Living in Dreams: An Interview with Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing

It got big pretty quickly, huh? You go from working on this thing in your room to, in the same amount of time that it took you to make the record, putting together a band and touring bigger and bigger venues and popping up on all these 2010 best of lists. Does it surprise you that things have progressed the way they have?

Yeah, it is strange, especially for someone like me. I was making the album while still in school, so I had to play a juggling act between my classes and writing this record. But at the time, it was fine, because I was able to take my time making it. I was just doing it for myself because, apart from a handful of people, no one really knew anything about the project. So that was good. But yeah, I never would have guessed it would have gotten to the point where it is now. And that’s not to say that it’s blown up or anything, but the fact that I’m able to tour and still make records and do exactly what I want to do is pretty awesome.

What was the recording process like for Gemini?

I just recorded it in my bedroom, and it took me about six months because I was kind of doing it off and on. I kind of took my time with it. I just used my laptop, a pretty basic mixer, a handful of microphones, and then I just pieced it together myself. I’ve been recording songs on my own since I was like 15 or 16 - that’s just the way that I’ve always done it.

Do you think you’ll record the same way in the future?

I am right now. I've been working on some songs, and I think I'll always enjoy recording some stuff at home just because I feel like it's a good release for me. It's a good way to get ideas out really quickly. But I'm definitely interested in recording in a professional studio or something like that, and hopefully I'll be able to do that for the next record, because I'm actually really interested in good, classic production. Like, I didn't record this album at home because that's the sound that I wanted to go for, though I think it ended up bringing some advantage to the music. I've always been interested in trying to get the cleanest recording I can.

There's an obvious difference between the Wild Nothing that is you recording in your bedroom, and then the dynamics of a touring band. Which is more comfortable for you? And when you're writing songs, do you think about how they'll play live?

Well that's the thing, because when I was recording the album that wasn't even something that crossed my mind at all. And in a lot of ways [playing the songs live] proved difficult, because in the songs on my album there are a lot of tracks and a lot of layers, and I didn't really think twice at the time about how those might translate live. So it’s been interesting, you know, trying to learn the songs live. As a band we just kinda had to take these songs that are like super lush and super layered and strip them down to - I don't know, it sounds cheesy, but, like, the essence of the song. I think it has been cool and I think it makes for something different live. There’s a lot of stuff you could do with samplers or looping and sequencing, but once we started rehearsing the songs I realized that that was not something I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure that we were pouring everything that we’re feeling out on stage and just strip it down to a basic kind of rock band.

I was going to ask you about that. I've seen videos online and it seems like there's definitely more of a rock element.

Yeah, it's become something a little bit different live, and I kind of like it in a way because it keeps things interesting for us, and it’s more challenging not to do exactly what's on the album. I think that some people might think it’s strange, or might see it as taking away from the album or what they liked about the album, but at the same time, I think you can appreciate both for what they are.

Do you have a favorite song to play live?

“Summer Holiday” is always fun, and we all really like to play “Gemini” because it's longer and structured a little bit differently than the other songs.

Cool. So there’s been a lot written and said about the 80's UK indie music influence on your records, e.g. the Smiths, Cocteau Twins, 4AD and Factory Records, etc. Were you listening to a lot of that stuff while you were recording, and in your opinion how does that music influence what you’re doing with Wild Nothing?

I was listening to a lot of that stuff, and I still do. A lot of those bands are my favorite bands, so it’s kind of inevitable that it would seep into my music a little bit. But in terms of what I try and take…[pause] I mean, there are a lot of bands that I listen to and love but that don’t necessarily translate to my music, and I think that’s because when I write I have this tendency to go for hooks, for more classic pop elements. I want to take the softer, poppier elements from a lot of those bands. Like My Bloody Valentine - a lot of people think of them as noisy shoegaze or whatever you want to call it, but what I look at, with them, is that underneath all the fuzz, they have really good, catchy, pop songs. That’s what I try and do with my music.

Has that led to a different sort of reaction in the UK than you get here?

Um, a little bit. I wouldn’t say that people like us better over there but I think there’s a certain familiarity that exists for what I’m trying to do that doesn’t necessarily exist as much in the States, just because, you know, that’s part of their musical history. Cities like Manchester, those musical roots are pretty deep.

Yeah. It seems like there are a lot of people our age [mid-20s] that are getting into that stuff backwards. There’s kind of a movement in indie pop right now that’s sort of re-appropriating that shoegaze, dream pop thing, and through that people are then rediscovering the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, whereas maybe that never left the UK.

Yeah, yeah. Which I think is great; that’s something that I would hope for, for people who might listen to my music and haven’t heard stuff like that before, you know? If, at the very least, my music can introduce somebody to something, then that’s a good thing.

I actually gave Cocteau Twins another go-round after getting into your album. So, there you go, example.

[Laughs] Yeah. They’re cool.

Those bands and your lyrics all conjure up this hazy idea of nostalgia or yearning, and I’d guess that those elements, combined with the circumstances of its recording, must make this a very personal record for you?

In a lot of ways it is, yeah.

And you’ve already said you didn’t have much sense of the audience when you were making Gemini.

As far as I was concerned there wasn’t really an audience. Maybe in the back of my head I was thinking, this album is going to be released and people are going to hear it, but at the end of the day no one was waiting for it, you know what I mean? So I was very much able to just make songs that I would have liked to have heard.

Do you have a favorite piece of recording equipment?

Not really. To be honest, I kind of hate all the stuff that I use. I get really frustrated with it. I guess I’d say my guitar; I’ve had the same old Telecaster since I was like 15 years old. It’s always been my favorite piece of musical equipment.

All right. After this tour, what’s next for you guys?

The tour gets us through the beginning of March and then I don’t really know about our plans for the summer. We might go back to the UK for a little bit and we might play a couple of Canadian festivals. I’m hoping to be recording and writing because it’s been a good while since I’ve been able to really sit down and do that.