Ever helped a fan's entire family move house and find temporary accommodation for their cat? If not, you're probably not as dedicated to your listeners as you think you are. Ticking the niche box of this scenario, though, are Portland-based duo Teen Suicide.
Having recently unleashed their seventh record 'Nude descending staircase headless', we chat to lo-fi veterans Sam and Kitty Ray about MTV awards, interactions with their favourite band, and hybrid accents as part of the Seven Questions with Music Is To Blame Series.
Introduce yourself and where you’re from.
KITTY: Hi, I'm Kitty, and I was born in a deep, mysterious chasm. Currently, I reside in Portland, Oregon.
SAM: Hello, I am Sam and I grew up in Maryland and spent my young adulthood in Philadelphia. I have both the “Urn” part of the Baltimore accent and the “Ewwwwe” part of the Philly accent, it’s great. Now I live in Portland, Oregon.
What do our readers need to know about you?
KITTY: "The question is not what you look at, but what you see" -Henry David Thoreau
SAM: "What can change the nature of a man?" - Planescape: Torment
What have you got coming up that you’re most excited for?
KITTY: Our new album 'Nude descending staircase headless' is out now, and I am so unbelievably proud of it. It's the first album we have ever made in a studio, and we got the opportunity to make it with the help of one of my absolute heroes of music production, Mike Sapone. We're also about to go on a tour of the US, starting on May 8th, and I can't wait to play our new album live now that people have heard it.
SAM: I am real pumped about releasing our new record, as Kitty mentioned. Personally, I’m always looking forward, so I’m more excited than anything else about writing our next record, and writing new songs in general. We have so many new songs we’ve been kicking around. I’m excited most of all for our upcoming tour, because we’ll be performing a bunch of songs from our new record which are incredibly fun to play, a bunch of old favorites, and a handful of totally new songs as well. We’ve never sounded so good ever before, and I can’t wait to see where it goes I guess.
What’s the best run-in you’ve had with a fan?
KITTY: Actually, I think my new favorite is something that happened last week. I keep in touch with a lot of fans in our band's Discord server, and it's a really community-oriented group. Last week, someone I knew asked the Discord for help with an emergency move out of their apartment, and when I realised this fan lived in the same city as me, I offered to bring the tour van over to help drive their bed to their new place. When I showed up at their place, the stakes were much higher than I knew - it turned out we needed to move all of this kid's belongings into a storage unit and find a temporary home for their cat before the end of the day. I was so worried about this kid and her cat... we busted ass for the entire day and before the sun set we had it all figured out. I've never felt more adult in my entire life, and now I feel like this fan is more like a distant niece I hope to keep in touch with. A bonding experience.
SAM: One time this guy sold me a couple hot dogs and stared me down really cold and I was like, damn what’d I do? But it turned out he was a big fan of ours and told me so, which was rad. I guess he just had a cold demeanor. We actually met again years later and laughed about that.
What’s been your biggest ‘I’ve made it’ moment so far?
KITTY: I don't know if I would say "I've made it" as far as music goes... I won an audience vote award from MTV in 2013; "Best Web-Born Artist". I beat Macklemore! Also, this past year we got to open for my favorite band of all time - Black Moth Super Rainbow - and they were really into our set. Sam and I did an improvised guided meditation with a ton of weird broken instruments and electronics. I was fanning out so hard I almost cried when the frontman Tobacco asked if we could send him our recordings so he could listen to it again.
SAM: I don’t know, I don’t really process those moments I think. But there have been a couple times that someone I never would have expected turned out to be a fan of ours, like, a guy working at a Dunkin Donuts drive through we went through, or someone working the checkout at a grocery store where I’m buying some sausages or some bread or something. There have been a few times that’s really blown me away to have someone say, like, "btw, lowkey I want you to know, yadda yadda yadda" when you’re just out and about living your life and that’s always really wild and really cool. The Black Moth thing Kitty mentioned as well, since they’ve been one of my biggest inspirations since I was 16 or 17. The Iggy Pop thing was really cool too.
What are your three “desert island” albums?
KITTY:
'Panic Blooms' - Black Moth Super Rainbow
'Alopecia' - WHY?
'Complex Housing' - Salva
SAM: I don’t really have any. I’m going to pull three out of thin air, just based on albums I listen to the most lately I guess –
'Blood Money' – Tom Waits
'Good Old Boys' – Randy Newman
'Neighborhoods' – Ernest Hood
Sum up your sound in three words.
KITTY: shimmery, intricate, liberated
SAM: Disgusting Beautiful Ooze
Lana Williams
@lanatakesphotos / @_lanaajade
Image: Maysa Askar