Interview Tellison

This Monday Tellison teamed up with tour buddies Tubelord to put out a special split 7’. If you want to get hold of a copy you’ll need to catch them on tour or head over to Banquet Records, and trust us; it’s worth it. DIY popped some questions over to Stephen from the band to see what was going on.

Hello Tellison! How are you today?
I am super well, but my left tonsil hurts. Today is day three of the 20 day tour. So tomorrow I will go and buy some Boots own brand honey and lemon linctus. For my throat. Because it is beginning to hurt. Today we are in Bristol at the Louisiana which is a pretty spectacular venue, I just ate some pasta and meatballs cooked by the Italian owner and now I am using Joe Tubelord’s computer to answer your questions.

You’ve got a brand new single out entitled ‘Wasp’s Nest’ - can you tell us a bit about it?
Ok yes. So the song is one of the first ones we wrote after finishing our album ‘Contact! Contact!’ and we recorded it with Mr Pat Collier (who mixed the album) in one sunny day in Perry Vale in South London. During the recording process Pat Collier wore a lovely jumper and maintained a wry smile whilst we, the band, broke things and spilled tea everywhere. The lyrics are partly about the temptation to see the worst in people, to imagine bad things and about the internal struggle to stop oneself doing that. Subject-wise its kind of fragmented, there are lots of things going on. Yup. But we like it like that.

How did joint releasing with Tubelord come about? Are split singles something you’d like to do more of in the future?
We’ve played with them a few times and always had a lovely lovely time and the idea came up and we all immediately thought it was a good one. They’d just got a bunch of songs out and we were wondering what to do next after the album and it just seemed like a superfun thing to do. We like split singles and we would definitely do another one.

You’re also in the middle of a fairly extensive tour - is there anywhere you’re particularly looking forward to playing? Or any highlights so far?
Exeter last night was a lot of fun. The Cavern is a good little venue and we’ve got a lot of history there so it was fun fun. I think we all look forward to playing King Tut’s in Glasgow, I used to go to that venue as a kid so to be playing on that stage is something of an honour. New Slang in Kingston promises to be pretty wonderful too.

We heard about you missing Exeter Urban Live Festival because of a mishap on the way there. Have you got a new car now?
There is no new car. The Sierra was sold for scrap and for this tour we’re in a big hired mercedes splitter van. Its nice because I get to sit opposite all of Tubelord and watch them while they sleep.

It’s been a little while since the release of your album ‘Contact! Contact!’ - are you working on material for the follow up yet?
Yes yes yes. We’ve been consistently writing since January and we’re getting to the point where we’ll be recording soon hopefully.

Do you envisage your next album sounding much different from the last?
We’re playing quite a few new songs on tour so come and have a listen. Its such a cliche but I think we know what we’re doing a little more this time round. I think its just the sound of us playing music we think sounds good. Talking about music is problematic in the first place, I think the best thing is to come, listen and decide for yourself.

If you weren’t in the band, what would you all be doing with yourselves instead?
I am and would be at University reading books, Peter would probably be earning more money running a coconut shy and teaching children to cook, Andrew would be working for the mob, keeping it in the family and Henry would be in Zurich. Truly.

And finally, where do you think you’ll be this time next year?
On tour, hopefully the new record will be out and we’ll be playing in some new places to some new people. Truly truly that’s all we want.