Tunde Adebimpe was working as an animator at MTV when the Sept. 11 attacks inspired him to expand his musical hobby into an actual band.
With Kyp Malone and David Sitek brought into the fold, TV on the Radio was born. But no one imagined the group’s self-distributed home recordings (dubbed “OK Calculator”) or debut EP (last year’s “Young Liars”) would make such a splash.
Adebimpe spoke to RedEye about fulfilling expectations with their full-length album, “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes,” and the band’s unique creative process.
Did you ever expect “Young Liars” to catch on the way it did?
I totally did not expect any of what’s gone on, based on what we were doing. When we were making [“Young Liars”], we thought any day now, we’re either going to get evicted or thrown out, so we should probably work really quick.
Had you known people would care, would you have approached the EP differently?
I guess we’ll never know. I don’t think so. With the LP, I’m glad we had the same attitude. It’s pretty much about throwing a bunch of things in by chance and then working on them individually, and then getting to a point where it’s time to stop. Pre-planning is basically just going through old tapes and mini-discs or old four-track songs, bringing them into the studio, then taking half of that recorded thing and cutting it up again to find the best part. It’s a real weird way to put songs together, or at least uncommon. But that’s the way that we’ve always worked. It’s a cumulative process.
The newer TV on the Radio stuff is a lot darker than your earlier recordings.
It’s kind of somber, yeah. “OK Calculator” was pretty much an audio sketchbook. I would sit down when I was bored and just make something, and a lot of the songs on there are just an effort to crack myself up or something I could play for someone else and go, “Aren’t I the funniest person in the world? Look!” (laughs). With the EP, though, it was probably just a matter of getting older, just starting to realize what being an adult meant.
And this also was right around Sept. 11, right?
Which pretty much put everyone in the town in the same mood for a good four months. Waking up, looking across the river and seeing the closest thing you’ve seen to real life Armageddon … hmm, that’s weird that that’s on fire, that thing that was indestructible. For everyone in the loft, it kind of became very clear what they wanted to do with themselves. After an initial period of confusion–it’s still a weird time–for me, personally, and maybe not even intentionally, my commitment to making art just deepened–a lot.
Show stop
TV on the Radio plays Friday at the Empty Bottle.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Kris Karnopp (kkarnopp@tribune.com)
