erin_broadley

Tilly and the Wall are one of the hottest bands in the thriving Omaha indie scene. Although Tilly and their labelmates on Conor Oberst's Team Love Records are starting to get big-time recognition, most people still know Tilly as the band that uses tap dancing as percussion. But on their new record, O, we find them using drums, electronic elements, and even an entire stomp team to flesh out their sound. Without sacrificing the high-energy sweetness of their first two albums, they've managed to add layers and even get a little dark, at times. SuicideGirls caught up with tap dancer Jamie Pressnall while the band was in a van en route to a show in Texas, to talk about the Omaha scene, the evolution of the Tilly sound, and the band's upcoming appearance on -- no kidding -- "Sesame Street."

Tilly and the Wall on MySpace
Team Love Records official site
MP3: "Pot Kettle Black"
MP3: "Cacophony"

Jay Hathaway: It must be pretty hot down there! Jamie Pressnall: Yeah, I'm actually kind of surprised by how hot it is! It's actually kind of nice, I don't mind getting some sun. JH: What's it like being on tour with people you're so close to? I know you and Derek are married, and you've all known each other a long time. Does that make it easier to be stuck in a van on a hot day? JP: [Laughs] We've all toured together for so long, we know each other well enough to know when it's time to back off. I think that we put our friendship before the band, and Derek and I put our marriage before the band. We know each other well enough to know when somebody needs to have alone time. It's great, we wouldn't do it any other way for sure. JH: I've heard that your live show is a lot of fun. You've got balloons and confetti, and people bake you things? JP: Yeah, we all really like to think about how we can make our live show as fun as possible, and take it to a higher level than we did the tour before. We're all visual artists as well, and so we all have a lot of ideas about what we can do to make it more fun. It's definitely something we take a lot of time planning. JH: What did you add to it for this tour? JP: This is our first tour with a lighting designer, which is awesome. That's a big step up for us. We wanted it to look like a party, so we have balloons and a lot of reflective surfaces. We did some new choreography, and we're playing a lot of songs from our brand new record. JH: And you have a drummer now! JP: We do. We tour with Craig DeMayo, who's our drummer, and Mason Brown, who plays bass and guitar. We're lucky to be able to tour with them, because they're both awesome musicians who bring the songs to a different level live. It's a lot of fun, because we have a lot of different options for the live show. JH: If you guys were all of a sudden given U2's touring budget, what would you do with it? JP: [Laughs] Oh god, a lot! It's funny, because our budget right now is so small. I don't even know! It would be fun because we could do whatever set designs we wanted. I think it would be fun tour with a stomp troupe. On the record, we have a stomp team of 10 people, and we recorded them in a gym. It would awesome to bring them on tour as well, have them come out for some songs. It would also be amazing to tour with enough musicians to play all the instrumentation that's on the record. Some day we'd also love to have a screen with videos of the tap dancing on it. JH: Did you do the choreography for all the songs yourself? JP: Kianna and I did it. I tried to do choreography, but I could not do it, so Kianna came up with some of the steps, and then I fit them into the songs, if that makes sense. Sort of a combined choreography. JH: Do you write the percussion parts first, or work out the tap steps first? JP: It depends on the song. Usually it's the tap part first, and then we add the stomp underneath. Every once in a while, someone have a song and want it to have a really specific backbeat. If that's the case, then I'll write the tap part around the backbeat. It really changes, 'cause all five of us write songs. It depends on what the songwriter has in mind. It's nice that it's not the same every time. JH: How do you feel about being known as "that band with a tap dancer instead of a drummer"? JP: Yeah, I don't mind. We decided to embrace that we are a band with a tap dancer. It's a point of interest. I love what I do in the band, and I feel like our music speaks for itself as well. People are going to like our band based on the music, and if they don't like it based on the music, that's cool too. JH: What's the hardest tap part to perform live? JP: For the song "Too Excited," there's a tap part before the song starts. That's kind of hard to perform because there's nothing else going on, and the way we have it lit is so there's a spotlight on me. If I make any mistakes, you can tell, 'cause there's no other music. That part's kind of stressful! Our very first night of tour, I totally fucked it up. I was like, "Oh, great!" I just could not get it together. JH: People think of you guys as being so cheerful and full of sunshine, but there's actually a bit of blood and anger on the new record. What kind of response were you expecting with that? JP: We had talked about how we wanted the album to have more of a punk vibe and maybe be a little more tough. We did know that we were going that direction from the way we started, because the songs we were writing were like Pot Kettle Black, or more dancey. Some of it was discussed, but some of it was just what that songwriter was feeling at the time. It was definitely fun to do something that wasn't expected. We just do what we're feeling, and our fans have always been supportive of us. Hopefully they'll like it as much as we do! JH: Since you all write songs independently, how do you decide what you're going to put on the album? JP: Whoever has the basic idea for a song will bring it, sometimes they have no direction and we just do whatever we want. Sometimes they have a specific direction about what they want to sound like. We don't really choose what's going to be on the record until the very last part of the process. With this record, we recorded everything and made our song choices from there. I feel like the record takes shape as you're writing it. This way we have some songs left over for singles, and it's fun to have some options after the record is out, as well. JH: Who are some influences you have in common, as songwriters? JP: We all really love Missy Elliott, and we all love Bob Dylan, and we all are huge fans of Cyndi Lauper. As far as individuals go, we have our own personal favorites. We definitely have a lot of bands in common we all love the Black Lips. Of Montreal, and Michael Jackson. CSS. JH: Didn't you guys tour with CSS? JP: Yeah, we did tour with them in Europe. We're actually going out with them again in mid-September, coming up pretty soon. We're really stoked. We got to go all over Europe with them, it was just the most fun tour. JH: They seem like they would be so much fun to hang out with. JP: They're all such sweethearts. We had a blast, so we're all really excited about the September tour with them. JH: When people think of Saddle Creek and Team Love, they think of Conor Oberst [Bright Eyes]. You've known him for a long time, and been part of that whole Omaha scene. What's that like? JP: It's been awesome. Everyone in Omaha is so supportive of each other. A lot of our friends are talented musicians, and if we have an idea for a song, they're always happy to come in and help us. It's great that we all have different styles, because you can learn from that and make it your own. Everyone has an appreciation for what the other people are doing. JH: People talk about Omaha like it's still the undiscovered indie capitol of the Midwest. How famous do you have to get before the city stops being treated like a big secret? JP: I don't know. Either way, it's all good. We're just doing what we're doing and having fun. I think it's nice that Omaha is a little under the radar. We don't mind that. We can go home, and it's a nice slow pace of life. We just get back to what we're doing before we left. We're all pretty happy with that. JH: So you all still live there? JP: We do, except that Nick lives in L.A. But, he basically lives in Omaha because he's there a lot for us. JH: Do you ever see yourselves leaving there? JP: For Derek and I, I see us staying there. We might move at some point to be closer to Derek's family. That wouldn't be for a long time. Not in the near future or anything like that. We love Omaha. JH: So, I've heard you guys are going to be on Sesame Street! JP: We are! JH: That's huge. That's something the kid version of you would look at and say, "Wow, you're so cool!" JP: (laughs) I know! Derek has lots of nieces and nephews, so they think we're superstars now because we're going to be on Sesame Street. It's really funny. We're all really excited about it. We actually filmed it in March. We green-screened an alphabet song, and they're animating it around us. We haven't seen the finish product yet, but it should be pretty cool when it's all done. JH: There's a pretty amazing of artists who have been on Sesame Street, too. You're joining a legacy there. JP: Yeah, we were really honored with that, that's for sure! JH: What's been the highlight of being in Tilly and the Wall so far, either personally or for all of you as a band? JP: We've all loved being able to see the world because of the band. We've been able to go overseas, go to Japan, Australia, Iceland ... those are places we never thought we'd be able to go, so that's been amazing.

Tilly and the Wall are on tour now. For more information go to the bands official site.