Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs on Riots, Evolution and Compromise: An Interview

Merrill Garbus crafts complex and interesting songs, using vocal loops, found sounds and lots of experimenation under the name tUnE-yArDs. On the band's second album, w h o k i l l, the higher studio production value allows Garbus' voice to truly stand out whether she is whispering or belting out the lyrics. Austinist spoke with the talented musician on all things tUnE-yArDs and beyond, including Occupy Oakland (where she now lives), her one-page website, and evolution of all kinds. tUnE-yArDs will play Fun Fun Fun Fest on Saturday, November 5 at 4pm on the Orange stage.

Where did the word tUnE-yArDs come from and why the strange capitalization?

I wrote a song called.... I can't even remember now, but there was this one lyric, "We'll fly with tune-yards in our dreams," and it always seemed to me that ideally I would access the song; that they wouldn't be creations, they were just sort of there already. I think someone can be really self-critical about what's really important to them, and I've had this idea that the songs sort of already existed and it's my job to harness them. And the capitalization was really just a cheap trick to get some attention on MySpace.

You moved from theater at Smith College to busking in Montreal to making an album, with many other stops along the way it seems. Was it a natural evolution for each one of these steps? Or did you push yourself to make some of them happen, to get to the point that you're at now?

That's a good question. It's hard to say because I think it's different, a bit of both. It's just what happened in my life, so it somewhat seems natural. For me growing up was just really hard, everything used to be hard because there was always an inner voice saying: "No, there's no way you can possibly do that". You know: "Oh you wanna make an album? There's no way you can possibly do that", "You wanna learn to play an instrument well enough to play in front of people on stage? No I don't think that's gonna happen". I think you have to take this leap of faith in yourself that you can do something that you've never done before. So, I don't know if that answered your question, but I feel so lucky for the opportunities that have been in front of me in my life, but I also feel like anybody who does anything has gone through this, has gone through change, and change is really, really scary in my experience.

Where does the inspiration for your songs come from? Does it start with a lyric, a loop, a feeling, or something else entirely? Or does it change song to song?

You know, it sort of changes. These days, I guess I'm improvising a lot with the looping pedal, so a lot of new songs come from that, as well as soundchecks actually, because there are moments when we're needing to test out the loops, and I use those as opportunities to improvise rhythms and vocal loops. I think there's always a point, early into the creation of the song, where I have to find a key to the whole thing. Not like the key of G or whatever, but key like...

Like a focal point of the song?

Exactly, yep. That's a good way to put it. Something that unites all the elements, the musical elements, the lyrical elements... so, it can be something incredibly vague, or multi-faceted, something that's complicated but it still has some kind of focus.

Do you have to go through a bunch of iterations to get such a diverse and layered feel to the songs, or does it fall into place once you find that focal point?

It depends on the song. "Riotriot" on this latest album [w h o k i l l] was written about five years ago. It came out of the riots that happened in Montreal while I living there. It started with the shooting of a young person, and then I finished the song here in Oakland where, unfortunately, there are more protests. I found that this song sort of became a patchwork of memories and sounds and I am really happy with how it turned out or at least what iteration it became for this recording. I think it will inevitably have its own life in the future as well.

Do you continuously evolve all those songs as you play them more live?

We rehearse the songs in a specific way but it tends to change in nuanced ways every night, like jumping to a note differently or making it a little faster or slower. I think over time it’s all evolving, that’s what I hope anyway.

You moved from the first album which was self-recorded at home to self-producing in the studio for the second album. Are there certain parts that you enjoyed more from each of those experiences and how do you see yourself incorporating those on the next album? Or is it too soon to even think about the next album?

It is a bit too soon, only in that I feel that some of the new songs are just now coming out of me. They are already there a bit but it turns out that one can actually tour for a year-and-a-half on one album. That’s what I’m finding and it means it's giving me another year of being on the road before something serious happens, like recording another album. I like albums to reflect where I am at one particular moment in my life. I don’t what’s going to happen in a year. 2012 is the year that many people think where we’ll all disappear. [laugh]

[laugh] The Mayan calendar says so!

Yeah! Here in Oakland, the Occupy Oakland is pretty intense. Lately, I certainly feel that’s a huge part of my generation, what’s happening in my present tense. I really like to reflect what’s going on not only with me but in the world at a time that an album gets a created. I’m going to wait to make too many bold statements about what the next album holds.

On your Facebook page, the section about the "Band's interests" includes trying to change the way the music industry works and impacting your community, with people as activators. Is that something that you see beyond your music or is it through the music where you’re able to create change?

I just had a thought about this yesterday. I think that often I put too much pressure on myself to be something more than what I am and underestimate the power of just the music alone.

On the other hand, what I find interesting about this role that I have right now is that I have more power than I ever did before, technically. I have to pay other people, I make more money. I get to choose what I do with that money and I think, of course, it really matters how you run a business. It can not only affect environmental choices, social choices, political choices, but also the way you inspire other people to do it. And that’s going to be a struggle for me to figure out how I want to do this.

But I do think that the way that music business is run has already changed and there's so much change that’s inevitably going to happen, continue to happen. And I want to be at the forefront of that and make sure that my choices reflect what I want out of the world and what I believe in. As much as possible - I’ve also learned the word "compromise" over the past couple of years. In that things can’t just be the way that I want them 100% of the time and that I have to make certain concessions so that the future looks bright for me.

In order to make bigger changes, you have to lose a battle here and there.

Yes. Exactly. And which battles do you let go of is the question. That’s been a big question for me since there have been record labels and whoever interested in working on my music.

I noticed that you have a relatively low Internet presence- you don’t have a large website, are slightly active on Twitter, and your Etsy store highlights smaller, local artists. Is that what you mean about the business you’re running reflecting your values?

It’s funny to hear that I don’t have so much of an Internet presence because I feel like I have a huge Internet presence! People will be like, "you really aren’t active online… you don’t have a blog or an attractive website," or whatever. And to me, I’m way more into technology and being exposed in YouTube footage and whatever than I ever was before in my life. I tweet about shows and things that I think my fans are interested in but it's tough to sell yourself on the Internet and I am always looking for ways to make it more genuine. People who choose to be on my mailing list are going to receive only emails that are relevant, like, "I’m coming to your town and I wanted to let you know beforehand."

Doing stuff like the Etsy store and maybe certain ways of fundraising for causes that I believe in online—that is useful to the world and a way of making my Internet presence something that I can absolutely get behind. And again, that goes back to the idea of it not being enough just to be a musician and advertise yourself. It’s okay to market yourself as a musician and I've had to learn that. I still feel okay though with the fact that my website is one page, [laughs] and it links to other people.

It sounds like you’re more interested with having a more intimate conversation with your listeners as opposed to just broadcasting everything that’s going on. You mentioned your live shows, that the songs are evolving. They also seem like a workout where you're bouncing around from instrument to pedal to microphone. Do you have a favorite song to perform live, one that's really fun for you?

It changes, but "My Country" is a good time. Maybe that's because it's one of the ones where I get to actually just sing and play one chord on the synthesizer. So I guess it's the ones I have to concentrate on the least and just focus on the performance that are easier. They are all incredibly interesting because it's so freaking hard to choreograph all that stuff with the pedals, but I feel really lucky and I'm not getting bored yet.