When I Say Tilly, You Say Wall!

Written for fasterlouder.com.au

Listening to Tilly And The Wall is a kaleidoscopic experience, like being psyched up by a romantic fun-loving cult with a passion for colour and harmony. Known for their eclectic dress sense and sing-along tracks, Tilly produce rousing melodies with chants borne out of American teenage angst and an irrepressible lust for life. Hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, the five twenty-something musicians have just released their third album, ambiguously non-titled, but not self-titled either. Rather than employing something so dull as a drummer, Tilly And The Wall has Jamie Pressnall the tap-dancer drilling out beats with her feet for percussion. I caught Jamie in the middle of sorting out the cassette tapes of her youth, to get the lowdown on Tilly’s latest adventures.

The new album is commonly referred to as ‘O’, due to its spherical shape. “It’s not really titled actually,” Jamie explains in her mid-American drawl. In the US, Tilly commissioned 20 different artists to produce a thousand pieces of art apiece. Once the 20,000 original pieces of art were assembled, they formed the shape of an ‘O’. “It’s really to draw attention to the artwork that was made for the record. The ‘O’ is like a symbol, but we all call it different names. I call it ‘Masks’, some people call it ‘O’.”

The band’s name is sourced from the title of children’s book ‘Tillie And The Wall’ by Amsterdam writer and former Andy Warhol employee, Leo Lionni. Their debut album Wild Like Children mourns romances lost and details raucous teenage binge-drinking and sexual experimentation, with the track Nights of the Living Dead crying out, “The high school kids are all fucked up, touching each other, oh my god. Forty ounces was never enough, we wanna pass out in your yard…Dressing in drag…while boys kiss boys”. The band has a penchant for childlike wonder and pensive romanticism, with lyrics such as “I laid on my bed, let the punk record spin, the sloppy guitar it was shooting out stars – they all went to my heart, some rainbows in the dark” from Rainbows In The Dark on their sophomore release Bottoms of Barrels.

The sonically hyperactive Tilly And The Wall have grown up, with ‘O’ covering themes of mythical symbolism in nature, astrology, sex and magic. I ask Jamie how she would describe the new album and she squeals, “Crazy pop punk!”

The band formed out of a group of high school friends. Jamie and Neely had been in a band with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst before forming Tilly and releasing albums through Conor’s Team Love label. “All my friends were musicians and artists, I learned so much from them. I’ve watched Bright Eyes and all our friends’ bands just start touring the country and then start touring internationally,” Jamie explains, “I was just like, that’s actually something that we can do. With Tilly, we have had the opportunity to do that.” Tilly And The Wall have become firm festival favourites in the past few years, playing Coachella and shows from Iceland to Japan and Europe. The band often puts on gigs with the likes of Rilo Kiley, Of Montreal and current best buddies CSS. “We’re going to tour the US in September opening up for CSS,” says Jamie. “We’re so excited, we love them!”

Tilly put on a dynamic live show. Tiny, dramatically dressed singer Kiana Alarid, a former toymaker and florist with unicorns tattooed on her arm, leaps around the stage. When I saw them play in New Zealand last year, she donned sequinned Mickey Mouse ears, yellow tights and rainbow coloured shoes, breaking out into spontaneous Beyonce butt-shakin’ dance moves. Jamie says the band yells and screams before a show to hype themselves up. “You always think about the crowd and the audience, that they’re actually there to see our show and support us. We are lucky to do what we do. I get really excited to play live.”

Tapping tirelessly on stage during shows must require some serious stamina. “I plan the set so that I have breaks every 3 or 4 songs. The first couple of weeks on tour I am exhausted but then you just get used to it.” A classically trained dancer, former professional ballerina and dance teacher, Jamie likens tap dancing to working out. “When you have to do it every day, it’s like your body adjusts. But even if you practice every day it’s not the same as performing. You so much have adrenaline going, I dance differently. It is a rush.” That rush is infectious, I tell Jamie, “Tilly And The Wall are my personal trainers, I always listen to you when I go running, starting with Sing Songs Along.” The track opens with a roaring scream and lyrics like a call to arms from impassioned cheerleaders, “Wake up your mothers, we’ll start a commotion! We’ll take you apart, yeah we’ll swallow your ocean.”

Jamie says that she doesn’t drink or do drugs on tour to keep her energy levels up. “I’m really conscious of what I eat and I try to stay as healthy as possible otherwise I get sick. I used to get sick all on tour the time, I had pneumonia 3 times in one year because my body would get so tired when we were touring. I would eat whatever, I would drink. The last couple of years I haven’t gotten sick I think it’s because I’m really careful of what I eat on tour.”

With five members in the band all producing lyrics, the song writing process is very collaborative. “Usually the person who wrote the song will bring the skeleton of a song to practice, whether it’s the lyrics and a guitar part or keyboards. Then the person kind of directs you. Like, I want it to sound punk, I want it to sound rough, I want it to sound pop-y.” For Jamie, her inspiration on this record, so much bigger in sound the last, came from marching bands. “I’ve always loved marching bands and I wanted to bring that sound in to a record. I try to draw inspiration from everything – music, friends, relationships.”

Jamie grew up all over America but went to high school in Omaha, to a soundtrack of Elliot Smith’s Roman Candles and The Cure’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. “It’s mellow,” Jamie says of Omaha. “There’s a very slow pace of life and everybody stays inside a lot, because the weather is really extreme. It’s either, like, freezing or really hot. There’s only 3 weeks out of the year where it’s nice weather so you’re indoors a lot, which allows you to be a little bit more creative I think.” As a word of advice, Jamie offers her philosophy on life to Australian Tilly fans. “Do what you love, do what makes you happy, and don’t ever have regrets in your life.”

Coming up next for Tilly And The Wall is a tour of the UK in October after performing with CSS, and they hope to make it back to Australia soon. “We would love to come back,” Jamie enthuses. “We had so much fun when we were there! We’re hoping we can for sure, that would be awesome.”

A Rose By Any Other…

Name keyrings upset me. Whenever I pass a giftstore flogging personalised mugs for the Amandas, Pauls and Sarahs of the world, I check for my name to no avail. As an eight year old girl all I wanted in the whole wide world, more than to meet Blossom in person, was a notepad made in Taiwan with “A Note From Jazial” headlining each page.

I check for lighters personalised to me, and “Lisa’s Parking Only” signs I could hang in my garage, if I had a garage…and a car… Soft toy manufacturers never include ‘Jazial’ in the ranks of Janes, Julias, Jennifers and Janines when sewing names on to the bellys of little bears.

It’s a futile self-destructive practice, about as likely to end in joy as a search for an original 1988-release Jem & The Holograms doll with the light up star earrings. I scan eBay regularly for one nonetheless.

My name was almost Lucy, and I claim it as a nom de plume when ordering takeaways or Starbucks (not that I would ever do that, evil American church of consumerism that it is. But hot damn, a caramel frappucino for the walk along Takapuna beach goes down well. So I hear).

My grandmother Rosemary has a mug with the definition of her name on it. Kind to animals, a loyal friend, affectionate, creative. How I yearned to be praised when glancing at my cup as I dunked a gingernut biscuit into tea, defined by my vessel as I sipped at coffee. Instead, I am in posession of a lovely set of plain eggshell blue mugs that tell me nothing except that they were from Freedom Furniture.

Baby name books compile all the names in the world, ranked by popularity and neatly defined. Whenever browsing a bookstore, I flip in vain to ‘Ja…’ Cearly publishers are wise enough not to advise expectant parents torture their children.

In what I can retrospectively explain as a need for affinity in my unique name-ness, I perplexed everybody by naming my cat Osmo as a seven year old, pronounced ‘Ozmo’.

Whenever I meet people, instead of “Nice to meet you”, they react with “What? How do you say it? What? Oh… Wow. That’s an…interesting name. Where does it come from?” Uh, creative parents.

Last night at a pub, the friend introducing me challenged the person I’d just met to guessing when he asked how its spelled. “J…e?” No… “J…a!” Yes! “z…i el?” Close! It takes people an average of about five attempts to get my name right, or they just resort to calling me ‘Giselle’. I worked in a car-breakdowns call centre for four horrific months in between bouts of travelling, and stopped callers in their tracks when I greeted them with, “You’re speaking with Jazial. How can I help?” “With who??”

There is a website called www.jazial.com that promotes in European pop art something called Jazialization, which I could explain if I spoke French. I think I’ll have to make up my own definition. If you Google Jazial, you’ll find I’m the only living person in the entire world with that name. There is a man called Jazial Tate buried in Tennessee who lived from 1853-1930 according to rootsweb.ancestry.com, back when people had names like Ezra and Jebidiah. I’d like to visit the grave one day, just for the utterly surreal experience of seeing my own name somewhere that doesn’t belong to me.

I dreaded the first day of school each year. Teachers going through roll call for the first time would stumble horribly and precurse their attempt at pronouncing my name with, “Now I’m not quite sure how to pronounce this one so just bear with me…” Hi, I’m normal, I swear…

I read an article in the New Zealand Herald once about how children with strange names were less likely to succeed in school, due to teachers judging the children for having come from an unconventional home and being more likely to be difficult students. I cut it out of the paper and left it on my mother’s desk. She merely cackled, taking particular delight in telling the rest of the family (who have names like Peter, James and Kate) in a fit of giggles, “Guess what Jazial did..” “…I’m so sorry for giving you life, darling. So, so sorry.” Easy for you to say, Linda.

The New Zealand Herald recently reported the following story:

New Zealand children have been given names such as Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence and Benson and Hedges(twins).
But other names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, have been blocked by registration officials.
The revelations came during written findings by Family Court Judge Murfitt, who ordered a girl be put in court guardianship so her name – Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii – could be changed.
The girl’s lawyer told the judge she was so embarrassed by her name she refused to reveal it to friends.
Child Youth and Family does not consider giving a child an out-of-the-ordinary name a form of abuse unless a child suffers serious bullying as a result.

Being the only child in my entire family, I feel some responsibility to carry on the whanau surname. Being a girl however, I’ll be required to take on my husband’s name someday. No pressure you know, it’s only ending an entire heritage line, nothing but slaughtering the moniker my great great grandfather proudly sailed over from England with some 100 years ago. I’ve considered asking my future husband to take on my surname instead, but I’m not particularly attached to Crossley as a surname. Supposedly a lea was a river, and my ancestors lived across it. Like Chinese whispers, the folks Across The Lea become Crossley. (Though I think that tale may be a myth.)

I was given my mother’s surname rather than my father’s, being as conventional as we clearly are… My father’s surname by the way, is Exley. Yes, I’m aware of the irony.

I might just make up a new surname.

My Saturday morning, slightly-hungover wearing pyjamas soundtrack has been:

Dishwasher by Fujiya & Miyaki / Jane Says live by Jane’s Addiction / Sex On Fire by Kings Of Leon