Teenage Moods-Mood Ring
Teenage Moods
by: Cassandra
Growing up in the Midwest, I am used to the struggles of trying to form a band with a limited number of musicians. Midwest music scenes frequently consist of a small group of kids put together in every possible combination, with these bands of essentially the same people playing at every VFW hall, basement, or empty room they can find. It is truly a labor of love, as a lot of these shows are not profitable to say the least. DIY shows were a staple of the 80’s punk scene, and are once again seeing an increase in popularity. Minneapolis, home of exaggerated winters, -30 degree weather and permafrost is no exception. One of the bands in the stronghold of the Minneapolis DIY scene is Teenage Moods.
I had only heard Teenage Moods for the first time in February of this year. They were playing their CD release show with Sleeping in the Aviary, a local band I had seen play a house show in Sheboygan, WI, of all places. This kind of word-of-mouth exposure is commonplace in this scene. You may not have heard of this band, but your friend’s band played an obscure show in an attic with them in Bumfuck, Iowa, so when they come through town, you drag every person you know out to see them. They played a half-hour set filled with 90’s alt goodness and chunky guitars; a dream come true for concert fiend like myself. From here on my curiosity about this band only grew. I downloaded as much of their music as I could find, and when I found out they were playing a five-week mini-series at the Nomad World Pub, I knew I had to try to sit down and talk to them. Say what you will about Facebook, but it has scored me more interviews and opportunities to talk to bands than ever before. After a few messages back and forth with drummer Taylor Motari, we met up in the basement of the Nomad for the band’s final show of their mini-series.
When I arrived, the show was getting off to a bit of a rough start. The venues had sustained some water damage from an overlooked leaky sink, rendering their PA useless. In true DIY fashion the sound guy began frantically calling around to bands in the area. Luckily they were able to find a PA in no time, and aside for the stage being out of commission, the show went on as normal.
We gathered in the basement of the Nomad where several of the band’s friends were hanging out. We sat down in a pow-wow and started talking about the formation of the band. Gordon Byrd was the first to speak up. The band’s guitarist and lead vocalist was warm and friendly, and quick to answer my questions. The two times I have seen this person, he has been wearing somewhat eccentric clothing; a neon multi-colored hoodie, and on this occasion a green long-sleeved sweater that looked quite literally as though it was made out of moss. Gordon, however, is the kind of person to pull this look off. He seems like the sort of evil-genius musician who truly does not give a damn about what you think of him: the type of person who writes music because he has to, not just because he wants to, the type of person who would start a record label out of his van, which he mentioned he had in fact done.
Jillian Schroeder on bass and backing vocals came on board with the band early on. As Gordon describes, “I always wanted to be in a band with Jillian. We just kind of connected over all kinds of music. So we were all like ‘what would be perfect, what would be the ultimate band?’ The three of us playing music; I knew that right away.” Jillian adds the perfect amount of femininity to the predominately male band. She’s petite and somewhat credulous, not necessarily shy, but soft-spoken nonetheless. At the same time, once a song starts, it’s business time. She plays each bass line with a confident demeanor that makes her really entertaining to watch. She’s fun, she’ll dance around, and she’s really not concerned with what you think of that.
Drummer Taylor Motari seems like the kind of person anyone would want to be in a band with. He was enthusiastic, animated, and outwardly passionate about music. When he spoke he used his hands to emphasize his words, which really held your attention. Appearance-wise he looked like a young, thinner Jack Black. Enough so that I’m sure people point this out to him frequently, and I’m sure it drives him nuts. He was conversational, and between him and Gordon, my job was easy.
The band explained how the current incarnation of the band came to be. After an encounter with the video game Guitar Hero, Gordon decided, “I had to teach Jillian how to play guitar.” They wrote two songs and from there Teenage Moods was born. “I played drums and Jillian played guitar, and Taylor played bass. And then we kept the momentum going, and wrote some other songs and it turned into Teenage Moods. We wanted to be in a band for a long time. For years.”
Their song writing process revolves around Gordon and Jillian. They tend to collaborate on lyrics and then building in new parts, and just sorting out the songs as a group. They mentioned that it has always been a group process, and that the writing process is a lot of the fun of the band. “We’ve also stood around and wrote down words, cut them up and put them in a hat and [drew] them out to come up with song ideas. And just see if a good title jumps out. We come up with some music, [collaborate], and make it sound good.” Taylor adds.
This process has clearly paid off. Their newest album, Mood Ring is a grungy gem drenched in engaging choruses, bold bass lines and crunchy guitars intrinsic of 90’s alternative. Songs like Grunge Bird are fun and abrasive with outright filthy guitar. The album is also rife with giddy pop anthems such as No Place for a Tiger. In contrast, songs like Yellow War are laden with hooks and simple melodies, all while still holding on to the band’s playful nature. Above all, the songs are amusing, and the band’s lighthearted attitude comes out heavily in their music.
The band discussed at length the tremendous house show scene here in the Twin Cities. They mentioned that while there were two primary houses they played frequently, they could name five or six others, and indicated that there were quite a few places hosting shows that they weren’t familiar with. Not only that, they host shows in their own basement. As one would expect with DIY spaces, houses and venues change hands frequently resulting in some amount of instability in the scene. However, the band was confident that the DIY scene would continue to grow and flourish.
As one would expect with a band so heavily rooted in the DIY scene, Teenage Moods self-releases, records, and manages their band. Everything is done either by the three band members themselves or through immediate friends. The band has played extensively throughout the Twin Cities, in established venues as well as many DIY spaces, and while they have not toured very much, indicated that there were plans in the works for a summer tour. Gordon and Taylor both mentioned their involvement with business aspects of the music industry in the past. However, those experiences resulted in them being turned off by the business side of things entirely. “I would just much rather write songs and play music and hang out with my friends than feel like I had to constantly be doing something I didn’t want to do.” Gordon explains, “I was in one band that took itself really seriously. It was terrible. I mean, I don’t wish I didn’t do it, but it was like, [band members wanted to take it seriously], so we took ourselves seriously. It was good because we wanted to be good at music. That has its merit. But it was not fun sometimes. I realized I would much rather be doing it myself and trying things out, and not having to worry about if someone else thought it was a good idea or not.”
Despite this prolific music scene, Teenage Moods indicated there were some problems at home. While Minneapolis has countless bands playing on any given night, it appears that local artists are having trouble breaking out of the Twin Cities scene. The band talked about how it seems that Minneapolis needs outside reassurance to tell them a band is worth listening to. A band may have a huge following here, and be playing regularly, but it takes an outside publication or media source to sort of grant approval, and let us all know that they are legitimate.
After our chat the band took the stage, or in this case, the floor in front of the stage. Their set was short and to the point, opening with quite possibly one of the most catchy songs I have ever heard, “Tulip Tattoo”. Everyone looked comfortable and relaxed in front of the crowd that I suspect was largely friends, the type of friends that come out to every show, and make playing in a band worthwhile. The band really emphasized throughout our conversation the importance they saw in having fun with the band, and this clearly comes off in not only their recordings but their live sets as well.
Blame it on the cold, on the weather, on the shit show that we call winter forcing everyone inside for six months out of the year. Whatever the reason, Minneapolis is a center for the DIY scene. On any given night you can find a plethora of shows to attend at any of the Twin Cities venues. For every one of these shows that you are aware of, there is most likely a DIY show taking place in some art space, garage, or basement somewhere in town. We have an unbelievably thriving music scene, and it is bands like Teenage Moods driving it forward.
