Interview with Josh Grier of Tapes ï¿½N Tapes

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Interview with Josh Grier of Tapes ï¿½N Tapes

POSTED: Friday, February 27, 2009, 8:00 PM

Filed Under: Interview | Music

The Tale of the Tapes

MISTER TNT: That's Josh Grier in the white shirt.

City Paper: Which part of Tapes ’N Tapes are you, the Tapes, the N, or the apostrophe? What was the story behind it the name?

Josh Grier: Well originally we had three members in the band and we were just kind of being smart asses and thought it would be funny but then once we became a four piece we pretty much dropped it because there wasn’t really anyway to support the three letters with four people, so that’s kind of why we went away from it. We originally thought it was funny and then we were like, eh, now we have four people and its just confusing and not as funny anymore.

CP: Between The Loon and Walk it Off, which was your favorite to record?

JG: You know it’s kind of like... I kind of view all that stuff as like I don’t know. Its kind of like having kids, you don’t really have a favorite you just have different experiences with them you know. Definitely with recording the Loon, there’s some memories there and recording Walk It off it was really cool to be recording with David Reichman because he’s somebody who we all really admired and to actually be working with him and have him be a very relaxed dude who’s a great engineer. We got to basically live up at his place for a couple weeks so that was just a lot of fun too, but between the too I really can’t say that one was my favorite at all they’re both fun experiences that are so different from one another that its hard to compare the two you know?

CP: Speaking of favorites, my favorite Tapes N Tapes songs are the “Illiad,” “Insistor” and “the Dirty Dirty.” Which are your favorite ones, if you have any, to perform live?

JG: Awh, geez you’re making me pick all of my favorites here. Uhm, I don’t know really, honestly it kind of depends on the night, like any given night, like what songs to perform cause well just kind of I don’t know, any night we’ll kind of mess around with stuff and sometimes when we mess around with things it’ll work really well and it’ll be really exciting and really fun so I think on any given night any song could be my favorite to perform. Honestly I do have to say that playing “Dirty Dirty” is a lot of fun because we can mess around a lot and it’s different than a lot of the other songs we play. But I don’t know it’s not always my favorite to perform but it’s definitely fun.

CP: Last time you played in Philly it was also an R5 show. I think it was actually on the night that the night that the presidential primaries were happening and you guys played at FUC and were amazing. This time you’re playing at Johnny Brenda’s, have things changed since you were here last?

JG: It’s crazy, I totally remember the Pennsylvania Primaries were that night when we were in Philadelphia. Because I remember everybody seemed to be talking about it, it was big. Back in the day it was a very big deal, everybody was like is Hillary going to win, is Obama going to win? And nobody knew. But for us now, I don’t know. I mean like obviously like with last time our record had just come out so we were doing a lot of touring around then and we were all just really excited about getting the record out. Now its getting up on a year since it came out and we’re starting to work on some new songs and so I guess that’s like the major difference for us is just that were working on new material and were playing some of those new songs out on this tour and just kind of messing around and having ourselves a good time. There’s not really a whole lot else that’s happening right now. Were excited to be out and touring because we hadn’t toured since June and we’re excited to be playing these songs because its been an even longer time since we’ve been playing these songs.

CP: How’s the tour been so far this time around?

JG: It’s been great. We’ve had a blast. We’ve been to a couple cities we’ve never been to before. I honestly just really like playing the new songs and after having a little break from touring I feel like all of us have been energized and we’re having a blast. Like the first three weeks of the tour ended like on the Fifth or Sixth of February and then we were home for two weeks so today’s actually our first day out again and I think all of us are feeling well rested and looking forward to playing some more shows.

CP: You were talking about new material… Do you guys have any idea when your new album will be coming out?

JG: We have no solid plans right now, like we haven’t set any timelines for ourselves about when were going to start recording or anything. Like right now we have a whole lot of new song ideas but we’ve only worked out a handful of them so I think we’re just going to keep on working on stuff and when we kind of feel like things are at a good point then we’ll start working on recording but we’re not there yet, we’re still working stuff out. Since I don’t know a timeline, I can’t give you any more info, if I did I’d let you know, but that’s where we’re at.

Tapes ’N Tapes play Sat., Feb. 28 at Johnny Brenda's. It's sold out.

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