Three Stars: The Tennis System

Were you in Atlanta long enough to get a sense of whether you liked the music down there or not?

Brad: Oh yeah! I’ve got a lot of friends in the Atlanta music. I did Drumline growing up and so I know a lot of drummers. So, yeah, the music’s good, you just gotta know where to go. Like East Atlanta, like, The EARL, stuff like that.

I did catch on from various interviews that you got your name from a Lilys song.

Matty: Yes, I love that band. Kurt’s a good friend of mine, dear friend of mine. It’s funny, I actually went and saw My Bloody Valentine in Richmond, saw Kurt and found out he was opening, which was awesome, so, watched that, and My Bloody Valentine was good. Then went up to Jersey at All Points West, ran into Kurt on the train to Jersey, hung out with him there, saw My Bloody Valentine, he went up onstage, I stayed out in the crowd. Then, went to New York, my brother and I and are friend were all hanging out, went over to Library’s, left Library’s, walked down the street. So we walked past a pub, Kurt was standing out front and he was like, “I want you to meet my friend, Kevin Shields,” and I was just like, “What the fuck?” I hung out with My Bloody Valentine all night. Everyone was there except for Drake’s wife.

Drake: Bilinda Butcher.

Matty: But it was awesome. They were so awesome. Super nice people. I talked gear with Kevin Shields. Deb and I talked for like an hour about sports, it was awesome. And then Kurt, to mess with me, there was a kit there, and Colin was playing drums and Kurt was like, “Oh, I’m going to play a song,” and he played Tennis System. It was unreal. I couldn’t even believe it, it was ridiculous.

I have a theory. Let me know if you agree or disagree with me on this. People have been fans of My Bloody Valentine as long as they’ve been in existence but it feels like there’s a resurgence of bands that are influenced by them since they’ve started touring again.

Matty: I don’t really know of a lot of bands that have that same sound right now.

Drake: I would disagree, solely because I always think there’s been a market for that genre of music since the late ‘80s. I think most of the bands that are around right now that are gaining attention, gained attention before they started touring again a few years ago. And I think that, yeah, their existence has helped propel a lot of bands in that genre but I don’t think them coming back is making anybody that much more well-known. I don’t think My Bloody Valentine is more well-known now than they were twenty years ago, so I don’t think their touring again directly affects another band’s popularity.

Matty: I kind of agree with Drake on that because my brother’s band has been doing a sound very similar to that for years and still I don’t think that they get the recognition that they deserve and they’re amazing. And I think it’s really sad because nowadays it’s who you know it’s not how good you are. I mean, it helps to be good, but if you know the right people and have the right amount of money you can be a big thing.

Who’s your brother’s band?

Matty: (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope.

Yeah, you’re opening for them soon. I was wondering how you got that spot and now I understand.

Matty: Well, I booked that show. We do a lot of shows together. Usually whenever they come to DC now, we just play together and I booked a show and we played together in New York as well, at the Cake Shop which was really good. It was a lot of fun.

It sounds like you’re booking a decent number of shows.

Matty: I’ve been booking a lot of shows. This summer has been crazy. It’s so weird because it’s so hard to get shows out of town and all of the sudden we’ve gotten all of these responses so we took them all on because we want to get out of town. We want to be popular in DC, obviously. It’s our hometown, we want people to like us here but I feel like if you want to be heard you really have to go outside DC. So, that’s definitely something we all want to do so that’s why we took on all those shows out of town. We’re always trying to take more shows out of town because we want people to hear us.

What’s been your favorite place out of town to play?

Brad: New York’s pretty fun.

Matty: The Annex is a great place.

Brad: Philly.

Matty: I wasn’t too stoked on Philly.

Brad: I like the city.

Matty: I love Philly but we kind of got shafted. It was frustrating. When they booked the show and then the night of the show they’re like, oh yeah, you guys are going to be playing an early show because there’s another band that’s going to be playing later. We found this out the day before the show, so our friends Shapiro couldn’t actually come up. It was annoying. And our friends were playing that night as well so a lot of our friends went to that show. It was difficult. I like the Annex the best, that was my favorite show.

Drake: I liked the Cake Shop.

Matty: Cake Shop was a fun show.

How long have you guys been together?

Matty: We’ve been playing together for a little over a year. It started off Clinton, Brad and I. This story is so funny because I met [Brad’s] girlfriend because I worked at a bar and she worked at the same bar and I was in this band before, The Mantras and we broke up. So then Brad said, “Let’s play together,” and he said, “I have a friend who plays bass.” Clinton. So he was like, let’s just do it, let’s do it. This was at the Black Cat at his girlfriend’s going away party. So we booked a show at the Velvet Lounge with Screen Vinyl Image. Had another show booked at Velvet which was our second show and the night before Brad had his motorcycle accident. I still feel bad to this day because when his girlfriend called me, I was like, “Shut up.” She’s like, “No, really, it’s really bad.” So, I freaked out. We still played that show. We had another drummer fill in. And the next show from then was at the Black Cat.

Brad: I’m like the Spinal Tap drummer.

Matty: So then we booked a show at Black Cat in February. Drake started working at Marvin in January.

Drake: December.

Matty: We worked together. We were bar backing. We didn’t really talk that much. But at one point we were both in the kitchen putting some dishes away or eating some food or something and we started talking about music and I asked him, “What are you into?” I asked if he liked (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope and he’s like “I love that band!” He said, “And I love this band, Lilys,” and then it was just instantly it was like, click click click click click click. We immediately clicked and I’m like, “Dude, I have this band. I don’t know if you want to play.” He listened to it and was like, “I definitely want to.” We’ve been playing together ever since then.

How does the songwriting process work for you guys?

Matty: Basically, I’ll write a song and I’ll bring it to practice. That’s basically how it’s been thus far.

Brad: We had a Drake song. He came with a melody and we build out of that.

Matty: Recently, we had a Drake song. A lot of the songs we had written before Drake had joined. We had the parts added in.

Drake: I’d say about 50% of the songs, he had already had two guitar parts written. So I would just play what he’d already written. Then for maybe the other half, I came up with the second guitar part for it.

Brad: I’m just the drummer. I kind of play what I play. And he’s a badass bassist.

Matty: Drake and I were talking about this. We know that no matter what we write, Clinton catches on immediately and it’s a perfect bassline. Just writing a song or playing a song, it just clicks. Even if it’s not a song that we’re really writing. We always start with just making notes and it always just clicks and it always sounds awesome when they do it.

Brad: We’ve had a couple that just come out of nowhere. And then Matty puts lyrics to it.

Matty: But recently, Drake and I have been sitting down trying to write stuff and that’s going pretty well. I’m pretty happy with what we’re doing right now.

Brad: I feel like we need to have more sessions at my place. Break up the acoustics.

Where do you usually practice?

Matty: Drake and my house. We have a practice space in the basement, so, we practice there and that’s usually where most of the magic happens.

Do you guys live in DC?

Brad: Yeah.

Clinton: I think, for me at least it’s been fun because while there’s musical interest that crosses over between all four of us, I think growing up we may have focused on different types of music. So all four of the different brains coming together with different focuses...like Brad said, he was in Drumline, so he had a lot of that background on top of the music he was listening to. I was in classical piano player/trumpet stuff growing up.

Matty: He’s an amazing pianist.

Clinton: Then I focused on jazz in college, although I was listening to a whole bunch of other shit. I know Drake likes the pop-punk. (laughter) So a lot of different angles coming together.

Matty: I was lucky enough that my parents raised me on The Beatles, The Kinks, The Stones. And then my brother introduced me to all the shoegaze and indie stuff later on. My brother used to take me to shows. The first show I ever saw was Gloworm and the Heartworms in a basement in Mt. Pleasant. That was pretty awesome. But I’ve been lucky enough to have all this music just thrown on me.

So you’ve grown up with a sense of what D.C. is doing musically.

Matty: Totally. My brother used to bring me to Fort Reno all the time and I saw Fugazi and I used to have the biggest crush on Michelle Mae. I’d go watch Make-Up and I’ve been coming to D.C. shows for most of my life.

So what is your sense for where local music is right now? How do you feel it’s evolved?

Matty: I think it’s evolved a lot. It’s not anywhere what it used to be. D.C. was put on the map for Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, stuff like that but it’s not really like that anymore. The bands from here that are getting recognition now are more indie, indie pop bands. I think that Imperial China is definitely doing an amazing thing. They’re awesome. They kind of remind me of This Evening. Which is really cool. They have aspects of Fugazi as well. I also really like the band Last Tide. They’re awesome. What about you guys?

Brad: I mean, I love French Toast. The bassist for French Toast just opened a bar. I kind of want to go there. I think it might be crazy. Fugazi, man. I used to listen to Fugazi when I was in Atlanta. 13 Songs was what got me into them, but do you know what’s even better? I bought an album at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I used to live in New York and it was a movie they made. And that album was insanely good. But I can’t remember the name of it right now.

Drake: I like the late ‘80s dream pop scene. Black Tambourine, Gloworm. I guess my favorite D.C. band is probably Nation of Ulysses. 13-Point Program to Destroy America changed my writing style. I do like Last Tide a lot.

Matty: As far as old school, Velocity Girl was great. Obviously (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope are one of my favorites. Even if it wasn’t my brother, their music is just great.

Clinton: They make me want to pack up my bass.

Having seen this evolution, where would you like to see D.C. music going?

Matty: I’d kind of like it to go back to the rawness that it used to have. I just feel like a lot of bands here are...

Drake: Too polished, a lot of the time. I think their eyes are just too much on trying to make it big, trying to play what everybody wants to hear instead of just going out there and having a good time and just rocking out and having fun.

Matty: That’s our thing. I think there’s only a couple of bands in D.C. with the same sound as us and that’s kind of what we want. We don’t want to sound like everybody else. It’s like, what’s the point? You’re not doing anything different. At the same time, I want people to hear our record and think, “That’s a really good record.” I don’t want it to be, “Somebody told me that I should like this, so I do.” I feel like that’s how it is, really. Somebody says, “Oh, you should like this band. Right now.” And I just don’t really think that that’s how it should be. I think that if you like something, you should like it because you like it, not because somebody told you to like it. Another band that’s doing it really well and is fucking awesome is The Points.

Two of you are bartenders. Do you exercise any control over what gets played at the bar?

Matty: Well Marvin, when I set up, I have complete control. So as I set up, whatever I want. But once Marvin opens, not so much.

Drake: They have DJs.

Brad: By the way, Monday...the bomb night to be at Marvin. It’s been that way since it opened.

Matty: Sometimes I could go in there and put my iPod on. I used to work Sundays and I could put my iPod on. But now it’s strictly their playlist. You actually have control over it, do you put your iPod on sometimes?

Drake: Oh yeah.

Matty: I know when I used to work at Bourbon, when Bourbon actually opened as Bourbon, I would make the playlists and all the music that played there in the first year, actually first two years, was a playlist that I would make. And then my friend Patrick started making them and we started collaborating on playlists at Bourbon.

Are you guys aware of just how loud you are?

Matty: No. People tell us that.

Drake: I think it kind of goes back to our desire to just play raw stuff. You know what I mean? We like to play loud. We’re not going to play what everyone else wants to hear. We’re comfortable with how we sound.

Matty: I remember when I would go to a Make-Up show, Nation of Ulysses, anything like that, my ears were always ringing afterwards. And I loved it. And I think anybody could listen to a record so, if you want it quiet, listen to a record. Our record’s going to be out in September, buy it, you’ll love it but if you want to go to a show, go to a show and listen to fucking music.

Drake: It’s very important to differentiate between a live sound and a recorded sound. To be truthful, I don’t really enjoy going to most shows because they sound very polished and they play it exactly how it sounds on the record. Nobody moves. They stand around like they’re scared of hitting a wrong note. And the sound is perfect and everything is just too perfect and it’s like, if I wanted this, I’d stay home. When you come see us, it’s going to be loud, it’s going to be in your face, we’re going to move onstage. I’m going to miss a quarter of the notes and I don’t give a fuck.

Matty: I might fall on Drake. Drake might fall on me. I might take somebody out. I’ve been hit in the head with a guitar before. It’s cool. I’m alright with that. I don’t mind that. That’s part of a show, man. That’s why you go. If you’re going to come to one of our shows, bring earplugs. We give you warning, it says it on our MySpace page. I like to play loud. I think it’s more fun loud. We all have fun.

Drake: It’s just part of the overall experience. We also decided to live track the record instead of recording each instrument separately to kind of give the record the same raw energy or similar raw energy.