Tan Dollar

www.myspace.com/tandollar


Photo by Paul Rosales

Tan Dollar is an Orange County based indie-synth-lo-fi-bliss-pop band, comprised of Chris Thorne, Chris Balingit, and Liz Suh. In the past year they’ve played a bunch of shows at some of the coolest spots around L.A., including the Echo Curio, L’Keg, the Tribal Cafe, The Smell, and have released two EP’s, Tan Dollar and Pink Sky, and a single on the amazing web-label Beko. They are about to embark on a semi-ambitious tour of the West Coast, with dates in Tempe, AZ., Palm Springs, San Luis Obispo, Oakland, and San Fran. Their first full-length CD/CS, Your Body As A Temple, released in early January on CD by Life’s Blood and cassette by Mirror Universe, released late January

How would you describe your music?
Suh: Pretty pop music.
Thorne: Stuff that I make with my best friends. Upbeat music with otherworldly noise ambience. I don’t know. Noise pop. It’s something like that.

How and when did Tan Dollar start?
Thorne: Me and my friend Mike McDowell started Tan Dollar, after ending another somewhat short-lived project known as The Month Long Song, several years ago in High School with other friends. Lil’ Chris (we call him Lil’ Chris) joined somewhere in that hazey period. Let’s just say we were influenced a lot more by psychedelics at that point. We would all switch off on different instruments.
Suh: I got asked to join the band in 2008, it’s a lot different now.
Thorne: Yeah. The line up in terms of members and instruments slowly evolved and became what it is today around the end of 2008.

What were some of the original influences, motivations, and goals of the band? Do you feel those original goals and expectations have been met? In what ways have they changed?
Thorne: Starting out we never really had any specific goals and it’s still very much that way. We tend to just take things as they go because the future is never certain. I really just want to play shows in as many cities as we possibly can. That would be cool. Slowly this goal is becoming realized. Eventually I want to release some of our music on vinyl.

You play live often. What are some of the more memorable shows? What is your favorite venue? What bands do you like to play with?
Suh: One of my most favorite/memorable shows was at UCI hosted by Acrobatics Everyday. We played with Indian Jewelry, Psychic Ills, and The Light Rays. The energy was just super intense and everyone was into it, it was an awesome feeling. Indian Jewelry had gnarly fog machines going in the tiny trailer and the fire alarm went off. The music was so loud that nobody realized that the fire alarms were going off. My favorite venue probably has to be the rooms at UCI (hosted by AE). It’s always nice playing with friends who have their own projects, but I also like to play with touring bands and bands I haven’t heard of; it’s always nice meeting new people and hearing different sounds/styles.
Thorne: Yeah. Not to mention we only have to drive 15 minutes to go to a show there. I don’t know, I don’t really have a favorite venue. I mean I really love the Echo Curio in LA. But you got to respect anyone who puts in the time and work into putting on DIY shows whether you have your own venue, do shows at your school, or even friends who let us play a house show. Yeah, houses are probably my favorite venue. We want to be a party band.

Please discuss the creative process, from the initial stages of songwriting to recording.
Suh: It usually starts off with either Chris or I coming up with a keyboard riff. Everything else comes together after that, we just jam it out.
Thorne: It’s like that. One of us comes in with an initial idea and everyone else improvises. If it goes somewhere we then start to actually write song. Then we build the song part by part pretty much. A lot of the songs actually contain parts within them that are improvised, so when we play them live they aren’t exactly the same each time. Then I guess we usually tend to do vocals last. Some of the vocal parts on the new record were written after the music was recorded.

You have a new CD/CS coming out, Your Body As A Temple. Could you tell us a little bit about it?
Thorne: The songs on this record were written over almost this entire past year. We recorded in analogue straight to cassette tape. We really couldn’t have recorded without Paul Rosales. He does a really awesome project called Wonder Wheel. He basically serves as our “producer,” if you will, and just helps us record and mix our music. It’s like a group effort. Some of the songs were on the free digital releases we did throughout 2009 but everything on this new album was recorded specifically for it. It has a way more upbeat vibe to it than our previous stuff. I cannot talk about the Your Body As A Temple without saying how much I appreciate Sam Farzin, who runs the Life’s Blood label. The label basically operated by the same people involved with Acrobatics Everyday so it feels like home. This is our first professionally pressed album and we’re all just super excited and thankful to everyone who worked to make it happen, we just love you all. The tape is going to be out on Mirror Universe Tapes. Those guys are from South Carolina and are putting out the best cassettes by a lot of the best new bands.

Everything you have released prior to this full-length has been freely distributed on the internet. Was that strategic? How do you feel about current financial state of affairs for indie music? Please give us your take on the file-sharing “problem.”
Thorne: We actually have a couple of old tapes and cd-r releases that were never widely distrubuted online or anything. But yeah, I mean, I guess you could say it was strategic. I really just wanted as many people to hear our music and see what we’re about as possible. In this day and age anyone with a blogspot account can make a post and spread your music all around the world. There’s really no way I could say I view it as a problem. The internet has had nothing but a positive effect on us. I understand that not everyone can buy albums, because I myself can’t always afford to buy them. If people like what you’re doing and want a physical object to remember you then they will seek it out. It goes both though ways, you know, because it’s pretty hard to make a living off of music without touring almost non-stop. I mean, I guess I just hope that if you downloaded our album and liked it, I hope you will come to our show if we ever play in your area.

Is there anything/anyone in particular you would like to remix? Is there anyone you would like to remix a Tan Dollar song?
Suh: I’ve actually wanted to cover a couple songs, they’re pretty weird/stupid but I thought it would be fun: The Shangri-La’s, “It’s Easier to Cry” and Tim & Eric ft. Ruth Carr, “Come Over.” I don’t think the Chris’s want to cover those songs though, maybe I will eventually.
Thorne: Haha. I don’t know about that! Tim from Weed Diamond said he might work on some sort of remix of one of the songs off the new record, so I hope that comes together soon! That would be really awesome. Also, our friend Simo Soo from Australia remixed our song “Strength” and that was totally awesome. It came out sounding like aliens took over our band. That was really cool.

What are your future hopes and plans for Tan Dollar?
Suh: To keep kicking out the jams.
Thorne: Keep playing shows and continue to elevate our song writing. I also hope to have some Tan Dollar vinyl come out sometime in 2010.

Interviewed by Scott D. Mackie
December 2009