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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Thomas Tantrum
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 12 July 2011
Southampton indie-boppers Thomas Tantrum released their eponymous first album in 2008, catching the keen ears of the likes of Lily Allen and Glasvegas with what was a confident and well-crafted debut. They went on to tour with the gloomy Glasvegians for much of that year, also roaming UK venues with The Futureheads and Dirty Pretty Things.
Fronted by wry blonde Megan Thomas, the band based their recently-released LP ‘Mad By Moonlight’ around themes of madness and sleepless nights. For the first time, TT introduced synth sounds to their largely guitar-led fare, aligning these with dreamlike melodies and a sharp but skewed pop sensibility in lead single ‘Sleep’ and its successor ‘Hot Hot Summer’.
As the band prepare for a lone live date at the Bug Jam VW bash in Wellingborough, we asked Megan to supply her personal spin on our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
My mother is a primary school teacher so I guess I was originally inspired by fully-grown adults singing about wheels on the bus. Cringeworthy. Raffi springs to mind. Then I discovered Hole when I was fifteen and I’d fall asleep every night listening to ‘Live Through This’ imagining it was me playing it live at the Railway Inn in Winchester!
My parents – who had to endure my loud music into the early hours – decided to encourage my passion and my mother began to teach me guitar. I was pretty determined and as soon as I could just about strum my way through a song I started busking on Winchester high street. From there I went on to open mic nights, and then met [guitarist] David Miatt. He introduced me to Cat Power and Scout Niblett. He’d come to mine and we’d sing each other’s songs. And it all started there.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
The album wasn’t born from any one particular inspiration. We are four songwriters who between us have a very wide range of musical tastes.
Lyrically, the album came about through fear. A fear of having no inspiration and the pressure of writing a successful second album. It was a pressure that caused temporary insomnia, and made me feel somewhat trapped in my own house, all of which jogged my memory of a book I read at college called ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was about a husband who keeps his wife locked up in a room because he tells her she is crazy and unstable, but really it is the entrapment itself that sends her mad.
In addition to this, we were on a train on our way back from a recording session in Halifax one night and [drummer] Dave Wade and I started watching the French film ‘Betty Blue’ on his laptop. Although Betty’s behaviour is a lot more extreme than any woman I’ve ever met, I felt myself relating to her. From there we wrote the song originally entitled ‘Mad By Moonlight’, which has now turned into the title of the album.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
It’s totally random. Sometimes one of us will come up with an idea and we’ll all work on it, other times we’ll start jamming and hit gold. To tell you all the various ways we’ve written songs would be like explaining how all those monkeys ended up writing the works of Shakespeare.
All I know is that it’s the songs that are written the most organically that turn out the most memorable. If we’re jamming something out and I can’t relate to it, we have to change it slightly, or else what is the point? And the same goes for everyone else. This can cause arguments, because one of us might really love it. But if you don’t all ‘get it’ then you aren’t going to give it your all and it’s just not going to work.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground, Blondie, British Sea Power, Beach Boys, Pretenders, PJ Harvey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Gillian Wearing, “signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what somebody else wants you to say”, Oscar Wilde, Andy Warhol and DH Lawrence.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Give us two chances, once live and once on record. Then decide if you hate us or not.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I just want people to like what we do and to play some festivals. My dream would be to be able to make a living from writing music. One of my main ambitions has always been to be asked to perform on Jools Holland. If this ever happens, I will feel like I have achieved one of my all-time dreams. I’d also love to write the soundtrack for a film. Ever since I saw British Sea Power’s soundtrack for the re-release of ‘Man Of Aran’ I have been taken with the idea of doing something similar myself one day. I know the boys all feel the same too.
MORE>> www.thomastantrum.co.uk
