CanRock legends from Sloan, The Super Friendz, and The Inbreds just wanted to make a band with their buddies.
by Cam Lindsay
Liner Notes is a close up look at a great new album you may have missed. This time, the three members of TUNS discuss how a long-standing friendship evolved into a band.
The members of TUNS don’t like being referred to as a “supergroup,” but they don’t really have a say in the matter. They put the idea out there before anyone.
“I guess in a way we signed off on it because it’s in our bio,” admits bassist/singer Mike O’Neill. The temptation to refer to TUNS as a supergroup is strong considering their lineage. All three members played a pivotal role in Canadian indie rock’s magnificent run during the 1990s: O’Neill as a member of The Inbreds, Matt Murphy as a member of The Super Friendz and The Flashing Lights, and Chris Murphy as a member of the still-active Sloan.
Chris says he won’t be using the term to describe TUNS, but he does understand why it will forever stick to the band. “I think it’d be fun to see Captain Kirk, Captain Picard and Luke Skywalker in the same room,” he says. “I can’t think of a better example.” To which Matt chimes in with the perfect Canadian parallel: “The Littlest Hobo, Bruno Gerussi and Louis Del Grande.”
Some might not think of TUNS as a new band, but don’t let their respective histories fool you. Their first performance was in October 2015 playing Hayden’s Dream Serenade at Massey Hall, only one month after announcing the band existed. And now, less than a year later, they are releasing their self-titled debut album. Anyone familiar with O’Neill and the two Murphys should know what to expect: sharply written rock songs with a heavy focus on classic pop melodies. Like in Sloan and the Super Friendz, each member writes and sings – three songs apiece – evoking some familiarity from their previous work, but also a newfangled sound borne from this fresh take.
At the office of their Toronto-based record label Royal Mountain Records, we got all three members to sit down and reflect on their decades-old friendship and their newfound venture.
TUNS self-titled album is out August 26 on Royal Mountain Records.
Cam Lindsay (Chart Attack): The first photo you guys put out there was one from 20 years or so ago. How far back does the idea for this band go?
Matt Murphy: Chris was always trying to get me to leave my band and start a new band with him. At one point – when Sloan had an early crisis.
Chris Murphy: Right before the Super Friendz made Mock Up, Scale Down, so December '94, Sloan was basically like, “That’s it.” So basically I came sniffing around Matt like, “I just left my wife.” And he was like, “Dude, we’re just about to record! Sorry.” But it was fun to tour with Super Friendz.
Mike O’Neill: One thing I’d like to tell you about that black and white photo is that Chris and Matt are standing kind of close to me because I was wearing a Chicago Police Force jacket that my sister helped me pick out. It was this black leather jacket with giant buttons and shoulder flares, vents in the back. It was kind of a gross jacket. Like, a lot of jackets. So these guys moved in close to block the jacket so you couldn’t see how gross it was.
CM: Nooooo…
MM: We are mean! [Laughs]
MO: But they were helping me out. The idea was that they moved in so that my shoulders were covered and you couldn’t see how ridiculous my jacket was.
CM: That’s news to me. We were nice!
MO: You were nice about it.
MM: It was really Chris’s energy that put it together. When was it, at my birthday?
CM: You mean on the recent side? Well, I always mentioned how we backed Mike to give him a band. Matt, Charles Austin (The Super Friendz) and I were his backing band, which was a lot of fun. That was like three years ago at The Great Hall. This was kind of my dream. These guys are heavyweight players and singers and writers. I just thought it was a fun idea, and we could do more than just jam. I feel like we’ve done a lot. We haven’t played many shows but we’ve made a record, we’ve done it. I don’t want to stop doing it, but I’m happy we’ve done this much.
MM: I thought the first way you’d pitch it is CSN but no Y. Three singers across the front, maybe even just with acoustics, hitting their own catalogue but also other stuff. That didn’t move me too much. But I saw these guys sing “Dream” by The Everly Brothers together at my birthday one year and it was amazing. So once we did that with him, we nailed down a date to get this thing started.
But it was Mike’s mom who really got the band together.
MO: Kind of. My dad passed away in 2011 and my mom lives by herself in Oshawa, and here’s her address. No… I visit her a lot, every three months. And I started doing things around the house. As I recall, Chris said, “Next time you’re at home, why don’t we get together and jam.” And that’s how it started. So, in my mind, if I hadn’t been coming home so often it wouldn’t have occurred to me. And then what started happening was every time I came home it was to practice or play with these guys. I think there was one time where I came home and I didn’t tell Chris about it because I knew that if I did he’d say, “Well, what day? We could do it on Tuesday and Wednesday.” So I didn’t tell him anything and went home to help my mom secretly.
CM: Well, now the secret’s on her.
The last thing I wanted to ask you about that photo was did you crop anyone out of it to get it to look like that?
CM: No, but I have gone through other photos to find the three of us and I have comically cut people out.
MM: But not necessarily their limbs. So a lot of hands show up.
CM: No, we’re the only three people in that picture and I think it’s '98 at my 30th birthday. Sloan played at Palais Royale for the live record and Super Friendz opened up.
MM: I thought that photo was in Halifax.
CM: No, it’s at Queen and Bathurst. So we were looking at Pizza Pizza, which is in the background.
Do you think this band is more special now at this point in your lives than it would have been, say, in 1998?
CM: Maybe we would have been more part of the zeitgeist, whereas now we’re not really party of a scene or a story. I guess we’re just sort of trading on our pedigree in some ways. But it’s a giant shoulder shrug about how we’re being received. I’m into people hearing our record and liking it, but it doesn’t really matter. I think what would have been different then is our own expectations of what we can do with it. But our expectations at this point are pretty realistic.
MM: They’re fulfilled already.
CM: We’ve got our record on vinyl. Everything else is gravy.
MO: I can only speak for myself, but I think that I would have battled insecurities if I had been in a band with these guys in the mid-'90s. I would have been so distracted by whether I was worthy of being in the band or if I was holding my own in it or having delusions that I’m kind of in charge of this thing secretly. All of that interior dialogue would have led to unhappiness. And I think the opportunity coincides with me being the right age for it. So I’m glad I’m not missing the opportunity. The most boring thing you can say is, “Well, it’s just really fun.” Like who gives a fuck?
CM: That’s what I was just gonna say.
MO: I’m basically saying that’s how it feels. The way I would describe it is, right now, if I was playing a solo show and I made a mistake, everyone would know even if they couldn’t hear because they’d read it off my face. But if I have a mistake in this band – which I do – I just smile or laugh. That’s my unconscious reaction to it.
When you got together for that first practice was the chemistry obvious?
MO: I remember maybe possibly over-preparing a little bit, thinking: “I better bring a few riffs that aren’t right for my precious solo career. So what do I have that is unfinished but is appropriate for the band?” What I was afraid of was even though we know each other, we didn’t know what was going to happen. Ideally what would happen is we would start playing and come up with ideas and there wouldn’t be any homework. Everything would happen in the room. Now fortunately, that is what happened. It really did work out that way.
There was a bit of homework: Chris had a way of divvying up the songs and we were responsible for writing words for the ones that we were gonna sing. And then what we ended up doing, if I’m not giving too much away, we would suggest drum beats to Chris or he would suggest them. They would generally be hits with interesting drum parts and then we would use that as a starting point to inspire riffs on the guitar and bass.
CM: I would just be like, “This is something that I can play or I enjoy playing.” And in my head I was just sort of playing “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears For Fears and they’d be honking through whatever until we hit something, and then we’d record it. I couldn’t believe the way in which we could make it up on the spot. I am still in awe of that, and I have to give these guys credit more so than me. I’m there and contributing, I guess, but when we start out, it’s kind of insane. I’ve never done that before. And I brought a stockpile of ideas to the sessions, and they were fine, but the most exciting things were the ones that were made up on the spot.
Was it pretty clear that when the band was formed you would all sing and write songs?
MM: Yeah. The songs were all written very communally. You couldn’t really take them apart and extract something and say this was written by this person or that person. The album was really created all together. We sometimes even sing each other’s lyrics, and we certainly sing each other’s melodies. But in terms of us all singing, we definitely wanted to make sure we all sang an equal amount of lead vocals for sure. So there are nine songs on the record and we sing three each.
I love Mike’s vocals so much on this record, that it reminds me of the Eagles documentary where Glenn Frey says, “Well, when you have Don Henley in the band who else is gonna sing?” And I sort of feel like that about Mike because he has such a beautiful voice that can evoke a lot of emotion. So in the back of my mind I thought, “Well, why didn’t Mike sing all of the songs?”
MO: Oh my God! [Rolls eyes]
MM: That’s just because we’re all fans of each other. I also thought Chris should play all of the bass. [Laughs] No, but I really do just enjoy listening to these guys play.
MO: Matt said something funny to me walking down the street the other day. He said, “Hey, you know who’s a really good bass player? Oh, sorry, I forgot you’re a bass player.” [Laughs] Like, “If you need a bass player… Oh wait, sorry. You play bass.”
You brought in Ian McGettigan to produce the album, which throws Thrush Hermit into this band’s pedigree. He also plays bass. Did you pick him in case it didn’t work out with Mike?
MM: [Laughs] Yeah.
MO: Could be, yeah.
CM: No, we couldn’t get Rick White. Well, we didn’t contact him.
MM: I think the thing about Ian was that we were very comfortable with him. We all know him, there was no “getting to know you” moments. The way we were creating the music was the same with recording it with Ian. It didn’t change any of our dynamic whatsoever.
Is there any competition in this band?
MM: If there is it’s very friendly and inspiring in a way. If someone makes a good melody, then you know your next one has to be on that same level. So it drives you forward, but we’re not keeping score.
CM: When we contributed lyrics, I remember Matt having some trouble and I suggested something and then ten minutes later I heard him sing it. Like, “Fuck, he used it!” That would never happen in Sloan or in my experience before. Everybody is so precious.
MO: I definitely remember when I first heard Matt sing “Back Among Friends” and I thought, “Oh my God, the words are so good. Wow.” I wasn’t even jealous because it was our thing, but I remember thinking everything I did had to be good.
So you came up with 50 songs, then cut it down to 15 and ended up with nine.
MM: We had song things that we whittled down, and then we recorded 12 originals, three that aren’t on the record. It was Royal Mountain that suggested we go with nine.
CM: Yeah, we had 12 and then we started cutting. So if we took off one, we’d have to take off two more. I was insistent that we did an egalitarian split. Even though there is one song that I wrote the lyrics for, which Matt and I sing together.
MM: But my vocal is a few DBs lower.
CM: Whatever. I think the way things are going, short records are better.
MM: At the time I couldn’t believe we weren’t putting 12 songs on the record. But now that it’s nine, I think it’s very refreshing. We’re not bothering anyone longer than we have to.
When I mention TUNS to people, I say it sounds like the guys from the Inbreds, Sloan and the Super Friendz, but it also sounds like a new band.
MM: I think I hear all of those things in it. I wouldn’t say it’s a fresh start for any of us. I certainly feel that making it felt like it came together in a unique way. There is something fresh about it. I hope that is down to the way we approached the music. Even though stylistically it’s not going to revolutionize modern music, it will always sound fresh to people. As long as it sounds fresh and vibrant then we’re doing something right. But I do hear those influences, for sure. We’re making up music now, and I’ll say, “I just ripped you off playing that lick there.”
MO: And I’m like, “That’s fine. You have my permission.” One thing that is shocking to Matt too, is that some people can’t tell the difference between our voices. And I think, “Why not? I can.” When I hear Chris sing, it’s hard not to hear that voice you associate with the big songs of Sloan. Like if I heard this guy’s voice doing anything with any instruments I would think of it as Sloan-based. But that’s just Chris’s voice, and he played with Sloan first. It’s an interesting thing. I do think that it’s substantial that even people who know me well can’t tell who is singing what. I find that shocking. But I do find that our voices are in the same range.
CM: But some people can’t tell The Beatles apart. I think it’s fun that we’re a trio because Matt and I have been in four-piece rock groups, and the joke is that Mike was in a two-piece, so he’s come up and we’ve come down. But it is fun to be in a three-piece, and Matt is such a good guitar player that we don’t need a rhythm guitar player. There is so much space when we play live. And when we’re making the record we wanted to make it a bit sparse. For me, certainly the process was different, and I like how sparse the record is. I’m sick of myself, when I write music. I’m fine with my ability, but I’m so tired of my tricks and tropes. But the riffs that these guys come up with are so fun. Sorry, this is boring. But we have so many riffs as a starting point for another record. I’m so excited about them.
MO: That’s how I feel about my next solo record. Because I’ve been working on a solo record, and then this came along.
CM: Umm, we’re talking about this right now. [Laughs]
MM: No, but it’s true. The gratification comes a lot quicker when you have three people working on the same song together. It’s not like it’s not work, it’s just a lot more fun. You see results a lot quicker, and then you can move on to the next one. It doesn’t come easy, but it’s very rewarding. And I agree with what Chris is saying: we’re a three-piece, so that’s fresh because we’ve never done that. We’re writing in this new way that is unique to our past experiences, but at the same time, I do still hear the influences of our past. And if other people do, I understand.
--taken from: CHARTattack
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