The Montreal-based 4-piece Rock band Telephant Graveyard releases a gritty foot-stomper with their recent single, "Tired Of Me." Consisting of the likes between the lead singer and guitarist Erik, bassist Austin, drummer Phil, and 'guitbass' (guitar-bass hybrid) player John.
The members within Telephant Graveyard each have extensively different musical tastes, ranging from their staple Alternative-Grunge sound to Jazz, Progressive Rock, Metal, and seldomly Electronic and Hip-Hop. They're also a comedic group of guys, as they often release witty music videos to accompany their profound pieces.
Doing so with their latest single, "Tired Of Me," we can see Telephant Graveyard share a Zoom call where they each take turns on the big screen to deliver their recent hit. Regarding the song itself, Telephant Graveyard pushes through with punchy Alt-Grunge instrumentation while lead singer Erik sings a self-deprecating message of countless flaws, which listeners can easily relate with.
The single "Tired Of Me" begins with punchy electric guitar bursts that remind us of the grit and power from groups like Nirvana. As the lead vocalist Erik starts singing of his flaws and hoping that his audience won't get tired of him, and Telephant Graveyard in general, they offer this heightened sense of angst that is utterly impossible to get bored of.
The surrounding instrumentals are incredible punchy with help from Austin's plucky bassline, Phil's toe-tapping drum patterns, and John's sweet 'guitbass' licks. Ending the song off with incredible power, lust, and grit, we honestly can't get enough of the raw power and heavy emotion that Telephant Graveyard has implemented into this powerhouse single.
We love the savory instrumentals and genuine lyricism that Telephant Graveyard has infused into their trail-blazing single, "Tired Of Me," as we're sure that listeners won't be bored of Telephant Graveyard with this brilliantly powerful piece.
Hello Telephant Graveyard and welcome back to BuzzMusic. Your single "Tired Of Me" covers quite an interesting topic. Could you explain where the song's inspiration came from and what you wanted your lyrics to deliver?
Hey Buzz Music, thanks for taking the time to chat with us about music, again! It’s Erik from Telephant Graveyard answering the questions today. The music for “Tired Of Me” was inspired by a relatively unknown Foo Fighter song, called “Tired Of You”. The song is only Dave Grohl singing over a palm-muted guitar part with some simple power chords, so we definitely tried to emulate that vibe, but with more of an involved arrangement. As far as lyrics go, I wanted to write phrases that fit with the eerie, and moodiness of the music but had no initial intention of making it sound as dark as it is. But, I guess the darker aspects of my mind subconsciously spilled out when I was writing that song; sometimes the music inspires the lyrics. This was the first song I wrote the lyrics to a melody and those words and phrases seem to fit the overall angsty/grungy picture I wanted to paint.
How did your band split the sonic creative process for your single "Tired Of Me?" Do you often undergo the same creative process for each piece you create?
Every time we arrange a song, we never try to repeat ourselves. We always aim to make each song its own character and unique experience. As much as we’re a rock/alternative rock band, we like to think we’re relatively diverse in the sense that we experiment with guitar tones, grooves, song structures, vocal layering, subject matter, and delivery with every song we create. If one of us brings a fleshed-out song to the band, we each have our own equal inputs when arranging it so it has that “Telephant Graveyard” sound. And, “Tired Of Me” was so exception to this practice. Also, John and Austin have Bachelor degrees in music, and each play multiple instruments, so taking their advice definitely goes a long way to making a song make sense and have some kind of cohesion to it because I unintentionally write all over the place in weird time signatures; I go more by impulse and feel when coming up with a riff or a groove. Regarding the heavy lyricism within your single "Tired Of Me," how did the songwriting process go? Was this a collective process, or does one individual handle the band's lyricism?
John and I are the two main songwriters in the band, and whenever one of us has a song to bring to the band, we have lyrics to go with them. As much as we’re Rush fans, we haven’t experimented with one person writing the music, and someone else handling the lyrics. Typically, I’ll write a riff, try to put lyrics and a melody over the rhythm, and if it works and I’m engaged with it, then I’ll work out a loose structure and bring it to the band. Then, we will arrange it together in a live setting. Once we’ve jammed it out a few times, we’ll slowly make subtle tweaks and each adds our own individual parts along the way so it all fits together and flows cohesively. We’re very much of the mentality where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Again, “Tired Of Me” was no exception to this. We've noticed that you also released a Zoom music video for your single "Tired Of Me." How do your music videos help give listeners a better understanding of who you are?
We chose to make “Tired Of Me” a zoom based video because of the limitations and restrictions due to the pandemic. It’s very much a visual representation of how we recorded this song because we all recorded our own parts virtually from each of our own homes, then sent the raw tracks to our buddy, Matt Nozetz at Avbury Studios here in Montreal, mix and master it. For this video, and another one of our videos for our debut single “Jump” – we took the more comedic approach because as much as we take our music seriously, we don’t take ourselves seriously; our sense of humor is something we strongly bond over. Our music videos are low budget, so there’s certainly a charm and originality to our videos. We always have fun making them, whether people like or understand them or not. What can fans anticipate to hear from you in the new year?
Fans can certainly expect more music in the new year! When is another question? It all depends on the COVID-19 situation and what restrictions are in place by the time we’re ready to start recording new music. Seeing as there won’t be shown in the near future, we plan to record virtually, as we did with “Tired Of Me”, and to at least start chipping away at some new material. We have enough songs to put another EP together, so hopefully, we can start working on that soon, we’ll see what the future holds.
