(Photo Courtesy of Nick Shively)This week’s Bandcamp gem — the local babes of desert pop outfit, Diners — is served with a hearty side of summertime vibes and wistful lyrics.
Hailing from the Valley of the Sun, Diners is an aptly named bunch, as the band's youthful tunes certainly wouldn’t be out of place at any one of the local diners across the Valley. The group released a second album, “Always Room,” back in May, and geewhiz, is it jam-packed with magnetic hooks, solid chord progressions and dreamy interludes.
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Tyler Broderick, who heads up Diners, certainly understands the idea of an album as a cohesive listening experience; “Always Room” ebbs and flows, wanders off into a dream only to return to moody sentimentality that makes Diners such a delicious listening experience that you won't be able to get out of your head.
Broderick and I recently had a chance to chitchat about his creative process, a hypothetical music video and Bragg’s Factory Diner. Read on, read on.
State Press: So, how did Diners come to be? Who is in the band? You’ve got a pretty large lineup according to your Bandcamp — even someone who plays a sax! How did you all meet?
Tyler Broderick: Diners happened when I quit an old band of mine. I started writing songs for Diners after landing on the idea of recording an album by myself. Just figured I wouldn't worry about finding band mates until I was ready to play shows.
Tristan Jemsek, Christian Reeb, Robert Raya and (sometimes) Jill Cook are my band members right now. They are excellent musicians and singers that help me perform my songs for live shows. With recording, I love inviting lots of friends on as guests to sing, play a keyboard, or a saxophone for a song or two. That's why the album credits are pretty long. (laughs)
I suppose we all met each other from going to shows and being a part of the local music scene. I've been performing and going to shows at Trunk Space since I was 14 years old in 2007. All of us have seen each other perform and release music in all sorts of bands. I'd say we're all fans of each other.
SP: Who/what/where has influenced your sound?
TB: A big part of our sound comes from the studio we record in. Jalipaz, the engineer at audioconfusion, has played a big role in helping produce and shape the music we record. He's one of my best friends and I think he really understands what I'm looking for.
I'd like to think that Diners sits right between my love for produced '60s and '70s pop music (like Beach Boys and David Bowie) and my love for home-recorded DIY pop music (R. Stevie Moore, Karl Blau, and a lot of K Record bands.)
The Trunk Space, which is our favorite venue, touring around the country, hearing our friend's music and living here in Arizona all really play a part in the songwriting for this band.
SP: With a name like Diners, I have to ask: What’s your favorite diner in Phoenix?
TB: Bragg's Factory Diner. Without a doubt. Delicious vegan/vegetarian diner food without all the mock meat. I love it. Made by good people, too!
SP: What’s your creative process like? Do lyrics come about first? Or does someone land on a sweet chord and y’all go from there?
TB: The creative process is different every time. Most often, a melody will pop into my head, and then I'll go to the guitar or the piano and figure it out. It might be a vocal melody or it might be an instrument melody; whatever it is, I figure that out when I can actually play along to it. Or, sometimes, I get lucky and a song just pours out all at once.
Lately, I've been using my smart phone as a songwriting tool. If I'm in the car or at work I'll record myself singing an idea like a guitar part or a vocal melody or some lyrics onto my phone and save it for later. Those bits and pieces of songs can help out as starting point or could help me fill out a missing part in a song.
SP: Totally dig that your album has that dreamy instrumental interlude, “Daydream Receiver.” You normally don’t find that with music of your genre. What inspired it?
TB: Bands totally underestimate the power of interludes. I was looking for a dreamy way to keep things moving. I knew the album needed to have some instrumental parts to help keep the album flowing and to keep the listener entertained. "Daydream Receiver" and the other instrumental, "Gila River," worked out great for the album. I love it when artists can show you their songs in an interesting, flowing way. A good album should naturally take you places.
SP: OK, so you’re making a hypothetical music video for one of your songs off “Always Room.” What’s the ideal visual accompaniment to that album?
TB: Cool question. Hmm… if I were to make one up right now, I'd make it a live-action music video. Shot from the perspective of somebody walking around downtown. Everybody is giving high-fives to this person and cheering them on. Maybe this person receives gifts from strangers along the way — like a balloon, a sandwich or a big soft pretzel. You never see the face of this main person walking around town because that person is you.
SP: Your album artwork for “Always Room” is beautiful, and a lot of things are happening on it. What’s the story behind it?
TB: Thank you! One of my best friends, Nick Shively, designed the album cover. I had asked Nick to do the album art, because I'm a big fan of his and he's a total pro. From my understanding, it sounds like he made a collage from some Arizona-themed National Geographic magazines and then decided to draw the collage, inserting other southwestern scenes to complete it. It's pretty cool to me that my favorite work of his happens to be my album cover. Nick's the best!
SP: Will the dear readers of the State Press find you playing any live shows soon?
TB: Yes! We're playing at Jobot on Oct. 17, and then we've got an excellent show on Oct. 24 with one of our favorite bands from Seattle: Neighbors.
SP: Folks can order tapes of your album from Lost Sound Tapes or a vinyl from Phat N’ Phunky or Diet Pop Records — what’s it been like coordinating with so many labels? What’s their story? Are they local to the Valley of the Sun?
TB: All three of those record labels are run by friends of mine, who run their labels out of their love for music. My friend Jon Manning runs Lost Sound Tapes from Vancouver, Canada, Phat 'n' Phunky is run by Bob Vielma in San Jose, California and lastly Diet Pop Records is run by good ol' Logan Greene in Tucson, Arizona. These are all folks we've met through touring and whatnot. I've been a fan of Lost Sound Tapes for the past seven years. A lot of my favorite artists have done tapes with Jon, so it's a real honor to have a release with them. Bob, who runs Phat 'n' Phunky, also works for Asian Man Records, which is pretty neat. He saw us play in San Jose and tried to get us on Asian Man. That didn't end up happening, so he decided he'd help put it out on his own label. And Logan is one of my favorite friends who just recently started up Diet Pop Records. We're one of the first bands to work with DPR, so that's pretty cool to us! Keeping in touch with them is all pretty easy.
You can (and should) download Diner’s “Always Room” on Bandcamp. Diners is also on Facebook. Like them to get the skinny on upcoming shows.
Editor's Note: This interview was edited for length.
Reach the reporter at Zachariah.Webb@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter at @zachariahkaylar
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