Jason Bavanandan talks with Kyp Malone
Sat excitedly in an office across the Atlantic from his revered comrade, Jason picks up the phone to compare notes and thoughts…
Jason Bavanandan is the enigmatic lead singer of Battle, the forward thinking agit-pop protagonists currently blazing trails through the offices of Transgressive Records. When asked who he wanted to interview for Personality Clash, he had only one band to request: TV On The Radio.
Kyp Malone is the new boy in TV On The Radio, adeptly juggling guitar, vocal and songwriting duties for New York’s most innovative and exciting band. Don’t just take our word for it – ask David Bowie, who appears on their new album ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’, a haunting and soulful masterpiece that has deeply affected all who have discovered its joyful genius.
JB: TV On The Radio are, for a lot of people, still a new band. You’ve been around and done loads of other stuff before. A lot of bands nowadays get together when they’re 18 or 21 and they haven’t really lived…
KM: That doesn’t stop people from making good music at the age of 18. It’s not a question of what they’ve experienced. I’m constantly amazed at what young people produce.
JB: Over here there’s bands like Arctic Monkeys…
KM: That kid can really write. I don’t really care for a lot of the stuff he’s writing about, but he’s really articulate about it. I was impressed by his writing on that record.
JB: I think that would probably mean a lot coming from a fellow musician. I know what you mean when you hear new bands and you think, “this sounds derivative”; it’s difficult to keep your prejudices back and to listen to it for what it is. But what’s good about the Arctic Monkeys is that there’s quite a soulful element to them. When Alex Turner is singing it sounds like he’s really talking about things he understands and his environment.
KM: Things he cares about?
JB:Yeah. He’s not pretending to know about stuff that isn’t within his domain. Which is great when it’s straight forwards. But when you listen to ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’, a lot of the stuff that’s been spoken about is a lot more abstract and it seems to be shrouded in an element of mystery and romance. Is that something that was planned or it that just how it comes out?
“I don’t wanna call anyone out specifically or make it so personal that the audience don’t relate to it. I want other people to be able to like the record and to project their meaning onto it.”
KM: A lot of the subject matter of the songs, at least on the lyrics I was writing, are directly referential to people and situations that have occurred since between the last record and ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’. I don’t wanna call anyone out specifically or make it so personal that the audience don’t relate to it. I want other people to be able to like the record and to project their meaning onto it.
JB: With a band like the Arctic Monkeys, do you think that, to American audiences, Alex Turner’s lyrics can be a bit alienating? Because he’s talking about things in a very specific vernacular.
KM: It’s a specific vernacular, but people can relate to it whether they’re in Laos, Nigeria, or Texas.
JB: I think that’s key and what’s great about bands like The Beatles. They were able to talk about small and almost mundane things but in a way so that they could romanticise the very ordinary. Great songs – like old Motown songs – talk about love in a very innocent way. And even earlier than that with people like Sam Cooke, when he talks about love, now it may seem a bit dated but people still listen to it because it’s absolutely true. Even Eskimos could relate to that because it’s a universal feeling. How do you go about writing lyrics?
“I think it’s really hard to write simple things as you have to forget your preconceptions and you have to throw yourself open.”
KM: There are songs that if you read the lyrics out they sound trite. But when combined with the music it becomes like gospel. And it becomes much more difficult to do the simple things than to do something complicated. A friend of mine was telling me about Johnny Marks, who wrote ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ – you know that song?
JB: Everyone knows that song!
KM: I was thinking that if I had that melody in my head, would I be brave enough to make that song? Would I have been able to write ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ or would I have been so full of selfdoubt about it being too kooky or simple? I think I would’ve thrown it away.
JB: I’m the same in that sense. I get very caught up in the fear of things being too simple. But you listen to ‘Let It Be’ and if you played that chord sequence now, there’s probably a million songs written like that. You get the feeling that when Paul McCartney wrote that, he just sat down and let his fingers do the talking and it just came out in a very natural way. I think it’s really hard to write simple things as you have to forget your preconceptions and you have to throw yourself open. It’s like when you go to church to see people singing gospel – those songs are so powerful, yet there’s probably only three chords behind it. On one hand you get bands like Radiohead who are incredible because of their incredibly complex songs and a result the emotions seem quite complicated. I think it weird that on one hand I can really love Radiohead but I can still really love someone like Buddy Holly who probably only played four chords in his entire life. Do you ever struggle when you’re writing to keep things simple? Or are you becoming more adept at writing complex material as you become a more technically proficient player?
KM: I’m probably the least technically proficient guitarist of anyone you know! The more I play the more technically proficient I’m becoming, but I’m not in danger of getting too bogged down in theory or anything as I have a really long way to go to get to that point.
JB: I remember something that David Bowie said. If he was able to get the sounds out of his head that he wanted to, that would be the day to quit and hang up his guitar and he wouldn’t make any more music. Because for him, the beauty of making music was having something in your head so abstract that you didn’t know how you’d get there and it was an ongoing narrative of trying to get from A to B. When you played in London, you played at Kings Cross and I still hadn’t seen you play. What amazed me was that TV On The Radio are more than an indie band and more than an alternative band. It actually reminded of watching a soul band; I’d been watching some footage of Marvin Gaye and everything about the atmosphere was quite churchlike in a futuristic way. I was just expecting to see another band whose music I really liked, but the way everything interacted it was like a collision of five personalities.
KM: There’s five really strong personalities in the band and we’ve got a really fortunate mixture of people. I believe that’s potentially the case with most bands. It’s like Hollywood and how many crap films get made every year – they’ve got a formula for what sells and they’ll keep making those movies until they don’t make music anymore. They’re not looking for the next Easy Rider. The same thing happens in the music industry, there’s an archetype that was established long before most of the people who are making music. Bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones… People keep trying to fill those roles all over again. Who’s the most charismatic frontman? It’s the same thing all over again. Every person is unique to themselves and if you put people together, something unique will come out of it if people are being honest and open. But people who sell music are constantly trying to chop things up into convenient packages so they can copy the model of what sells.
“Nobody wants to be embarrassed by what we’re doing so we’re all pretty vigilant about it, but it’s still a struggle”
JB: Any band that’s still walking the precedents that were set out by The Beatles and The Beach Boys will find that when something works, a record label is really reluctant to move away from that. How have you managed to do things on your own terms? Lots of bands have a strong will, but did you have a will backed up by the determination not to have anything watered down? How did you do it?
KM: I don’t know. Compromises have been made and we’ve all been made sick by different things. Nobody wants to be embarrassed by what we’re doing so we’re all pretty vigilant about it, but it’s still a struggle. We’ve made the change from an indie to a major in the States and I don’t know what to expect really. A lot of people’s fear has not been justified so far. I feel like there’s more of that heading our way as far as battling to do what we want.
JB: On one hand, as a band, you want to get your music out there to as many people as possible because it’s something you believe in. I don’t think narcissistic is the word, but you want to shout it from the rooftops and sometimes you think the only way to do that is to be on a major label. And you think that if you can bend them to your will maybe the major will get your music out there. Sometimes you think that if you’re on an indie, then maybe only 10,000 people will get the chance to hear you as opposed to 100,000. What were your motivations behind your move to a major?
KM: On one hand it was the same attitude – wanting people to hear it – and that’s true. I’m putting a lot into it. I’m away on tour all the time and that’s a choice. But it also means I’m away from my daughter.
JB: That’s the hardest thing. When you’ve got a girlfriend or a family, to not be able to see people you love it’s heartbreaking.
KM: But it’s more than that. Not to have money when you come home, that was the crux of it. I can justify working and being gone, but to come home broke or close to broke… We haven’t done bad for ourselves, we’ve been fortunate to break even and get some money in. When you’ve been away for a month and come home with $700 and I’ve got a family, no-one’s laughing about. The motivation was a financial motivation and I’m not embarrassed about that.
Jason Bavanandan is the enigmatic lead singer of Battle, the forward thinking agit-pop protagonists currently blazing trails through the offices of Transgressive Records. When asked who he wanted to interview for Personality Clash, he had only one band to request: TV On The Radio.
Kyp Malone is the new boy in TV On The Radio, adeptly juggling guitar, vocal and songwriting duties for New York’s most innovative and exciting band. Don’t just take our word for it – ask David Bowie, who appears on their new album ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’, a haunting and soulful masterpiece that has deeply affected all who have discovered its joyful genius.
JB: TV On The Radio are, for a lot of people, still a new band. You’ve been around and done loads of other stuff before. A lot of bands nowadays get together when they’re 18 or 21 and they haven’t really lived…
KM: That doesn’t stop people from making good music at the age of 18. It’s not a question of what they’ve experienced. I’m constantly amazed at what young people produce.
JB: Over here there’s bands like Arctic Monkeys…
KM: That kid can really write. I don’t really care for a lot of the stuff he’s writing about, but he’s really articulate about it. I was impressed by his writing on that record.
JB: I think that would probably mean a lot coming from a fellow musician. I know what you mean when you hear new bands and you think, “this sounds derivative”; it’s difficult to keep your prejudices back and to listen to it for what it is. But what’s good about the Arctic Monkeys is that there’s quite a soulful element to them. When Alex Turner is singing it sounds like he’s really talking about things he understands and his environment.
KM: Things he cares about?
JB:Yeah. He’s not pretending to know about stuff that isn’t within his domain. Which is great when it’s straight forwards. But when you listen to ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’, a lot of the stuff that’s been spoken about is a lot more abstract and it seems to be shrouded in an element of mystery and romance. Is that something that was planned or it that just how it comes out?
“I don’t wanna call anyone out specifically or make it so personal that the audience don’t relate to it. I want other people to be able to like the record and to project their meaning onto it.”
KM: A lot of the subject matter of the songs, at least on the lyrics I was writing, are directly referential to people and situations that have occurred since between the last record and ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’. I don’t wanna call anyone out specifically or make it so personal that the audience don’t relate to it. I want other people to be able to like the record and to project their meaning onto it.
JB: With a band like the Arctic Monkeys, do you think that, to American audiences, Alex Turner’s lyrics can be a bit alienating? Because he’s talking about things in a very specific vernacular.
KM: It’s a specific vernacular, but people can relate to it whether they’re in Laos, Nigeria, or Texas.
JB: I think that’s key and what’s great about bands like The Beatles. They were able to talk about small and almost mundane things but in a way so that they could romanticise the very ordinary. Great songs – like old Motown songs – talk about love in a very innocent way. And even earlier than that with people like Sam Cooke, when he talks about love, now it may seem a bit dated but people still listen to it because it’s absolutely true. Even Eskimos could relate to that because it’s a universal feeling. How do you go about writing lyrics?
“I think it’s really hard to write simple things as you have to forget your preconceptions and you have to throw yourself open.”
KM: There are songs that if you read the lyrics out they sound trite. But when combined with the music it becomes like gospel. And it becomes much more difficult to do the simple things than to do something complicated. A friend of mine was telling me about Johnny Marks, who wrote ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ – you know that song?
JB: Everyone knows that song!
KM: I was thinking that if I had that melody in my head, would I be brave enough to make that song? Would I have been able to write ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ or would I have been so full of selfdoubt about it being too kooky or simple? I think I would’ve thrown it away.
JB: I’m the same in that sense. I get very caught up in the fear of things being too simple. But you listen to ‘Let It Be’ and if you played that chord sequence now, there’s probably a million songs written like that. You get the feeling that when Paul McCartney wrote that, he just sat down and let his fingers do the talking and it just came out in a very natural way. I think it’s really hard to write simple things as you have to forget your preconceptions and you have to throw yourself open. It’s like when you go to church to see people singing gospel – those songs are so powerful, yet there’s probably only three chords behind it. On one hand you get bands like Radiohead who are incredible because of their incredibly complex songs and a result the emotions seem quite complicated. I think it weird that on one hand I can really love Radiohead but I can still really love someone like Buddy Holly who probably only played four chords in his entire life. Do you ever struggle when you’re writing to keep things simple? Or are you becoming more adept at writing complex material as you become a more technically proficient player?
KM: I’m probably the least technically proficient guitarist of anyone you know! The more I play the more technically proficient I’m becoming, but I’m not in danger of getting too bogged down in theory or anything as I have a really long way to go to get to that point.
JB: I remember something that David Bowie said. If he was able to get the sounds out of his head that he wanted to, that would be the day to quit and hang up his guitar and he wouldn’t make any more music. Because for him, the beauty of making music was having something in your head so abstract that you didn’t know how you’d get there and it was an ongoing narrative of trying to get from A to B. When you played in London, you played at Kings Cross and I still hadn’t seen you play. What amazed me was that TV On The Radio are more than an indie band and more than an alternative band. It actually reminded of watching a soul band; I’d been watching some footage of Marvin Gaye and everything about the atmosphere was quite churchlike in a futuristic way. I was just expecting to see another band whose music I really liked, but the way everything interacted it was like a collision of five personalities.
KM: There’s five really strong personalities in the band and we’ve got a really fortunate mixture of people. I believe that’s potentially the case with most bands. It’s like Hollywood and how many crap films get made every year – they’ve got a formula for what sells and they’ll keep making those movies until they don’t make music anymore. They’re not looking for the next Easy Rider. The same thing happens in the music industry, there’s an archetype that was established long before most of the people who are making music. Bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones… People keep trying to fill those roles all over again. Who’s the most charismatic frontman? It’s the same thing all over again. Every person is unique to themselves and if you put people together, something unique will come out of it if people are being honest and open. But people who sell music are constantly trying to chop things up into convenient packages so they can copy the model of what sells.
“Nobody wants to be embarrassed by what we’re doing so we’re all pretty vigilant about it, but it’s still a struggle”
JB: Any band that’s still walking the precedents that were set out by The Beatles and The Beach Boys will find that when something works, a record label is really reluctant to move away from that. How have you managed to do things on your own terms? Lots of bands have a strong will, but did you have a will backed up by the determination not to have anything watered down? How did you do it?
KM: I don’t know. Compromises have been made and we’ve all been made sick by different things. Nobody wants to be embarrassed by what we’re doing so we’re all pretty vigilant about it, but it’s still a struggle. We’ve made the change from an indie to a major in the States and I don’t know what to expect really. A lot of people’s fear has not been justified so far. I feel like there’s more of that heading our way as far as battling to do what we want.
JB: On one hand, as a band, you want to get your music out there to as many people as possible because it’s something you believe in. I don’t think narcissistic is the word, but you want to shout it from the rooftops and sometimes you think the only way to do that is to be on a major label. And you think that if you can bend them to your will maybe the major will get your music out there. Sometimes you think that if you’re on an indie, then maybe only 10,000 people will get the chance to hear you as opposed to 100,000. What were your motivations behind your move to a major?
KM: On one hand it was the same attitude – wanting people to hear it – and that’s true. I’m putting a lot into it. I’m away on tour all the time and that’s a choice. But it also means I’m away from my daughter.
JB: That’s the hardest thing. When you’ve got a girlfriend or a family, to not be able to see people you love it’s heartbreaking.
KM: But it’s more than that. Not to have money when you come home, that was the crux of it. I can justify working and being gone, but to come home broke or close to broke… We haven’t done bad for ourselves, we’ve been fortunate to break even and get some money in. When you’ve been away for a month and come home with $700 and I’ve got a family, no-one’s laughing about. The motivation was a financial motivation and I’m not embarrassed about that.
TV On The Radio
Battle
