TV on The Radio: Breaking The Mold

There’s a saying, “third time lucky,” which is applicable to many bands – their first and second album releases are often rough around the edges as the band gains its momentum. Alternative indie-rock band TV on the Radio is an exception to this rule however, as their first two CDs were critically acclaimed, and their third full-length CD, released this September, instantly lived up to the band’s previous albums’ standards. Their second album to be named “Album of the Year” by Rolling Stone magazine, Dear Science is an eclectic mix of electronic-infused rock which leaves the listener with a lot to think about. I got a chance to chat with TVOTR’s vocalist/guitarist Kyp Malone, who filled me in all things Dear Science… from influences to construction.

YT: Your new album Dear Science was named “Album of the Year” by Rolling Stone, Spin magazine and so on. How does it feel to receive that kind of recognition, because you also got album of the year from Rolling Stone a couple years back as well?
Kyp: It’s nice to be appreciated, but I don’t know those people that wrote that. And neither does anyone else in the band. You’re not doing it to be a secret when you’re making music and making records, you’re making it to share with other people, and it’s nice. But it can be really distracting, when you’re doing creative work and you’re working towards pleasing that structure, then you’re going to not be making honest work. It’s really dangerous actually in a lot of ways.

YT: This album is very upbeat, electronic, is this a direction you think you’ll keep following or are there other styles you’d like to explore?
Kyp: You know everybody is listening to music all the time in the band, and I don’t think any of us are interested in repeating ourselves. And all the elements that you’re hearing in Dear Science instrumentally, except for the addition of strings, have been there throughout all the recordings, I think. Definitely a cleaner sound that Return to Cookie Mountain. It’ll keep changing; if we make the same record next time, then we’ve failed ourselves.

YT: I know a lot of artists attribute different things as their muses for lyrics – relationships, etc. – I know you write some of the lyrics, what did you draw from for this album?
Kyp: You know, if the lyrics are good, it’s because you are capable of hearing them in the music, I think. I’ve never been someone who writes lyrics, and then writes the music to the lyrics. The music, I get a musical phrase in my head, then work on that, make the changes, record that and listen to it, and then I sing a melody over it with no words, and then I listen to that melody and I hear the words come out of it.

YT: Are there any themes you try to get across or is it more spontaneous?
Kyp: Spontaneous, no, it’s I don’t know what it is. I’ve been reading a lot about different people’s mythologies. I was raised, like a lot of people in North America, inside a Christian religion, and I’ve spent a long time trying to get all of that crazy **** out of my head. You know, and a lot of that comes out in my music, and family dynamics, and relationships in the band, being a person alive in this day and age with all of the things that we’re facing, the things that we’re doing as a species, it’s not all in there but a lot of it is in there.

YT: When you’re creating songs, do you try to write songs that appeal to you or your fans?
Kyp: I don’t know what is appealing to fans, I don’t know what makes something that is appealing to them. There are things, tricks you can do that tend to work, but then if you lean on those tricks, then your music tends to get pretty cheesy.

YT: You guys have done some interesting collaborations, who would you like to work with in the future?
Kyp: I feel like, hopefully in my life, I stay open to meeting people who I don’t know yet, whose music I don’t know yet, it’s exciting, you know? There’s lots of people that get, I could answer that question as far as the people who’ve been validated by the structure of record labels and magazines, but that’s absu-****ing-loutley not what music is about, music is everywhere and there’s people doing music that will never get that kind of validation and it matters in an economic sense in many peoples lives, but it doesn’t matter ultimately to music as what music is. I feel like a lot of the people I am excited about working with I haven’t heard them yet, you know? That being said, I don’t know. I thought of someone the other day. I feel like they’re all dead or haven’t been born yet. Stevie Wonder, but I hear the people he’s collaborated with lately, and it puts me off.

YT: You’re on tour obviously, what can people expect from your concerts?
Kyp: They can expect that we will, I don’t know, I’ve never seen one. I feel like we definitely are trying our best to bring the songs to life in new ways and connect with people.

YT: TV on the Radio has done some cool covers, like the cover of Mr. Grieves by the Pixies, what kind of covers would you be interested in doing?
Kyp: I personally, maybe because I’m an ego-ist and I need to get over that, I don’t like covers. It’s like how I don’t like wearing masks or getting dressed up for Halloween. I really just, I like listening to other people’s music and playing covers is really good practice if you’re a musician because you figure out how someone else is thinking and hearing the music, and then you learn through the process of doing covers, but I’ve always hated it. I find myself sometimes doing Pavement covers for myself.

YT: How would you like to see TV on the Radio go down in music history, what would be your legacy?
Kyp: I don’t believe in this structure, of canonized rock music. I know that it’s something real because we live in this society and it’s part of this society. I saw James Nixon perform last night and they were one of my favourite bands as a teenager. They were really great performers, really, a very good band. There’s so much music in the world, there’s so much music outside of instruments, so much music outside of bands, of rock stars – it’s a bull**** lie. It’s a lie that the rock stars aren’t even benefiting from much anymore. It’s all part-and-parcel of a structure which keeps people separate from themselves and separate from their own power and separate from their magic and the music which is inherent in all of us. And****ing like, it doesn’t matter the history, or how we see ourselves. Firstly, there’s no way for me to see what’s going to happen, or whose going to remember, or if there’s even going to be people around to remember. Like, and I also don’t care. I just hope that, it’s a weird thing, it’s a weird place to be, because in one way I’m benefiting in degrees from the illusion – that we’re doing something special – that other people can’t do. But ultimately it’s a lie. Everyone can do this and everyone should be doing this, by the same terms we should all be able to be our own landlord and grow our own food, I don’t know.

YT: Be our own musicians?
Kyp: Be our own musicians! And make music. I am glad that people are listening to it, and digging it and feeling like it’s connecting to them but like, if we can make music and we’re strangers and we can invoke this feeling in you, then how about you and your community? You can definitely talk about your own lives and life experiences in a way that is meaningful. And outside of any kind of any corporate record context, I’m sure that’s happening between you and your friends anyways, you know, I don’t want to be like, talking like, condescending or anything, there are definitely people that are talented, and have more of a feel for music or the arts. But the whole idea that it’s separate, like this whole thing, elevated stage, and special attention, it’s a lie. The whole thing is a lie. One of the many lies of modern life, and one of them, that I f***ing love playing music, and this is the lie I’m choosing, for now.

One of the most compelling bands of our time, TV on the Radio chooses to make music as an art form, not for the material aspect of the music business. After speaking with Kyp Malone and listening to the depth of the band’s music, I can say that I am very exciting for all their future releases, as are most of the indie-rock community.