September 3rd, 2009
Interview: Throw Me The Statue
A few years ago, Seattle’s Throw Me the Statue was essentially the solo bedroom indie-pop project of singer and multi-instrumentalist Scott Reitherman. Now, TMTS is a full-fledged band; a quartet with two lauded albums on Secretly Canadian — 2007’s Moonbeams and the terrific new Creaturesque — under its collective belt. The new disc is awash with myriad textures, moods, and structures, everything from New Romantic synth pageantry to giddy, twee-ish chamber-pop to driving post-punk, and lots more. We caught up with Reitherman via phone as the TMTS tour van hurtled toward Philly for tonight’s show at Johnny Brenda’s:
What have the past couple of years been like, going from virtual obscurity to becoming this buzzed-about band?
I think there was an initial rise when we signed with Secretly Canadian and we got to go out and do a tour for the first time. That certainly was the biggest sea change. And ever since then it’s felt like a steady sort of workload, more than anything, in a really good way. Touring and making records is really fun, but I don’t think there have been any, like, inorganic spikes in our lifestyle. It’s been a pretty natural progression. It feels really good and it’s been great. It is a big trip to think back to a year and a half ago and think about that being the first time we did any touring, because it certain feels like a while ago. I added it up at the end of last year and we played 100 shows on the dot in ’08, in eight different countries. So when I put in perspective like that, I was like, man, my life and our band’s life really has gotten a lot busier.
Are you on pace to pass that number of shows this year?
Yeah, I think we might be.
Did you feel like you had a good support system in Seattle when you were first starting out? Were people and the press behind you, and just the scene in general?
I definitely felt really lucky to have gotten some local write-ups early on. I dunno if I would say that I felt there’s a scene…maybe more so now just because we know more people in local bands, but I never really felt part of a scene. I think that for some bands in Seattle there’s a certainly a scene that exists, especially if you’re doing a sort of roots, folk-rock kind of thing. There’s a lot of bands doing that well right now in Seattle, and just a lot of bands doing that in general, and it seems to me, kinda being an outsider and knowing some of the guys in that world, that it’s very much a scene where they do shows together and they sort of have this common umbrella that they’re all helping to hold up. So I think that’s cool. For whatever reason, Seattle’s been good to us but I don’t feel like there’s a list of bands we always play with in Seattle because we’re aesthetically matched well with them. We kind of border on maybe a couple different musical feelings in Seattle right now. It always feels like a funny, interesting juxtaposition when it comes to putting together local shows.
What’s the vibe at shows the further away you get from Seattle?
It seems like the reaction is a bit more distilled. The people who do come to the show sometimes are really into it and know the songs, and that’s a really wonderful thing to experience when you’re out of your hometown. There’s less people in the midwest and south who are paying attention to us right now. We do better in Seattle than anywhere else, but we do well in New York, Philly, Chicago, Boston, and Austin. It’s definitely cool to feel like in the other major cities that people are supportive or into it, but it’s always rad when you’re playing a show for a handful of people and there’s a lot of really cool person-to-person moments that you get after the show. You’re talking to people who came out that are really into it and stoked to be there, even if there weren’t a lot of people in the room. Those shows are just as rad in different ways. It feels like you connect with people, and as a band we’re pretty good about getting up there and having fun every night and trying our best to do our thing regardless of how many people have bought tickets, and I think people respond to that.
Do you relish the challenge of that, trying to build up interest and word-of-mouth around the country?
Yeah, I think most nights I do. There are definitely the nights when you’re on tour and you’re maybe homesick or you’re a bit out of your element. But it’s still a pretty amazing opportunity to be able to go around the country and do our thing, and promoters seem to give a shit about it [laughs]. So it’s a good problem to have.
Now that you’ve had some time removed from making Creaturesque, any general thoughts on the album? Can you look at it objectively now?
It’s in a new phase of its life where now it’s a live batch of songs as opposed to a studio batch of songs. We are able to step back from it and try and figure out whats gonna be the best way for four people to pull off a song that sounds like a seven-piece band on the recording. We’re trying to distill it down. It’s a really healthy thing to have some distance from it all, too. I’m sure it’s very similar to working on a piece of writing and you’re finishing it, and when you’re in the midst of it you can probably kinda recite your own quotes. You know, those sentences that are rolling around in your head and getting polished down and then you can kind of re-read something like that a little bit later and it feels a little bit surprising to see what you’ve said.
Usually when I go back and read stuff I’ve written, I cringe. I’m pretty much my own worst critic.
[Laughs] I feel like that too. I’m definitely my own harshest critic.
But I guess that’s what pushes you forward to try to do better the next time.
Definitely. I have that feeling of optimism or ambition about the next one, wanting to improve on it.
When you’re writing and recording, are you aware that at some point there’s going to be an audience that’s going to listen to it, and does that affect your creative process at all?
That’s a really good question because it’s a fucking bizarre thing for sure. This record is really the first time that that question has been even remotely not completely narcissistic [laughs]. But yeah, I try not to think about that. I don’t think it really would help the lyrical content of the songs to be worried about what a stranger’s gonna think of it, because then it’s probably gonna stray from being as personal a document as it could be. I think there’s a time and a place for pop songs to be kind of sweeping in their general scope, and there’s a time for a pop song to have some nuggets of intense personal earnestness. I dunno, toeing that line, I guess, or trying to come up with the best thing for a song and finish the song off in the best way is a trick, but I tend to err on the side of trying to make it about my real life. I try to get into my own little world, go crazy in the basement [laughs].
As a songwriter, do you need to write when you’re in the moment, or do you need time to process ideas and emotions? I would imagine it’s hard to do the latter when you have demands on your time either because of various deadlines or touring.
That’s the trick. We were trying to avoid the clichés of the sophomore record and all the trappings that go with that, and it’s tricky because you do have a while to make your first one. And then we did have a timeline that was pretty tight if we wanted to get this album out in 2009, which we did. I found myself writing lyrics about touring, you know, and the idea of being away from home or being a traveler, and as soon as I became aware of that I was turned off by that idea and tried to reel it all back in [laughs]. I don’t know how interesting that would be, but I mean, that has been a lot of where my head’s been at and what we’re doing. We’re a touring band now. But the idea of writing your second record about the idea of being in a band doesn’t seem all that interesting.
Paste magazine gave Creaturesque a pretty good review, but they did call it a “soundtrack to quarter-life crisis.” What do you think of that?
I hadn’t seen that. That sounds like a John Mayer quote [laughs]. I think it’s funny they thought of it that way. I think that Creaturesque is me, and us as a band, being pretty happy in life and pretty content. I think there is a major difference with me as a 24-year-old making Moonbeams and me as a 27-year-old making Creaturesque. I think there’s a general mellowing, growing up, getting happy, getting a little less anxious about things. I think the album feels pretty positive, actually.
Throw Me the Statue plays Johnny Brenda’s — along with Nurses and the Brunettes — tonight at 9pm. $10.
