Audio TV on the Radio
"Return to Cookie Mountain"

Kyp Malone and I first met at a San Francisco house party back in 1999. At the time he was playing in a band called Rocket Science and the Nigger Loving Faggots. I was immediately drawn to his gentle character and his obvious affinity for pushing artistic boundaries (see aforementioned band name). Unfortunately, as my time in San Francisco was just beginning, Kyp's was ending. After his relocation to New York City's bohemian enclave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I was a guest in his home, which he shared with Jeff Rosenburg of Young People and Aaron Aites of Iran. Kyp played a few four-track recordings that he had composed; the songs provided the perfect soundtrack to daybreak in the naked city. Shortly after I heard those recordings, word spread of a new musical entity, TV on the Radio, which Kyp had become a member of. That news came just over three years ago, and now TV on the Radio stands on the verge of becoming the first art-rock band to crack popular music since, arguably, Talking Heads. Fortunately, Kyp was able to take an hour out of this tour schedule and share his thoughts on the ascension of TVOR, popular culture, the fulfillment dreams he forgot he had, and so much more.

Kyp Malone: Hi Chris. How are you doing? Chris Rolls: Fantastic. How are you? Alright. What's going on? I have to ask you some questions about you and your music. Well to be...this is absolutely the first time I've had to do an interview when I knew the person who called, so... Oh, really? Yeah. Does it in any way make it [laugh] less painful? Yeah. I mean, it's like half and half. I've met some interesting people through doing these. But there's also plenty of times where there's like absolutely no reason why either of the people involved should be wasting their time with it--when there's such a lack of interest on both sides it can be a drag. But it's nice to hear your voice. Do you have a general aversion to doing press? I mean, is it something that you've obviously had to come to terms with over the past year, especially? Um, you know, if it's an interesting conversation then I don't. I don't have a problem with it. Right. But look at print media. They all cover the same s*** at the same time. No one is looking for anything. There's like a narrative that's going on, and everyone just seems to be following that narrative when we both know that great work's being produced by lots of different people, you know? That isn't being paid attention to that could make the world we live in more interesting, you know? It's so true. Yeah. How do you think that TV on the Radio falls into that narrative that you've described? [laugh] I don't know if I have any objectivity, really. I know that there's some weird archetype that people have because it's, just 'cause it's comfortable and quick in relation to, like, doing this in relation to talking to people about it in press stuff. And people have these ideas of what a band is and whether, you know...all this s*** that was established culturally when we were kids or before we were even born. And so there's that. There's that archetype that people will try to put you in or put your band in. But I don't know where we fit in the narrative--I'm glad we're getting the attention that we're getting, but it's, you know, it's f****** weird, dude. [laugh] [laugh] It really must be. It's been a really short period of time. I think for someone from my vantage point watching you go to New York from San Francisco and then suddenly hearing about this entity, this musical entity of TV on the Radio and coming to appreciate it. And then all of a sudden it's become this completely different thing. But yet musically the same. I'm just curious if from your perspective if you have any great insight into why. Why the sudden popular acceptance of TV on the Radio and what you're doing? I feel like it's a completely random roll of the dice. It's just like a series of fortunate happenstance. And a lot of work, you know. But ultimately, there's lots of people making great stuff and everyone doesn't get paid attention to and everyone doesn't get accolades or even monetary compensation for the work that they're doing. We both know lots of people who get by having to f****** work other jobs besides doing what they're supposed to be doing--what they're best at doing. So I don't feel like it's because of any particular...like more merit on our part. I believe in what we're doing. I'm excited about the music we're making and the creative partnerships that I have inside the band. I love it. I believe in it. I'm proud of it. But I think it's really good fortune. So are you a believer in chance, Kyp? In chance? Absolutely. You've made no secrets about your desires to reach as many people with this music as possible. And as you've said, we both know a lot of people who would like the opportunity to do the same. Do you think it is a possibility that the success that TV on the Radio has gained will in some way open a gate for, let's say, music that is pretty far outside of what is considered popular? Yeah. I really hope so. But I will also have to say that, like, I don't want to exaggerate whatever level of how "in" we are at this point. Like, I don't really know what to...I don't have any perspective. But I do have some perspective. I know that I'm in f****** North Dakota right now, you know. [laugh] I've been excited to come to this town for a while. But I'm actually staying in my room until I have a posse together, 'cause it's a...we are still strangers here. That's for godd*** sure. Right. Um, it's like success measured in terms of exposure and financial backing, and I definitely see that we are at a place that most of my friends have not gotten to. The success measured in that way. But I also know that we're still kind of a blip. I don't wanna exaggerate it. But even in that, we do have a form right now. Having to do press, getting to travel around, not working another job, saving money for my daughter, which is like, something I never felt was possible in most jobs that I had prior to this. So, yeah, there's some success, and I hope that it turns into a doorway for other people. Yeah. I'm not in any way trying to overstate what's happening as well. But maybe just because of the perspective that I have. It's very exciting, and phenomenal, as well. Yeah. It did seem like a fluke, for sure, but I feel really psyched about it. I feel really happy that we're getting it. It's f****** weird and it's a mind f*** all the time. But I'm really happy about it. Like, it's f****** great. Fulfillment of a dream I didn't even know or remember that I had, you know? And it's a dream that you've been working on for a long time. I mean, you were very involved in San Francisco in the art and the music scene here, as well. Mm-hmm When you went to New York from San Francisco, what was the mental process. I mean, you sort of went and then your daughter was born. Was there a renewed sense of urgency in finding what it is that you wanted? Well, yeah. I mean, this was a huge lifestyle change. In San Francisco, I maybe had to work three days a week so I could have money for whatever I wanted to do, you know. That's why, like, creative work or partying, paying rent, you know, it was a very relaxed life style. Moving to New York was a completely different energy and more expensive and I had nothing. I didn't have a community there, really, a small handful of people. And the responsibilities of fatherhood being brand new and totally scary to me. Knowing I had to work a lot more meant that my free time was cut down. And then becoming a father also requires a loss of time and attention.

So the idea of like, you know, casually rolling around town and maybe like stopping at someone's house and playing music in their basement for two hours, or having an arts and crafts party or going to an art opening, or...I don't know, all of the life links that I had living in San Francisco. I had to break it all down and figure out what was important to me as a creative outlet and what was accessible and what I could do and not shirk other responsibilities. And I had to be more focused, and I started writing and I started singing and I started actively trying to find community and themes. I didn't even think by any stretch at any point in that that I was going to be making my living doing this. You're living the dream. Yeah. But I knew that I had to do it. When I decided what I was going to do as a creative outlet in my new life then. I knew it had to be music, and I'm really glad that it is. Part of the gateway question that I asked earlier was due in part to some shows that you just played here in California. And, you obviously played with the Ohsees. Formerly OCS, which you contributed to the Tumult recordings for that band, for John Dwyers' project. Is that correct? No. The only Tumult stuff I ever did was Iran. Oh, that's right. Iran. I'm sorry. The Moon Boys stuff. John Dwyer
The OhSees But I mean, obviously that's been part and party to and paying close attention to the creative output of John Dwyer for a number of years, and I've been listening to the OCS, the Ohsees, and different permutations for a number of years. I think that it's awesome. I think that what he's doing is great. I think he's a superprolific artist and appreciated in different ways--I fear using the word mature in reference to Dwyer, 'cause I feel like it just like kind of takes away from [laugh] who he is and how we know him. And I feel like I'm hearing his singing voice now. It's not buried behind a mask of effects or anything. And not that I didn't appreciate it in different ways before, and I'm sure that he'll try other things in the future, but at this moment of his artistic outpouring, I think it's really good right now, you know?

So I was really, superexcited to be on tour with him--we've been doing just a ton of festivals and like it's going from an indie to a major. Like it's been a weird road. And some of it's superpositive. Some of it to varying degrees is distasteful. But with friends and watching them play was so inspiring. And I think for everybody in the band. And it couldn't have come at a better time for me to be around Dwyer, Petey, and Jigmae 'cause, I just was remembering all the reasons behind music for me and behind comics and painting and drawing. All the reasons that I ever did them prior to having it be a job. Like Dwyer is this constant reminder every day that we were with them and listening to Dwyer play guitar and playing with him just a tiny little bit here and there, you know? And sharing records and sharing drawings and who knows. It was really awesome. It was the reason why. It's the reason why I'm doing any of this to begin with, because of relationships like that and people like that and moments like that. But you mentioned the necessary evils. You obviously made the leap from Touch and Go to Interscope? Mm-hmm. And maybe you could describe to me what that involved for you, the pros and cons and the decision-making process behind getting your music out to a larger number of people because of Interscope's power to do so. You know, it's hard for me to really talk about it yet because I'm kind of still in the situation where I feel like it's really brand new. Oh. We've known it and thinking about it and talking about it for over a year. Well over a year. But I'm withholding judgement on the situation, you know, 'cause it's only really been since this summer. And there are a lot of frustrations that came along with it initially because we were sitting on this record that we worked really hard on and then just feeling like it was aging underneath us. Records can take a really long time to come out, and it took a really long time. I guess that was frustrating, but I don't want to attribute that to Interscope for it just was circumstantial.

But it's like you're used to a particular family, you know, and it's hard to use words like family when talking about capitalist enterprises, but I think they can be that, however messy it gets. I wasn't close with many people at Touch and Go, like, I recognize them as people with shared interests and shared taste and shared cultural experiences, you know. And I don't really know anyone right now, but I've gotten to know supersmart handful of people at Interscope so far. But I just feel like, you know, mostly it's people from a very different world. And I think that's evidenced...the majority of the artists on their label are, you know, just not really my tribe. Do you feel like you're running with the wolves a little bit? [laugh] [laugh] Ah, I don't know. I don't wanna... You don't have to answer that question. Like, I'm imagining the Interscope Christmas party, if such a thing exists, which I don't imagine that it does in the same way that I've experienced it. Imagine you're running into Fergie, or someone, getting a drink thrown in my face for talking s*** in the press. [laugh] Offending 50 Cent or somebody and paying for it. [laugh] Alright. You brought up something very interesting and that's the commodification process of artwork at this level. And I'm just curious about the internal dialogue within TV on the Radio regarding that particular decision and, I think we've all had these late-night conversations about the potential compromise that will be put against you as an artist once you've signed to a major label. I know it may be a little early to determine its impact, but have there been those conversations within the group? Oh, you know, it's actually a conversation that I think that we're avoiding because no one likes to have it at all. [laugh] And because we're working. We're on tour, and...I don't know. It can be awesome. It can also be work. It can be kind of like a chore at points, and so you want to do everything you can to keep the vibe up, and talking business doesn't always keep the vibe up. Right. But...[laugh]. But, I don't know. I think that the one conversation that I've had kind of regularly just with people in the band is how compromises will...it's inevitable that...someone hands you the power of their money machine and their backing, that they're gonna ask for something in return. I don't know if it's inevitable or if it's just like been drilled into our heads from youth onward, you know.

But so far in our experience, it's not like we didn't f****** experience compromises in the very free, you know, ostensibly free and ostensibly punk rock world of independent record labels. And I actually don't know anyone who has experienced a completely thrilling and all-positive relationship with their indie label. But I think that there's varying degrees of fluidity in things, but the labels that I know that are long-standing, are not long-standing because they just got superlucky. They're businesses. And businesses that deal with creative work and deal with art, but they're businesses. And people make decisions for the self-preservation of that business. People will ask of you things that you don't want to do because it'll be good for business. I think it's inherent...I definitely am glad, superglad, for the existence of the world that I'm talking about right now, the world of independently produced music and art and film. But it's not the revolution, you know? Right. It's not the revolution. It's still trying to win at the game that someone else has set up for you. It's still part of the capitalist system. So maybe just a couple questions on Return to Cookie Mountain, if you don't mind? Oh no. It's alright. OK. Well, Desperate Youth and Return to Cookie Mountain, in my opinion, were both works that allude to apocalyptic romance and the failures of modern society. And yet the dark musical landscape that is painted, it always remains with a sense of hope. Is it a conscious central message, you know, a core belief in TV on the Radio that ultimately everything will be alright, so to speak? Well, everything is gonna be whatever it is. I mean, I have no idea what the future holds. I know that unless I'm tied to a rock for eternity having my liver picked out by a bird, you know, like that wouldn't be alright. But anything else ultimately is alright, you know. Right. Like, I don't want to fall into nihilism and all that. I think we can't kill the planet. I think that some form of life will keep going no matter what happens, even with a nuclear holocaust. So something that is as catastrophic and terrible as that. Like, something will get through. Maybe not people, you know--at the cost of a lot of beauty and wonder. But, on the most slim side of optimism, no matter what happens, like...Dave [Sitek] just read this book Straw Dogs, and he won't shut up about it. I haven't picked up a copy of it because I'm trying not to fall to that side of things. I'm trying to remain superoptimistic because I want there to be salmon in 10 years, and I want there to be drinking water available to my daughter and if she wants to have a kid, you know. So, I don't want to see us completely f*** ourselves, you know. But ultimately that might happen, too. Like, who knows? It's going that way. It's going in the direction of the human beings completely f****** themselves and the rest of the world. But it doesn't have to end that way. But you're not seeking to offer any musical solutions merely...I mean, just observations internal as a music group? Yeah. I mean, I don't...yeah, I don't know what to do. [laugh] I mean, I know what not to do. But, I know what makes sense in a lot of ways, and it's very clear. A lot of reasons for, f***, there is things that could be done to make the world a better place. And good can happen and people are capable of creating positive change. These are things I strongly believe. And I hope that somehow whatever work I put out will let people know that or remind people of that who are open to hearing it from me.

But ultimately, being on the soapbox with a guitar is f****** boring, you know. And, well it can be. I think anyone who's doing honest work is the message in what they're doing. Like, even if the message is conscientiously that there is no message. That's a message in itself. Right. You know? I just feel that if you're just singing about getting loaded and f****** strangers--that's message music too. [laugh] It is. [laugh] And I remember a while back, actually, that you did an interview for an article in Fader magazine, and you just reminded me of it 'cause you talked about, you know, there is a message in getting drunk and singing songs about f******. But in the article, you were talking about Vice magazine, and how if I remember correctly, that you didn't really have time for, or you didn't see a place for, their brand of sarcasm. Cynicism. Cynicism. Yes. Exactly. Does that generally hold true? I don't know. I feel like I don't know those people, really, who edit that magazine. And I won't take back the fact that I think that they're wasting time and resources. But I also...I don't know. Maybe they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. I think it's negative and destructive, but... But obviously it's very popular. Yeah, so is selling cigarettes. But the point you're making, I mean, it's like... Well, I guess the point I'm making is do you feel that you are combating those cynical people? I mean, have they had to in any way eat their words with the relative popularity of TV on the Radio and what you're doing? Well, see, I don't know...like I want to shy away from words that I can't really back up that heartily. But like modern culture...Vice are part of this whole thing that just takes in everything. They're this all-embracing, all-swallowing whore of Babylon. I don't know, they've supported what we were doing in the past. They've hyped us in the past because it's not a "them," it's a whole bunch of different people writing... Right. They talk about bands and they talk about things that other people don't pay attention to. And they've upped some things that I like, you know. But there's this current of, well, I didn't go to college, but a lot of my friends did in the early '90s, and I guess it was a really oppressive atmosphere where you couldn't tell racist jokes or talk about raping girls or, like, I don't know. Then all of a sudden there's this backlash against, like, politically correct culture, against all these ideals, which to me just don't really seem that confining. It's just thinking about what you're f****** saying and realizing that the language that we use and the ideas that we put forth...it doesn't end there--they reverberate. The things that we say and how we address people have a f****** effect.

So, like, along with a backlash of a supposedly oppressive social order, which never f****** had any, like, didn't have any of its teeth in the neck of the patriarchy. Like, it's exaggerated in the first f****** place. So there's all this rewording of f****** rhetoric. And like, the neo-conservative...I can relate it a little bit to what we call the neo-conservatives right now, or what most people call the neo-conservatives right now. And [sigh], just like reinforcing all these f****** negative dominant ways of thinking and trying to reinforce the white power structure. And so it's like the status quo trying to reestablish itself as quickly as possible because it felt threatened because someone stood up and said, "Just because I'm a homosexual doesn't mean you can treat me like I'm not a human being. Just 'cause I'm a woman doesn't mean you can treat me like I'm not a human being. Just because I'm not white doesn't mean you can treat me like I'm not a human being." Like that was so, you know, [Vice] is hip. They've got the hip thing down. But I don't see how they're any different from f****** Fox News, except for those that didn't support the war in Iraq. And they listen to better records. [laugh] [laugh] But...but like I said first, I don't know. I know that what I grew up in, that I consider to be counterculture, was a mall version of something that has been co-opted and chewed up a long time ago. Right. You still believe it. There's, like, opportunity and room in this world, and this society to present and live an alternative, you know? I mean it's like bohemian culture in my life, you know, to see people that have the attention...Ah, god. I don't even want to talk about Vice magazine. But I've been thinking about it and trying to articulate it because I just feel like saying "f*** them"... Isn't enough? Yeah. It's not constructive--it's not. And I know that there are good people that have written for them. But, I was thinking...you listen to Lenny Bruce talk about race and gender, and he's actually trying to promote a dialogue and provoke thought. Whereas it just feels like everything else is, like, it's just like a f****** tired rehashing, like a Xerox copy that's getting more and more illegible and turning away from the idea that, originally, was being called into question in the first place. But, like [laugh] I don't know. But, like, you're level of comfort that you have with your friends who you know and who you love and who you trust. And the things that my friends can say which I won't hold as seriously as if a stranger said it to me, you know. Right. Um, but there's lines in that world, too. It's just f****** like you can't f****** publish a magazine with that kind of circulation. Well, you can. You can do whatever the f*** you want. It's a free world. It's a free country. [Vice] uses ideas that may be tongue-in-cheek. But you're f****** giving the s*** off the scene and selling it to f****** jack a*****. I don't feel like you need to push anything into this f****** society that makes it less safe for genuine people, or makes it less safe for women, or makes it less safe for people who are not in the ethnic majority, in this country. I don't need it. I don't need it when I'm traveling. My f****** baby cousins don't need it, my f****** family doesn't need it. Like, f*** you. Like f*** you for that. F*** you. And you're not doing anything. You're not doing anything except you're f****** just being a US Weekly for f****** kids with f****** hip haircuts. Very well put, Kyp. [laugh]. I gotta ask you one last question. It's nice to talk to you Chris Rolls. It's...it's really lovely to talk to you. My last question is actually something that you just said about the carbon copy of alternative bohemian culture that you and I grew up in. And what we took from it and moved on and how that is continually carbon copied and then distorted as it moves down the line. But do you feel that in the current popular music sphere that TV on the Radio is in some way acting as an opening into alternative culture that probably hasn't existed in the past however many years in pop music? Maybe. I don't know. That's something that only time would tell, really. Yeah. You know that girl who sings in Lavender Diamond in Los Angeles...in Jeff Rosenberg's band, Lavender Diamond? Oh. I haven't seen them yet. That's alright. Her name is Becky. OK. I don't know her very well, and I ran into her at the Hollywood Bowl show, right? Where Gang Gang Dance, and TV on the Radio opened for Massive Attack. That's amazing. It was ridiculous, right? Like that's not normal life. [laugh] Rebecca Stark
Lavender Diamond And I didn't even know what the Hollywood Bowl was all about or anything. But they got into us all about grunge and cultural importance that it maybe could encompass, you know? And thought about the fact that we were there with Gang Gang Dance and we were opening for this band who, you know, was ubiquitous when I first came to California. It was unavoidable. Always hearing the records everywhere I went. I definitely in that moment...I was talking to Becky. We ran into her, and we were talking about how weird it was. It was a weird show for me. It was all these, you know, everybody's like pressed for time and stressed out and you're not the headliners, so you are not the headliner. And, I was talking to Becky, and we're talking about how, it's weird, but when our parents were our age, and this you can argue by degrees, but I...really popular music was the good music that was happening, you know? Like, I know that the [Gods] weren't as f****** big as Led Zeppelin, but like Led Zeppelin was f****** an awesome band, you know, and... [laugh] [laugh] The Velvet Underground maybe didn't have commercial success while they were going, but, like, people knew them. They weren't a secret, you know? Right. There was a time when you could probably turn on a rock radio station and be psyched about what you were hearing. I mean, that's a presumption. I don't really know that much of this rock radio. But I know that that did exist. Jimi Hendrix wasn't a joke. And f****** John Coltrane wasn't a joke. Like these are people that people knew about, and who were affecting change culturally and who were making--Coltrane's arguable--but were making pop music. It was the popular music of the time. And if we could be opening for Animal Collective at the Hollywood Bowl, you know, would things be a little different? I think they'd be a little different. Like, where that paradigm just shifts enough to let that happen, you know, I think that something would really be happening. I don't know if that's ever possible or even desirable. But I saw a little bit of it during that moment, you know. It maybe felt like it was part of a door. Wow, I think, seeing what's happening with your album has been a door for me, as well. Awesome. Take care of yourself; I hope I see you sometime. Take care my friend.