Tank And The Bangas made a splash after winning NPR's Tiny Desk Concert in 2017. We spoke to the group ahead of their set at Boston Calling about the creative process for their new album Green Balloon and how life has changed since 2017.
This interview was conducted on May 24, 2019 by Tori Bedford for WGBH, at the Boston Calling Music Festival.
Now, how is this festival like other festivals you might have done or other gigs?
Norman Spence: Well I think this one is really close. It's the first time doing a festival in Boston for us if I'm not mistaken. They take good care of us here, like Tank said. Also the food's great. Also looking forward to some of the artists that are playing here too. You know it should be a good time. I wish I was a little warmer to be honest but it's still beautiful.
What do you think of Boston?
Spence: Boston's always great, always great.
So you guys have a new album out and you sort of do things in kind of an unorthodox way, like you came out with an album in 2013. But I wonder in that time, cut between the first album and this new album, what were you guys doing? What was the process like?
Albert Allenback: It was just relaxing you know not working very hard and taking vacations, spending time with family really, and fishing meditating, you know? We were on the road constantly. We were on the road all the time even before we won Tiny Desk. We would go out three or four days a week and do stuff.
Spence: Yeah there's people you know — maybe a crowd of very few people sometimes. And we were going to rock that crowd and the they go and tell ten more people.
Merrell Burkett: When we weren't on the road we will rehearse twice and three times a week. And that was like the thing that was the most constant was rehearsing all the time. Even if we didn't have a show. We still rehearse twice a week.
Allenback: And because everybody worked and did school and stuff we would start at like 10:00 or 11:00 at night and go to like 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. And it was crazy, it was amazing. And it was the best thing that could have happened. That rehearsal time rehearsal space shoutout for the space. Remarkable.
So for this album, you did ten different studios for 17 songs and they all sound pretty different.
Tank: Yeah at least five studios.
So you were touring and you were and you were rehearsing and you were recording a new album.
Tank: I would wonder how people would do that, like I would see Bruno Mars and I'm like, but you just put out a song, how you putting out a song and you're on tour and you just made a video? So apparently you just do it. People make, people make. First of all we live in a van. Second of all people all control our schedule pretty much so that's how it gets done. You know they have these smart people that literally can let you know that you're going to be able to do this show and fly back here to do this one and make a video and kiss your mom for an hour and then get back to the work.
Joshua Johnson: She sounds like she's homesick just a little bit but not so true.
Tank: Not today but that's really how it works. I love touring. I love it.
Johnson: It's the most amazing thing I ever did. I can't wait to do it again.
Tell me about this album. This is a really interesting album. It's clearly, you know, a labor of love. It's clearly something that you put so many years into and so much time and effort. I wonder how that transforms the process to be touring while also working on this album?
Tank: We love this album. We listen to this album like it is not our album, you know? We listen to it like it's an artist that we just discovered just going through our Spotify and each of us have our individual own favorite songs and strong memories attached to making the song we really love, and it's the album that we wanted. You know lots of people would think oh, Tank and the Bangas are about to put on an album like their live show... but if they knew us they would know that we never wanted it. We want this type of experience of Green Balloon to be something that was airy and green and whimsical and chill and fun. It's exactly what we want and that's always what matters the most -- what's in our heart.
Spence: This album took a moment because we had ideas of it and we had thoughts of it and as we toured like that the ideas they expounded and grew and some ideas came while we were on tour and soundcheck and in spaces like that. So it was like a lot of it is touring and all the stuff we were doing was necessary for the album to even come out the way that it did.
You said that you wanted the album to be green. That's a big thing throughout the album is the color green. What does that mean?
Tank: I really thought that it sounded just kind of cool and beautiful and you know like I said before, pretty whimsical and airy. But as I started looking into it green had so much significance to it. I mean I experienced with this band smoking weed for the first time, you know, I experienced leaving a show with five dollars, I experienced leaving the show with fifty dollars, and as you know that changes things ‑- to balloons, airy floating away also feeling tethered down. It's a lot into this lifestyle, it’s great and it’s beautiful, it's everything you want. What I would tell anybody, if you chase after your dreams — Be prepared for them to start chasing after you, because that's what Green Balloon is like for me.
What do you mean by that?
Tank: I mean literally being a dream chaser, like say you say you want to do this interview with this person but pretty soon you start doing interviews. So good. So well putting so much into your work that your work will start to follow you around. Now people want to do interviews with you. Literally, your dreams will start to chase you back and there is nowhere to run. But you can stay pretty still. And then it will eat you. So don't stay still.
That's another big theme on this album — there's the green thing and then you made a joke earlier about not doing anything for six years. You clearly were doing things. Being lazy or sitting around or not chasing after things — is this a feeling of, I'm not being productive enough or I'm not utilizing my gift? Where does that come from?
Tank: I think that at one time in my life I was smoking weed a lot and just chilling and not really doing anything. And that's when I was feeling quite lazy and when we lived in London, there were days when we lived out there for three months and of course every day you're not doing something that goes towards a dream. So if you just lay around. I mean we had an 18-year-old Japanese van that broke on us so we could not get everywhere we wanted to go all the time. So a lot of days were spent just like chilling around the house and a lot of these were also spent making something. So if I'm feeling unproductive I wasn't feeling very good. But I would hope that people don't just take that from the album — that was just an experience that, I happen to have a journal and I wrote down everything that I was feeling and that journal turned into our album.
So it's more just talking about your own experiences. I thought that might resonate with a lot of people. Does that feeling of — now you have success, and wow it's wonderful — I wonder how it feels? It's sort of calling back to that time before you felt that because you don't know when you're feeling lazy or you're not feeling productive.
Allenback: Oh yeah. This is crazy. That's all I really got to say is you know it's kind of cool that you got a song from being lazy.
Tank: Lazy Days. It's kind of cool. That means inspiration can really come from anything even in your most chill times. So you know I would say to everybody to document every moment because the way you felt yesterday you not going to feel that way today. You know that's what I do. So I don't want anybody to think I'm stuck in the past.
Spence: Having perspective on yesterday's thoughts. Good or bad. You know it could definitely be inspiring and you know because your feeling could change the next day depending on what you do.
Spence: You know that's cool. And like I said I never thought about it like that. All right. I don't write nothing down.
Tank: You know you've been documented musically too. I always have to write things down but even though I think it is good to write down all your feelings but you could document them in a song and people may not understand, but you'll go back and say, I wrote this when I was missing my grandmother. I wrote this when I was a sitting on my patio. I wrote this after I went fishing. You know what. You have got to write down stuff even when you feel like it. I know I do. Yeah.
What's next for you guys?
Allenback: We have to play in an hour.
Johnson: We have another set to play about midnight, that's going to be fun. And then maybe an hour of sleep and then you got away. I didn't know. We still have tomorrow right?
Allenback: We drive about three hours to North Adams Massachusetts, and then we're touring, we're working the album, we're sharing this beautiful thing we made, giving it time to breathe and...it's wonderful.
Burkett: We're rehearsing with us. We get back. So it's a lot more work to do man.
Allenback: We rehearse every day every. We're working out how we want to present this thing live and it's in its rawest form.
Johnson: The organism is doing well. There's still more things to do.
How is the organism after you won Tiny Desk -- how did it change?
Spence: There's been growth In so many ways. But there's still a lot of growing to do. We still continue to work in progress. Thank you NPR for all the light you shine on us. And all that. You didn't lie to us — they told it us it would change our life and it has.
Tank: It really has. Bob Boilen said it was going to change our lives and it did. Because we always were always doing this, you know I'm saying? But everyone said that we just needed the right platform so people could see us, and that's what NPR did for us; they gave us a platform. This is beautiful though because we always wanted something like this, at least I did, especially for the guys. It's like... before a show I could be tired as hell but I hear the fans scream for the guys when they get onstage and then that's when I get excited.
Who are the other people at the festival who you are excited to see?
Johnson: I wanna see Twenty One Pilots.
Tank: Yeah yeah for sure. I mean of course you got to see Chvrches I mean of course I really want to see Anderson .Paak but of course we're going to miss it.
All right. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thanks for talking.
(Transcribed and condensed for clarity by Meghan Smith)
