Posted on April 1, 2009 - by Mark Zonda

Backyard Tire Fire

“Backyard Tire Fire” represents the most the warmest and yet professional side of the brightest side of American music linked to folk and glorious californian dreamy choirs. Some of their songs, like “Shoulda’ Shout it” reminds me to “America” and “Wilco” at the same time. The band is now buisy on an extensive tour all across the States, but I managed to grab some words to Mr. Matt and Tim. Let’s go on with the interview…

Mark Zonda: How you guys decided to start a band? Any particoular story on the genesis of Backyard Tire Fire?

Tim Cramp: Backyard Tire Fire began with Ed hiring me to play a party in a garage in Normal, IL.  I had recently quit going to school and was looking for different people to play with when Ed asked if I’d like to move to North Carolina and start working on the band full time.  That’s all I wanted to do and Ed seemed like the perfect person to start a band with because he had all these great songs, everyone in my hometown knew who he was and he is a little older than me so that kind of made it even more legitamate.

Matt Anderson: My older brother, Ed decided to start this band in 2001 I think.  He was playing solo acoustic guitar gigs and after a while he wanted a band to back him up on his tunes.  The band was formed in Asheville, NC and moved to Athens, GA shortly after.  After less than a year of trying to get gigs in the competitive Athens music scene the band moved back to Illinois.  This is when I came into the picture in 2003.

Mark Zonda: How in your opinion Athens became so relevant on the scene? We have to blame it on the college thing?

Matt Anderson: In my opinion Athens became so relevant on the scene because of bands like R.E.M., Widespread Panic, and The B-52′s all originated from there.  That is a pretty diverse group of bands which cover a wide variety of fans.

Mark Zonda: How would you describe the musical gender “Americana” to our European audience?

Tim Cramp: Honestly I don’t know how you classify music as Americana.  It seems to me like everything from blues to country to rock and roll falls under that class.  I think the intention of the songwriter has to be taken into consideration.  I guess Americana is just a label you put on some kind of musical product that you want to sell to people who want some authenticity in their music.  But truly, Backyard Tire Fire has had trouble with fitting into a specific genre since the begining.  But we enjoy making our music diverse and I think audiences do as well.  It just might take them a little longer to become aware of the band if the songs are different from one another.

Matt Anderson: I would describe “Americana” as honest music that celebrates the fusion of rock and roll and good country music.

Mark Zonda: Your favorite Americana bands?

Matt Anderson: Uncle Tupelo, Cracker, Son Volt, (early) Wilco, Alejandro Escovedo, Steve Earle…

Mark Zonda: Your band seems to get inspirations from anything that was worth to listen from 1970 to 1980 in America. Do you have a nostalgic attitude on music? Which are your past and present favourite bands?

Tim Cramp: My band is definetly proud of our influences.  Records from the sixties and seventies, Motown and Stax and everything that came before are part of a kind of Golden age in recording in America and we try to use the process and methods that were used back then.

We record onto 2″ tape and if an edit is made its made with a razor blade. It takes no balls to make a record on a computer where you can make everything perfect on a screen  before you even have to hear it.  I don’t want to listen to music like that and noone elso should have too if they don’t want to.  Here’s just a couple titles of some records from that period that really speak to me.  Neil Young “Comes a Time”, Neil Young “Rust Never Sleeps”, Rodger Miller “Dang Me”, Tom Petty “Pack up the Plantation”, Miles Davis “Live at the Blackhawk”, Sonny Boy Williamson with the Yardbirds , Rolling Stones “Exile on Main Street”

Matt Anderson: Still it seems to me that more than half of the bands who have inspired me the most have been from Europe.  The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Stones, The Beatles.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

Mark Zonda: How’s the new album going? Do we have to expect surprises? What did you inspired the most on the work process?

Tim Cramp: The new album is our most polished mature and thought out record ever.  The group of songs were selected by the band along with producer Steve Berlin by going through old and new demos and putting a group of songs together that says something for themselves as songs and says something as a whole.  I can’t explain.  It’s beautiful and I’m proud of it.

Matt Anderson: The album is almost finished.  There is still some horns and keys that need to be recorded on a few things.  Steve Berlin will be playing those parts and laying them down in his home studio space in Portland, OR.  After that, Jeff Saltzman will do the mixing with Steve sitting in on the mixes.  Then it will be mastered across the country in New York City.  Surprises?  There will be programmed drums on one song.  Steve Berlin’s ideas were very inspirational.  He had so many tasteful changes on all of our songs.  We kept saying, “He’s making good songs great.”

Mark Zonda: “Good things great”! I like that one! Greatest song of the album?

Matt Anderson: I really like how the song “Piss and Moan” turned out.

Mark Zonda: Till July it will be a long tour ‘cross America. Ever dreamt of Europe? And how the hell will you get back?

Tim Cramp: Backyard Tire Fire has always been a band that plays tons of shows every year and I don’t think any of us wants that to change in any big way.  We’ve been hitting the road hard in the United States for years and we’ve had good success with it. The reason we haven’t been to Europe is because we haven’t had any opportunity.  It would be a dream come true to go to Europe to make music.

Matt Anderson: We have always talked about playing Europe.  I think it will happen soon.  I have never been there.  Once we go there it might be too hard to leave.

Tim Cramp: Hopefully when the new album comes out we can get the label to do a big push in Europe and maybe then someone can set up a tour.  Keep checking back with us and we’ll let you know how this goes! Thanks Mark!

Backyard Tire Fire – “Title”

Let it ring on...

• The Club. Its golden age. (0)