With the long-awaited release of genre-defying US group PillowTalk’s debut LP now just weeks away, Defected’s Ben Lovett caught up with the trio’s Michael Tello to discuss influences, creativity and destruction.
So how does one even begin to fathom PillowTalk’s, perfectly titled debut album Je Ne Sais Quoi? Its remit is exhilaratingly wide, exploring the relatively familiar tropes of house (shadowy bass ‘n’ vocal workout If I Try; spellbinding gothic swirl Homesick, featuring Thugfucker) and techno (zippy ghetto-tech butt-shake 4 Walls, featuring Jaw, Aquarius Heaven, Dina Mours and Navid Izadi) in bold new ways whilst leaping head (and heart) first into anything and everything including delicious soft-glow Eighties synth-pop (Lullaby), funky, psyched-out, bleeped-up jam (We All Have Rhythm), shimmering rock ‘n’ roll (Devil’s Run), snaking jazz hustle (LA To The Bay) and intimate slow-mo electro-piano ballad (Naive). Words come close to failing....
“We call it DAG,” PillowTalk-er Michael Tello opens. “That’s ‘Destroy All Genres’. The music industry will always be obsessed with pigeon holes and artists will always feel a certain pressure to conform to those labels if they want to get on. But we consciously give ourselves freedom, regardless of the consequences. That’s more important. I think that as producers and live performers we really don’t want to be restricted. We actively encourage each other to collaborate, whether it’s under PillowTalk’s umbrella or not. Collectively we work with different labels and venues, all of which helps keep the freshness and the surprise factor high. It’s all good when we’re able to surprise our fans; that’s what helps separate us from the many other artists out there today.”
Fearless experimentation does prompt the odd creative misfire. The key, however, is to remain fearless. Something Tello and fellow band members Ryan Williams and Sammy D can more than handle. “Our ideas don’t always work but that’s part of our process” Tello casually states. “We could play great in London and then hit Amsterdam where the crowd is wondering what the fuck’s going on. In the studio, I might write a song and think it’s the best thing ever but then the others will come in and rip it to shreds. We often do that to one another. When something does go forward for release we want it to challenge the audience, as well as ourselves. There’s always some risk with that but, on the whole, we seem to be doing OK.”
PillowTalk’s recording process is entirely democratic, with particularly radical or problematic ideas put to good old-fashioned vote. “That always solves the issues,” Tello laughs. “It ensures we never take things too far or lose too much of a structure to our music. Our manager is also there as a sounding board. He’s done a lot to get us this far; he knows a thing or two. He’s helped us round off some of the rough edges.”
Unsurprisingly perhaps in such liberal circumstances the dynamic between Tello (beats and bass), Williams (keys) and D (vocals) is easy. PillowTalk might only have come into being since 2011, but the boys are close friends with oodles of history both musically and socially. They grew up together, surrounded by a colourful whirl of cultural influences, in San Francisco’s Lower Haight District. “We’ve recently scattered across America” Tello updates. “Ryan is still in San Fran with our studio, but Sammy and I have moved for love! Sammy’s in Portland [Oregon] these days and I’m in New York with my girlfriend who’s awesome. Sammy has his own studio now and I’ve just finishing building mine which is amazing after living from boxes for so long; it was starting to become a nightmare. For all of us happiness is the key to making good music, so we’ve moved for the right reasons and, of course, we’re still seeing each other all the time.”
As the recording of Je Ne Sais Quoi confidently proves.... Tello and co. might have taken their inspiration for the record from melodies haphazardly hummed and hit upon during long flights between gigs, and from delirious, early hours parties in random Berlin apartments, but the real-deal recording took place in one fixed location (Portland) over four continuous weeks with all three band members in attendance – far cry from the usual DJ-producer protocol of producing intermittently between reams of tour dates.
“We had loads of ideas after our big European tour in 2012” Tello says. “So we buddied up in Sammy’s Portland studio for a month. It’s a typical Portland studio...basement, analogue, mountains on the doorstep. We had the perfect space for focusing on an album and working up the right sketches from before into high-fidelity reality. It was easy to do, organic. We were able to tell the stories we wanted, based on our musical influences to date, our crazy journeys on the road, falling out with people, break-ups.... The dynamic between us is pure fire. There are all the usual creative challenges and frictions but a real synergy and respect. We love each other...we’ve been friends for so long. We’re always hanging out and have the same wider circle of friends. All of it works so well. Those epic studio sessions together are special. And, of course, the vodka helps....”
If Portland boot camps aren’t enough then there’s also Crew Love, the close-knit artistic ‘family’ headed by Wolf + Lamb upon whose eponymous label Je Ne Sais Quoi will arrive next month. Wolf + Lamb’s ‘crew’ concept extends far beyond best management practice with its talented young roster of artists – the extended label team are friends before business assets, a touring superstar tag-team before individual ambassadors. Being plugged into an immensely creative cabal of music-makers including Soul Clap, Greg Paulus, Tanner Ross and, of course Wolf + Lamb duo Gadi Mizrahi and Zev Eisenberg has clear benefits.
“It [Crew Love] echoes our own philosophy. Everyone is accessible and incredibly open-minded,” Tello reveals. “We really are best friends; at Crew Love gigs we’re always on the floor dancing for each other.”
Industry cynics regularly suggest that the underground electronic scene’s dominance by collectives such as those aligned to Wolf + Lamb can only be bad in the long-run; that the opportunities for up-and-coming independent artists are being impacted whilst the collectives themselves risk losing credibility and perspective as they become increasingly lost in their own hype.
That’s not how Tello sees it: “Is something like Crew Love too cliquey? Definitely not. Everyone helps one another, pushes and inspires one another. That’s how the music ultimately evolves in exciting, relevant new ways. It’s better than being solo. No-one’s directly competitive but there’s this cool vibe where we’ll hear what someone else in the crew is doing, like Nick Monaco with his new album [Mating Call], and be like ‘wow, that’s amazing...we need to take things to the next level’. And then our friends will hear what we’re up to and have the same reaction. It’s not like we only hang with these people either. If anyone sees us at festivals like Sonar or BPM, they’ll notice we’re talking to all sorts of different labels and artists. Our paths lead us all over the place; those negative perceptions about ‘the clique’ quickly die out.”
PillowTalk – the name mischievously inspired by Sammy D’s drag act at of the trio’s former Floating Man boat parties – have been a permanent, charismatic fixture of clubland’s maverick frontier for the past three years now, though its members’ various DJ and studio experience winds back more than two decades. A shared, long-term love of soul, funk, disco, house and live music led the trio irresistibly to their band’s formation and continues to propel them today. Pivotal tracks and EPs have landed on Wolf + Lamb, Life And Death, Kompakt and Visionquest (PillowTalk’s striking doo-wop debut Love Makes Parks).
“We’ve been on this great journey in recent years but the album is our first real moment, the first significant evolution confirming we’re not just a here-and-now band” Tello reflects. “I look at the album and feel like we’re truly evolving into our own sound. Our sound is more fluid now; more timeless.... There’s a lot of piano and guitars in there, layers of vocals too. We have an indie feel as musicians. There are the nods to electronic music but also to rock, funk and soul. We want to express ourselves fully; we’re seeing the bigger picture.”
A new international tour to support Je Ne Sais Quoi is already underway, stops in Washington DC and Miami earlier this week offering a decent benchmark for what the band can expect from fans in 2014: “Both shows so far have gone really well. We hadn’t played Miami before but the crowd there was demanding the classic stuff whilst jumping on the new material. We can’t wait to play again.” PillowTalk’s spring travels will take them to Mexico, Miami again (during ‘music week’), and then cities including London, New York, Milan and, provided local socio-political disturbances subside, Kiev.
According to Tello, there are plans beyond that for further shows with an even greater lean towards ‘concert’ rather than ‘club’. “A lot of our performances up to now have had a dance-y vibe. We’d like to do more ‘show’ shows with a deeper integration of aesthetics, visuals and even props” he says. “We’re starting to move in that direction; it’s coming and will offer a sharper reflection of what we’re about.”
There are also plans for a second long-player which all being well the three will start writing and recording in New York within months. The band’s expansive repertoire seems tailor made for album production; a format that can more readily accommodate its various complexities and refinements.
“We’ve got the thirst for making another album, for sure” Tello offers. “Our experiences so far have been good so why stop there? Longer-term, I think we’d like to take further steps towards building a bigger band with live drums and all the rest. If we had a dedicated sound engineer, too, then the three of us would have even more freedom to be creative and jam out the ideas. There’s still occasions now where we’re stuck on a computer or editing something. We’re constantly looking for ways to better express what’s in our souls.”
The soul-searching goes on....
Words: Ben Lovett
PillowTalk’s new album Je Ne Sais Quoi is released by Wolf + Lamb on March 17.
