© WoNo Magazine 2013
You can listen to Rivers & Coastlines: the ride and buy the album here.
Just a few months back Erwin Zijleman tipped the world on the band TMGS from Belgium. After listening to Rivers & Coastlines: the ride the album developed itself into one of my favourite albums of the past years in a very short time. (Click here for the review.) The unique mix of musical styles, the refined melodies and intricate instrumentations spoke to me in volumes. Enough reason to find out more about the band. Here's the result.
Most readers may not be
familiar with TMGS. How would you like to introduce yourself and the band?
Well hello
there, we are TMGS. A seven piece band from Antwerp, Belgium. Over the years we
had several line up changes, but we’ve been playing more or less with the same
line up for 5 years now. We don’t want to pin ourselves down to a specific
genre, but in a ‘name it or die’ situation, we ‘d probably go for alternative
country rock with horns. Or something like that.
The
band evolved from instrumental surf and spaghetti western music to this blend
of pure pop. This is quite a transition. In how far was this an organic
transition?
Pretty
organic really. We never thought about it, it all just went naturally. We listen
to a lot of music, so there are always changing influences around. We started
out as an instrumental surfband, playing old tunes from the sixties, but when
we started making our own songs, it all changed quickly. An album we listened
to a lot back then, was The Black Light by Calexico, so that obviously was a
big influence when we recorded our first album. And from Calexico we got into
related bands like the whole Howe Gelb/Giant Sand world. But also Wilco,
Magnolia, the Sadies and Richmond Fontaine. We were lucky enough to play a few
shows with Fontaine and really related with them. Willy Vlautin was an
influence when we started to sing. None of us really wanted to be a singer, but
we felt we had to do it for the sake of the songs we were making. And now that
I think of it, every TMGS album was made with a different line up. So every time
when a new member joins the band, dynamics change and new influences are
brought in.
Is
this transition also the reason you changed the band name into TMGS?
Yes, that’s
the main reason. When we felt we had a definite line up with Dirk and Yves joining
on drums and keyboards, we wanted to make a new start, but not turn away
completely from what we had done so far. Another reason is that our first name
‘the moe greene specials’ got spelled wrong so many times, we got fed up with
it. TMGS only got spelled wrong once (TGMS) so far, so that seems to work
alright.
There
are still hints of surf guitar and the twang of the spaghetti western. Who were
your main influences and what attracted you to this music?
The movie
Pulp Fiction and its soundtrack had started a surf revival that lasted quite a
while with bands like Fifty foot combo and the Revelaires in Belgium and the
Treble Spankers in Holland. That got us started. We played songs by sixties
bands like the Bel-Airs, the Pyramids, the Lively Ones and so on. And when we
started using a spanish guitar, we added a more western/mariachi feel to it
that we picked up from Ennio Morricone and Calexico.
On
‘Rivers and coastlines: The ride’ many influences can be heard. From The
Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star to The Beatles. Were you exposed to this
music along the way or were these (sort of) influences always there?
We grew up
in the nineties listening to bands like the Posies, Buffalo Tom and Teenage
Fanclub. So I guess they were always there, inspiring us indirectly. Through
them, we discovered Big Star and the Byrds/Parsons who were hugely influential
on the nineties guitarbands. The Big Star reference is quite new and surprising
to us. But we don’t mind. We like the Big Star records a lot, so it’s a huge
compliment.
There
is also the desert connection of Calexico/mariachi trumpets. Together with the
influences above it makes a mix that is special. Who were there first, the band
members with trumpets or the concept for this mix?
The idea of
having horns in the band was there from the very beginning. Koen is one of the
original members. Though he didn’t have a trumpet yet, he always showed up at
rehearsals and just sat around. We also had a saxophone player back then who
didn’t have his own sax. They both joined the local fanfare to get instruments
and learn how to play for free. A saxophone was used in a lot of those old surf
songs, and we liked the idea of having a small horn section, but when he left
the band we decided to go with a second trumpet instead of the saxophone.
Because it worked better with our own songs. When Bart joined on trumpet, he
was the first one in the band with sort of a musical education bringing in a
more technical style which defines the TMGS sound up till today.
In my
review I wrote that TMGS tries to make the perfect pop song. Do you think it’s
possible to write one and if so what should such a song contain?
We’re not really
trying to make perfect pop songs, in fact we like to play around with alternative
structures and basically try to avoid typical songwriting. Then again,
sometimes it’s good to just go for a basic structure. A good song writes itself
for the most part. When there’s a lot of struggling to get it right, that’s usually
not a good sign. But yeah, on Rivers & coastlines, most of the songs seem
to have a basic pop structure. We are just trying to make the songs as good as
possible, but not in terms of a perfect pop song. That sounds a little boring
to be honest. I guess over the years,
musicians created sort of a template structure for the perfect pop song, but
the emotional element that makes a song genuinely good is still a mystery. And
that’s a good thing too.
The
music has a hint of melancholy and sadness. Do you feel more comfortable
musically in these moods?
We use a
lot of minor chords, so that defines the atmosphere quite a bit. But it’s never
all sad. There’s always beauty and hope to it. Probably that’s what melancholy
is all about. We like to put some contrast in the songs, like combining moody
lyrics with happy musical arrangements or vice versa. For some reason, it seems
easier to write a sad song than a happy one. Don’t know why, it just is.
The
songs are arranged in a lush and warm way. How are the songs conceived, from a
total upfront concept or organically together as a band?
Most of the
time Peet (and sometimes Yves) comes up with the chords and a basic idea, and
then we play around with it for a while, adding words and changing parts.
Sometimes the basic ideas are more or less the finished song, other times it
gets turned upside down and changes quite a lot. In that case, it really
becomes an organic band process with everyone throwing in ideas.
Who
is responsible for what in the band?
I play
guitar and do some singing and since I started the band, I guess I’m considered
to be sort of the leader in terms of making decisions and generally keep things
going. I also provide the artwork and most of the lyrics. Peet plays guitar and
does most of the singing lately. Musically, he is definitely the main man
writing 80% of the songs. Yves also delivers songs, he sings and plays
keyboards and brings in some unexpected elements since he listens mainly to
hiphop and dub records. Dirk adds a lot of ideas in singing harmonies and his distinctive
drumming style adds a lot to our sound. He could be considered being the
counter weight in the band. When we’re down about something, he always tries to
get us up, and at times when we’re flying high, he easily brings us down again.
Then there‘s Bart and Koen playing trumpet & percussion, and recently,
Roeland joined us on bass and backing vocals. And that’s TMGS right there.
Where does “The ride” in the title lead us
to?
Everywhere
and nowhere particular. We like to invite listeners to fill in the missing data
themselves. It’s fun to play around with the idea of a concept album, although
it isn’t one. We vaguely tell a story, with the music, artwork and the
tracklisting. It’s more about feeling that there’s a story and things are
falling into place, rather than getting all the info straight. I like to think
of it as a David Lynch movie, where you get the feeling you know what’s going
on, but you can’t tell exactly what. The combination of all those things is
very important, we spent a lot of time getting the songs in the right order,
even though we know people will shuffle the hell out of it on their iPods.
Are the references to Rivers and coastlines
a reflection of the part of the country you live in?
Not really,
it’s a line from ‘Tell Everyone’, the first song on the album. The idea of a
ride along raging coastlines was very appealing and romantic in a way. And it
matched perfectly with the backcover photo I took on a trip with Koen way back
in 2002. I think it’s taken in Big Sur, California. That last verse pretty much
sums up the whole idea of the album. So it became the title.
In
the song(title)s there’s travelling, riding, coming and going, change and
continuum in life mentioned. What is your message here?
The TMGS
music has always been very cinematic. We like to call it ‘landscape music’. It
seems to be working best while travelling. In a car or on a train with
landscapes passing by. (Maybe that’s your ride, right there.) But it can also
be a period in life you go through, emotionally or whatever. We don’t want to
send out a message or anything. Except maybe from the fact that sometimes you
need to go a long way to end up exactly where you started from. There’s always
the need of getting away from something. It’s like the great Ronan Keating
said: ‘life‘s a rollercoaster, you just gotta ride it’.
Is
the grass greener over there or is coming home preferred?
Yes, but
coming home is needed to see the bigger picture.
How does coming from Kalmthout influence
the music TMGS makes?
We’re
pretty relaxed and we’re just going our own way, trying to make music that’s
timeless, not following latest hypes or trends which only sounds like an
exhausting thing to do. Maybe that’s a countryside thing.
In
Belgium bands band members seem to play in endless other bands. Is this the
case for TMGS as well?
We do play
in other bands or make music at home, apart from TMGS. Bands and projects like
The Incredible Sucking Spongies, Mount Venus, Tim Boston, Tortilla Kid,
Superette Rita, The Heavy Machinery and Boutros Boutros Ghali. But none of that
is related to each other. So there’s no scene or anything like that. TMGS is
our main thing.
What
can we expect from TMGS in the near future?
More
albums, more evolution & hopefully a lot more live shows, (which are hard
to find because we don’t have a booking agent or management or whatever). We started working on new songs, so hopefully
soon, new stuff gets recorded. As long as we have fun doing it, we’ll just keep
going.
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