Catching Up With The Band

While I am indeed preparing a big, formal interview for Tally Hall, I didn’t ask them any questions from it during my trip to see them at their last show of the Union Hall residency in Brooklyn, NY.

Much of my personal experience has been detailed in the Tally Hall Official Forums and there’s news spread around HITS but I thought I’d streamline the info here into HITS News.

First of all, the band is indeed still shooting for a 2009 release for their next album, which, oddly enough will be considered their debut record with Atlantic records.  I’m very interested to see if Atlantic feels more responsibility this time around and puts the big push out there, whereas with MMMM the promotion was lacking.  Anyhow, the band is recording rough demos and sending them off one at a time to the record company.  The record company then decides which songs sound good enough to approve and they continue doing this until they have a decent amount of material.  They’ve written LOTS of new songs, some of which have been played at the aforementioned Union Hall shows. 

Hearing them first hand, I have to say I am VERY excited.  There’s a noticeable lack of silliness in the melodies this time around, as predicted.  I’m sure they are not planning to abondon their witty sides, but musically, expect to hear something a little darker; a little more intricate, and perhaps a little more straightforwardness in the lyrics.  They’ve gone through quite a rough ride over the last few years, despite the charming smiles on their faces.   Joe said to me at one point that the songs may end up sounding a little more rawer than MMMM due to a simple lack of time they’ve had to overanalyze the songs.  They’ve written at least 5 unheard songs in the last few months alone, plus a bunch more over the last few years.  Zubin’s even written a song (bringing the grand total of active songwriters in the band to 4).

So, just going by my own personal guesstimations, I’d suspect if all goes well, the album would come out late summer/early fall.  A tour would follow soon after.

And the Tally Hall Internet Show?  Plans are up in the air as to who/what/when/where/how, but they’ve got big aspirations for it, and one way or another, we will get our weekly dose of comedic absurdity and genius again.

The Union Hall residency proved to be a big success.  The place was packed for all 4 shows.  They were really happy about that and had a good time doing it and working out some new material, but it was stuck right in the middle of the time they need to focus on writing.  So right now, they’ve locked themselves up from the outside and will be working hard to get the ball rolling ASAP so such things as a late summer/early fall release remain possible.

Got questions? Join the forums! Or ask in the comments below.