Interview - Tilly & The Wall

Written by The Dish | Thursday, September 7, 2006 |

Over a terrible line from Islington Academy, Kianna, vocalist to Omaha beauties Tilly And The Wall  kindly  allowed me to bend her ear for a few minutes over song writing, Icelandic festivals and crowds from both sides of the pond.

How long have you been in Europe now?
We’ve been In Europe a month. Played a bunch of festivals, Reading and Leeds which was our first festival, erm, Bestival. A whole bunch of little ones.

You are set to play Iceland Airwaves, a music festival over in the steamy lands of Iceland. Are you looking forward to playing? It seems like quite a good mixture of a line-up.
Well I’m not sure how they booked it. People just tell us where we’re going, but we said please try and get us there. We were just dying to play so when they said we were playing we were just like Oh My God, we didn’t think it was real.

How has life on the road been?
The whole tour has been totally crazy, I haven‘t slept for the past couple of days! Its really worth it though y’know, so you gotta make the most of it.

How different are the crowds over on this side of the pond compared to the US?
I don’t think it’s very different over here at all. They’re just as fun, just as good energy.

You’re described as “classic 60s pop, boy/girl harmonies and Americana folk records” A pretty typical style of music that seems to be emanating out of Omaha from what I hear. Do you think this to do with the history of the place or more to do with the people living there?
I’m not sure. We didn’t have any ideas about the band when we started. All that we wanted was that when we played a show we wanted it to be entertaining.

We caught you at the Kings College on the 12th and noticed that not all of you were there…?
Yeah, Nick lost his passport and so couldn’t come over.

Your debut album, Wild Like Children, was released in June 2004 on Conor Oberst’s label Team Love. How did you  feel after that was put out?
 It was incredible. We only put out the EP before that which we burned off by hand, and did all the cover work by hand. It was so tedious. We didn’t get a record deal, no one was interested. Then when our friend (Oberst) who was starting up a record label wanted to put it out, we were like ‘Yes please!’. It’s just nice that slowly we get recognition. Putting an album out is just so amazing, you can play a show in somewhere like Ireland and you’ll never have been there before but everyone will have heard your records. The internet has definitely helped, we really like the way you can put out your music for free. And we’re all about sharing.
When writing do you write purely from experience or do you create situations and characters?
I’ve never done that (create fictional situation). But I’m just getting into that kind of  writing, not necessarily songs but stories and stuff. So far all my songs have been from experience or inspired by authors.

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