TALK IN TONGUES play Soda Bar Apr 30, Bootleg May 1, and Wayfarer May 2.
Talk In Tongues circles through So Cal in the midst of a massive U.S. tour, stopping at Soda Bar on Apr. 30, Bootleg on May 1 and Wayfarer on May 2 then the tour will travel north.
“We just got the van packed and we’re about to head off right now,” guitarist/singer Garrett Zeile said. “Cleveland is our first stop. We’ve never been to Cleveland before but I’m sure they all rock out there.”
The Los Angeles group hasn’t been together very long but have managed to play a good amount of live shows.
“We’re still a young band so we’ve played maybe 50 shows at most,” Zeile said. “I’ve loved playing live. Especially when you have a record that you’ve just worked on, it’s fun to figure out how to play it live.
“When you’re playing in front of a crowd it’s kind of a good confirmation of whether you’re doing it right. Or like, some songs don’t work live and sometimes you’re surprised at what works live.”
The quartet’s debut album, “Alone With A Friend”, on Fairfax Recordings was produced by Kevin Augunas (Cold War Kids, Edward Sharpe) and comes out May 19.
Zeile and the rest of the band, Waylon Rector (bass/vocals), McCoy Kirgo (guitar/vocals), Bryan De Leon (drums), and Cassandra Jensen (Keyboards), were all acquaintances but were aware of each other’s bands.
“We knew everyone was a really good player and did cool stuff,” Zeile mentioned. “So when we joined we just had this sort of mutual admiration for each other and the friendship came afterwards.”
Talk In Tongues recorded their first single “Still Don’t Seem To Care,” in Zeile’s home using the gear that he had over the course of a week or two. Once they put it out, they started talking to Fairfax Recordings.
“It’s funny because we had planned to make this EP, well, it’s not really an EP, but just start making really good recordings and putting stuff online,” Zeile explained. “We were all like, ‘you know, maybe in two years somebody will catch on or something’. And then it turned out like a week and a half later we were all ready getting hit up. We made up our minds that we wanted to go with Fairfax.
“Then all of a sudden we had access to Fairfax Studios which took over Sound City Studios about a year or two ago. The old Sound City, the classic recording studio where “Rumors” and “Nevermind” were made.
“It became really different, and fun, and interesting. It was also good hanging there because some of the pressure was taken off us and we were working with an awesome engineer.
“I think when you make an album if anyone tells you they made something they set out to do they’re probably lying because there’s just so much stuff that comes up in the middle where directions change and you have new ideas. You know we set out to do something and I think what we ended up with was as good or better than what we set out to do.
“It started to feel like we were in Abbey Road or something. We had the nicest studio available to us and we could treat it like it was our own. It was fantasy life!”
TALK IN TONGUES play Soda Bar Apr 30, Bootleg May 1, and Wayfarer May 2.