work. How wrong was I? I love it and see it becoming a live favourite.
As the main TCC song-writer how do you approach writing a song? Sat down with an acoustic? Lyrics first? Or does it change?
Wylde: I write everything on an acoustic guitar, always have. I always like to think that writing that way is a good way to gauge how good your song is. Anyone can hide behind an amazing production but if the song isn't there, nothing can cover that up. I think if a song can hold it's own with just one guy and an acoustic guitar, then you're on to a winner. The music always comes first when I write and that will usually just come from a nice chord progression. That in turn, will spark a melody in my head and it goes from there really. The mood of the music will then dictate what I'm gonna write about. For example, when I wrote the music to ‘Dead in America’, I obviously wasn't going to write ‘I love you’ style lyrics. It's an aggressive song, so the lyrics follow that path. I've literally written the same way since I started writing songs when I was eleven years old.
Laney: Wylde makes it so easy. He’ll email over the roughest sounding demo but the songs totally shine through, it really is that instant. We just learn the basic chords and structure and we’re away. After a couple of run throughs we can see just where the song is headed.
Where does that knack of writing a hook as big as a mountain come from? So few can do that?
Wylde: Thankyou! Erm, like I said earlier it's just something that comes natural to me. It's the only way I know how to write really. If I wrote something that wasn't melodic and hooky, then I wouldn't be into it and certainly wouldn't share it. To me music is all about great melodies, simple as that. But I guess you could say I learned from the best, and had the best teachers in the world. From being really young it was always great melodies that moved me and made me take notice.
Do you write constantly, and if so how much potential TCC new music is there waiting?
Wylde: Yeah I write all the time. Have tons of tons of tapes full of songs from over the years, so it's never a problem. This album took so long to record and release that I have more than enough material for the next TCC release will I'm sure will see the light of day next year. Now we're on a roll and back, we just want to keep the machine moving forward.
The only chance I’ve ever had to see you live (So far) was supporting our mate Mike Tramp (ex-White Lion) at the Diamond in Sutton-In-Ashfield, where you and Laney played an acoustic show. Lots of questions there – first of all it’s a great club putting on a lot of great music? Secondly how did that gig come about? And were you all White Lion Fans back in the day?
Wylde: Laney and I have been going out playing a lot of acoustic shows over the past couple of years opening for bands like Enuff Z’Nuff, the guys from Thunder and also Dan Reed. We opened for Mike Tramp at the same club back in November of last year and went down so well, we were asked back to play with him again in May and are now almost becoming the resident opening band at The Diamond, having played there eight times this year already! Zoe, Gary and Dan down there are awesome and true music fans who run that club with the upmost respect to the bands and fans. We love it there and just opened up for TUFF at a recent show there.
Laney: The first show we did with Mike ranked as my favourite show of last year. We were really blown away. We didn’t really have any expectations of what to expect and his vibe, aura and presence was just mind blowing. Everyone in that room was floored. It was the perfect combination of music and storytelling. I felt humbled to be there, it was amazing!
|
|
.jpg) |
|
You debuted a new song from the album in stripped back form that night – ‘(You Only Love Me) When You Hate Me’ - amazing is all I can say, it sounded like an instant hit and you’ve chosen it as the lead track – when is the video ready?
Wylde: Yeah that was one of those songs that I just knew had ‘hit’ written all over it when I wrote it, in a similar way to how I felt after I wrote ‘Don't Look At Me Like That’ back in early 2006. It was actually tough to pick the single though as there are so many contenders on the album but in the end, it came down to ‘When You Hate Me’ and ‘Takes A Little Time’, both of which are super poppy, hooky and commercial but we felt that the ‘Na na na's’ just kinda sold it really. It's the type of song that you hear once and it's forever stuck in your head so it makes the perfect single choice. We have a few ideas for the video, but we won't be getting down to work on it until probably after Christmas. Hopefully we'll have it out early next year if all goes to plan.
Laney: It’s a Wylde Classic for sure and has radio hit written all over it. I don’t care what kind of music you’re into there aren’t many hooks as big as the one in this song. We’re toying with the idea of getting a couple of remixes done before the video just to see if there’s any other hidden magic in there but it’s all about the song and can’t wait to hear people singing along live.
When are you playing live next and what songs from the new album are going to make it into the set-list?
Wylde: We’ve done couple of acoustic shows in London and Nottingham with Johnny Lima, who was actually going to mix ‘Still Standing’ at one point, then we have a couple of shows lined up in December in Sheffield and Nottingham. We'll take Christmas off, then start hitting it again early next year. In an ideal world, we'd like to somehow get ourselves on a nice support tour. That's what we need really. As for the set, at the minute we're playing eight songs from "Still Standing" but we have to alternate those most of the time, depending on whether we are headlining, opening or playing acoustically then we add a few old favourites as well but the majority of the set is the new album.
Laney: We’re getting to a point where we have a huge back catalogue of tunes to choose from. People seem to have all kinds of favourites. We still get requests to play songs like ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Bad Girl’ from the first CD! The fact people know us and like us for the tunes is one of the best compliments we can be given.
You’re also a member of the current Tigertailz line-up with Australia’s own Jules Millis on vocals – we’re you a fan back in the day? I remember seeing Pepsi and co back at Rock City many times in the late eighties?
Wylde: I was a huge fan of Tigertailz back in the day and had posters of them all over my wall. That's why it was such a big deal to me and Jules to be asked to join. I mean, how many people can actually say that they ended up playing in one of their favourite bands? It really was a dream come true for both of us and I was stoked to hear that Jules was singing as we'd been online friends for years and years going right back to the MySpace days. We're having a lot of fun doing it, that's for sure!
We caught up with Jay a couple of years ago for our Christmas interview what’s the new material sounding like?
Wylde: The new material is back to the classic ‘Bezerk’ style which I think is what the fans want to hear. Tailz always had a few strings to their bow, whether it was the poppy, commercial Glam stuff, or the heavy side, right down to their ballads and the five songs on the new EP cover all grounds. The reviews have been great so far, most of them saying that this is the best release since ‘Bezerk’ back in 1990 and I have to agree. I think it's what Tailz fans have been waiting for a long time. I also managed to get one of my songs ‘Bite the Hand’ on the CD, so I'm really happy about that too.
Tell us about the cover band you have with Laney?
Wylde: Whilst I was living in the States, Sins of America would regularly end up playing with tribute bands and I remember at the end of one show, I was waiting in the office with a guy from a Motley tribute band that had also played that night, waiting to get paid. We both played hour long sets and we got something like $60 whilst I saw him count out over $300 for the Motley band. The thing is, these guys weren't even dressed as Motley. They were just a Motley covers band and they still got paid four times as much as us. At the time Sins were trying to save the money we were making from shows to record the next CD, and finding it difficult because as an original band, you don't really get paid so I put it to the rest of the guys that we should do a Poison tribute thing, just for a few months so we could save up enough money for the album. We all went out and bought wigs and started rehearsing up the songs. It was actually really starting to take shape, then the shit really hit the fan for me in the States and I was left with no option but to come home and the idea was shelved. Then whilst TCC were doing a short tour in the summer of 2011 I mentioned the idea to Laney, who loved it and suggested that we try it here in the UK. We added an old friend of ours called Crip on guitar who'd played in a band called Patchwork Grace who would regularly play with TCC back in 2005/ 2006, and Laney found our drummer Michael Richards and we just really went to town with it. Not only on getting the 1990 Poison look down to a tee, but also the full stage show with Pyro, Lasers, the full Poison experience. We wanted to make it look and sound as close to Poison circa 1988/ 1990 as possible and I have to say we've come damn close. We are also the only Poison tribute band in the UK/ Europe which really makes us unique. We get to play big venues to tons and tons of people who have been starved of Poison, as the classic line up of the band haven't played here since 1990. It's also a lot of fun, and it pays so we're having a great time with it.
|
|
 |
|
Did you enjoy the Rick Springfield concert as much as I did? He grabbed my arm when he came through the crowd at Shepherd’s Bush! He was pretty sweaty but it was a special moment for us both I’m sure!
Wylde: As I said earlier, I'm the biggest Danger Danger fan on the planet and it was through reading interviews with them back in the day that I gave Rick Springfield a chance, as they would often say that he was a big influence on the Danger Danger sound. So I went out and bought ‘Working Class Dog’ which I loved and ‘Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet’ which is my personal favourite and still play all the time. It was awesome to see him in London, and what energy! He could have easily have ran rings around most eighteen year old musicians. Loved the set too, although I was gutted not to hear ‘State Of The Heart’....maybe next time?!
Laney: I was kinda blown away by how much of a great performer he was. I didn’t know that much about him other than he had a bit of a heart throb cult status with a lot of middle aged ladies! Man, what a great showman. Totally won me over and the songs were so strong. His new material totally held up against the classics too. I think it’s important to listen to bands which your favourite musicians are influenced by. If you don’t, you can miss out on so much great stuff. I became a huge Van Halen fan because the guys in Extreme used to talk about them all the time. There’s so much music out there, you just have to be open to anything.
What sort of stuff are you listening to at the moment - you strike me as someone who loves their music?
Wylde: Haha I am! And I love discovering new bands. Laney recently turned me onto a great band called The 1975 who I'm really digging at the moment. Apart from that I'm loving the new Goo Goo Dolls album, LIT, Taylor Swift, The Veronicas, Tegan & Sarah. I also thought the last KISS album was pretty good, not in the same league as ‘Sonic Boom’ but still pretty good. Bon Jovi's last album had its moments too and I'm really looking forward to the new Katy Perry coming out in a few weeks.
Laney: I can listen to pretty much anything. I listen to a lot of Top 40 Radio which sometimes curve balls a few people. I love pop music from most eras and don’t have any ‘restrictions’ to what is considered cool. I often say people have a hard time seeing the difference between something that is crap and simply something they don’t like. Don’t be a hater simply because you don’t like it. You’re not forced to listen to this stuff. Change the channel, put something different on.
What do you get up to in your down time? Any typically un-Rockstar pastimes?
Wylde: Haha, well I run a lot and try and keep pretty active. Other than that I like watching movies, hanging out with my friends and family and watch Family Guy religiously every night. Other than that, it's all music, music, music and with three bands, that pretty much takes up all of my time really.
Laney: If I’m not busy I get agitated, I have to be doing something and I get bored VERY easily. That’s why I’ve always like playing with different bands, trying new stuff. It’s not that I’m fed up with what I’m currently doing or looking to change, I just think it opens up so many new doors. I love meeting new people, hearing new stories, so putting myself out there allows all that to happen. I began my STRAIGHT TO VIDEO project a while ago which is a culmination of a lot of things I love. I recorded an EP of 80s Movie Soundtrack Songs which was really well received but I’ve also been doing 80s Movie Nights at a local cinema to run alongside it which is a tonne of fun!
So what’s next for TCC?
Wylde: We're just promoting the hell out of this album and trying our best to get the word out all over the world. We have a few shows left in 2013 and are currently in the studio recording a Christmas single which will be available at the beginning of December. Then next year, we really want to step it up and try and get onto a good tour and attract some label attention. There will also be a new video/ single for ‘(You Only Love Me) When You Hate Me’ and there will certainly be more music coming your way in 2014.
Laney: The response to this album has really taken us back. We knew the songs were good but you become so close to them and wrapped up in the recording process you really don’t know how people are gonna react when they drop fresh ears on them. Every review so far has been positive and I think more importantly (sorry, to drag on about it but) they’re talking about the songs. These aren’t generic reviews which read… ‘If you love your rock sleazy…. These guys have a great attitude….blah fucking blah’ That can relate to a million bands… people are listening, hearing the songs and liking them, regardless of whether we want to look or sound like anyone in particular. The next phase is to take them out into the live environment to see how we hold up. We wanna put on a great show and make people smile, sing along and have a good time!
If you could have been a fly on the wall for the recording of any great album at any point in the history of rock, just to see how the magic happened what would I have been for you and why?
Wylde: Probably ‘Slippery When Wet’ as the band were kinda on their last legs with that one. ‘7800 Fahrenheit’ hadn't sold what they would've liked and I remember seeing an interview with Jon Bon Jovi where he said that that album was do or die, so I would have loved to have seen how that all went down. From writing at Richie's parent's house with Desmond Child, through to the whole recording process in Vancouver with Bruce Fairbarn. The band were up against it but ended up producing an absolute classic, and alongside ‘Hysteria’, the quintessential 1980's Rock album.
Laney: To see the recording of the first Van Halen album would have been immense. That was just bottled lightening right there! I can’t imagine what it must have been like. I also say I wanna go into the recording studio of some of the pop bands of today and see how they get such a huge sound. I’m not a massive technical guy but would love to see how they build such an amazing wall of sugar coated sound.
Over the years who has been your most enduring musical influence?
Wylde: I have sooooo many. Some stay with me for a few years, then stop producing good music. Others might just release one killer album at a particular period in my life that I take some things from, but if I had to name the bands that have and continue to stay with me every day of my life, I'd say Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, KISS, Danger Danger, Goo Goo Dolls, Paul Stanley, Desmond Child and Butch Walker.
Laney: I think you always have to be learning. You can pick the tiniest thing up from anyone and anywhere. If you can do that you’ll always be evolving and keeping things fresh. Yes, I love my nostalgia, that’ll always be part of me. We look at things in the past with rose tinted glasses but in your heart it was always a great time and a safe place to jump back to. I wanna combine that with always moving forward as well. New music excites me as much as old music… there’s so much out there!
What is the meaning of life?
Laney: We’ve been so, so lucky. We’ve made friends for life with this band and the various projects it’s allowed us to do. The world has become a smaller, friendlier place where we can play or just attend a show as a fan and meet up with people and have a good time. That’s more important than any material stuff. We’re only here a very short time so you gotta make the most of it. Also, it’s not hard to be a nice person, don’t be a dick!
Wylde: To quote Paul Stanley – “Living to win means you pursue your goals, challenged and dreams in life without regard for anyone else's opinions, failures or the obstacles in your way. I may not succeed, but as long as I fail on my own terms I've won!”
www.teenagecasketcompany.co.uk
Rob and Rob spoke to Mark Diggins October 2013 |
THE ROCKPIT.NET SUPPORTING LOCAL LIVE MUSIC waNt more? VIEW OUR 2012 INTERVIEWS | VIEW OUR 2011 INTERVIEWS Want to see a band you love interviewed? Looking to promote a tour of Australia? Contact mark@therockpit.net
|
|---|