Interview Turbo Fruits: Stay Away From Expensive Studios

’ second album ‘Echo Kid’ is already out in the States, but it will be released over here before the end of the year.

We caught up with frontman Jonas Stein (he of former Be Your Own PET fame) last week (on his Brithday of all days) to chat about line up changes, Drew Barrymore, and not worrying about others’ opinions.

Hello Jonas! How are you today? What are you up to?
Good, it’s my Birthday today. I’m spending it in on tour starting with a nine hour drive to Birmingham AL USA.

Happy Birthday! So, you’ve just released your new album ‘Echo Kid’ in the States, and it’s out over here in November. Was your approach to this album any different from your self-titled debut? How have the line up changes impacted upon the record?
I think this record shows a maturation of Turbo Fruits (not much, but some!) there are more good songs on this one. I have had three line up changes since the last record, it has taught me that line up changes can’t stop me with my Turbo Fruits, only slow me down a bit. But that’s ok, just learning experiences.

Your first album is all a bit rough around the edges, and kind of gives the impression it was all banged out pretty quickly [likely due to the recording style and the over-before-you-know-it track lengths]. Are you fast workers, or is everything painstakingly thought through?
I didn’t even plan on releasing a Turbo Fruits record at first. I just dicked around at my friend Jeremy’s studio randomly for a few months… Before I knew it, I had 15 songs and word got out and so on so forth. I hadn’t really found my groove on the first record. I still haven’t completely found it but I’m getting closer, I can feel it.

So many bands seem to over-polish / produce / fiddle and end up losing their charm. Is that something you’re conscious of?
Yes, the key is to stay out of way of expensive studios. Go what yer comfortable with. Try not to worry about any other asshole’s opinion so much.

Great advice. When we Googled your new record, we found lots [some] people saying it’s more ‘fleshed out’ than your debut. Is that a good description?
Yes I would say the puzzles were put together a bit more carefully this go around.

You appear in Drew Barrymore’s film ‘Whip IT!’. That’s pretty mental. Did you get much screen time? How did it come about?
It’s out in the US but I still haven’t seen it, so I don’t know how much screen time I actually have. But this dude Jason Wilkins (who runs the Nashville music festival ‘Next Big Nashville’) sent me an email Summer of ‘08 mentioning something about a movie wanting to use a garage rock band for something, he didn’t give me any detailed info. I thought it might be some low budget indie film that a friend of his was making. I told him I would love to help out in any way… Next email I get he gave me the low down on everything and mentions director/actress Drew Barrymore. He said he submitted us as a potential contender along with many other bands. At that point I took a step back and realized I probably wouldn’t get the gig and just tried to forget about it. Two days later I get a call with someone telling me we were hand picked by Drew… Pretty crazy… We were flown up to start recording and filming a week later. Quite the experience!

Amazing! You’ve got a list of ‘things’ you enjoy on your website. We get what most of them are - ‘walking around the house in underwear’, ‘goin’ really really fast’, ‘the farm’ - but how do you ‘make love to motorcycles’? It sounds difficult.
It’s easy, you let the motorcycle run for a bit… Turn it off when the engine is nice and warm and lubed up with engine oil… Then the best part… You stick your dick in the exhaust pipe.

And finally: you’re not massively well known over here in the UK. Are there any plans to come over to promote this new album? Do you have any UK-love on the agenda?
Hell yeah we’ll be over there towards the end of November. Very limited budget so it will only be a week in London.