Instrumental post-rockers This Will Destroy You are back with their second studio album, Tunnel Blanket. The four-piece is now on tour and you don’t want to miss their first New York appearance in over a year at the Bowery Ballroom on June 2. Jeremy Galindo and I recently spoke about the album, the upcoming tour and cat videos.
So Tunnel Blanket recently dropped in Europe, how are you feeling about it?
Pretty good. I’m stoked that we have it out. We’ve been sitting on it for a year, so it’s nice to finally have it out there.
What are your expectations for it over here in the U.S.?
I have no idea what to expect. I just hope people like it and that people show up to the shows.
What makes Tunnel Blanket different from your debut album and your previous EPs?
It’s a lot more evolved in how we went about writing it. And, tonally, it’s a completely different sounding album; it’s much more orchestral.
How did you go about writing it?
It was kinda hard to say—it just happened. We knew that we wanted to do something different but we didn’t go out and try, or really force anything to happen. It just came out that way.
So you just let the magic flow?
Yeah, exactly!
Do you have a favorite track off of Tunnel Blanket and why?
It’s hard to say. It bounces around. Right now I’d say “Killed The Lord, Left For The New World.” I like the way it grooves. I think it’s one of the more interesting songs we’ve ever done.
How did you decide what was going to make the cut for this album?
I guess we all had different ideas in the end. We recorded nine songs and only seven made the cut. We rerecorded another one and then added another. Everyone was on a different page when it came to going in and fixing that. I know that I was on a different page than everyone else. But I’m glad we went in and fixed everything so that everyone was happy. We just wanted everyone to be happy with the album. And if someone didn’t like the way it flowed from beginning to end, we wanted to go in and change it.
June 2 you guys are playing the Bowery Ballroom. How excited are you for the show, and how do you think it will be different from when you played the Knitting Factory almost a year ago?
I’m always excited to play and be in New York. We have a lot of good friends there. And as far as it being different from last year, hopefully I won’t be as drunk. I was woken up passed out in the bathroom. Maybe I’ll end up on a bed or couch. It’s always nicer.
What are your expectations for the upcoming tour?
I have no idea what to expect. I don’t know how many people have heard the album—don’t know completely how people are going to react to it. It’s been getting reviewed well. I hope we have newer people out there. But really, I have no idea what to expect.
What are you expectations for the European leg of the tour?
I guess music is perceived differently over there. It’s a different appreciation for it than it is over here. But we just have no idea until we start getting a lot more feedback from people who listen to us other than publications.
What will the setlist for the tour consist of—just new stuff or old material as well?
It’ll be a mix, but we’re going up to the studio to work on the set. We work everything out so it flows better. We don’t even know yet.
Do you have any idea of what you want to play?
Definitely! I’m sure we each have our own ideas, we’ll see how they mix together when we get there. My ideas are creating one long song, which is what we went for before, but just making it more cohesive.
What is the oddest thing that has happened on tour?
Oh, the stories I could say! We did see right in front of us—and a group of 30 people—this guy threw a Molotov cocktail inside a car in France. He missed the first time: he drove by, threw it, it went underneath the car, it blew up, but the car didn’t blow up. About five minutes later he pulls back around, breaks the window, he throws it in there and the car blew up. That was pretty interesting to see that. I’ve never seen anything like that up close.
On your Tumblr, you guys played a pretty cruel April’s Fool joke to the fans when you said the band was breaking up. How was it decided to pull something like that?
I really have no idea. I was at a bar at the time and I start getting all these crazy texts asking if I’m okay and what’s going on. And I get back to my friend’s house, pop open my computer and I see the post on the Tumblr. I thought I was pretty hilarious, and called up Alex because I knew he was behind it, and we just rolled with it. I love shit like that; I think it’s hilarious.
And the video that reassured everyone it was a joke, where was that found?
I don’t know. That was our manager, Aneel. We wanted to go with it longer, we wanted to go with it the full day. But once I saw the video I was like, “All right. You can put that up, it was pretty funny.” So I guess he went on YouTube and searched around for April Fool’s pranks.
Speaking of weird videos… cat massages?
Yes. There’s an amazing website called Kitty Roulette; you just skip through hundreds and thousands of videos of cats and I ran across that one and I felt like I needed to share it with people.
What are the plans for the band after the tour?
We have some things in the works for the fall so we can keep touring, but we’ll see how they turn out. Besides that, we do want to start writing the next album. So we’ll see what we do with that. So we’ll see what we do with our time off. If we take the rest of the summer off to relax, I plan to go on a cruise with some friends and actually have a real vacation for once. People think tours are a vacation; they are not. I guarantee you they are a lot of hard work. All the cities you want to see, you see out of a window of a van. I’d like to get a little vacationing in and start writing and decide what we’re going to do next. We have quite a break after tours here and we’ve been working on stuff but we haven’t really sat down and said let’s start working on the new album yet. But we’re all ready to, I know that. Ours is just coming out, so we have plenty of time before we have to solidify anything.
This Will Destroy You will play the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on June 2 and Johnny Brenda’s in Philly on June 3. Find more information at myspace.com/ thiswilldestroyyou.
