The
Roy Tinsel Band, Juanitas Family
Beulahland
118 NE 28th
Ave., 235-2794
9 pm Saturday,
Dec. 9
Free.
Kevin Wendt plays
drums in RTB.
"Your mouth
was soft and dark/ Felt to me like an ark/ That would take
me and lay me in a motel bed/ Draped in red velvet and pale
lamp light/ Wrapped in red velvet and golden grace."
--The Roy Tinsel
Band, "Mouth"
Ryan Myers is a pleasure to meet. Friendly and well-spoken,
this ex-Nebraskan. But as for Roy Tinsel--man, who the hell
knows? You can't talk to Roy Tinsel.
Roy Tinsel spends his days in the back of Ryan Myers' brain
somewhere. He emerges when the Roy Tinsel Band has a show,
painted like the world's last and most tragic drag queen,
swaggering, bawling and screaming for love.
Ryan seems like such a level-headed guy. Could he have
really written all the murderous and out-of-control songs
on Crash Course in Open-Heart Surgery, the RTB's
incredible new album? The star of the venomous "Her Again,"
a song that begins as a cuckold's threat to manually emasculate
his rival and turns into a violent and unsettling come-on:
Is that Ryan, Nice Guy, or Roy, Fucking Freak?
I sat down with Myers, RTB bassist Tanya Smith and guitarist
Joe Machamer to discuss the discreet charm and disturbing
potency of one Roy Tinsel.
WW: What does having a band do for Roy Tinsel
that Roy Tinsel can't do on his own?
Ryan Myers: Roy is kind of melodramatic. You can
capture that epic quality with a band. Queen wouldn't be
Queen if it was just one guy with a piano.
What's it like to play with this...galvanizing personality?
Tanya Smith: I feel like it's still Ryan's band.
He doesn't show up in makeup and drag at practice, so it's
always a treat when we see Roy Tinsel.
Joe Machamer: I don't think of Roy Tinsel as Ryan
Myers. At practice, that's Ryan, playing Roy Tinsel's songs.
But then we get to the show, and it's all Roy. When I'm
playing with Ryan, it feels like me and Ryan and Kevin and
Tanya are in a band. And when I'm playing with Roy, I feel
like, wow, here I am, backing up Roy Tinsel.
How would you characterize Roy?
JM: Roy is like Marc Bolan in the heavy-glam T.
Rex days. A lot of bands don't...well, they play music.
And that's fun, but when you go to a show you want a show,
you want to see a presentation. I like seeing a presentation,
I like seeing a show.
TS: Roy has a tender side, too, but I find him kind
of creepy on stage. Maybe it's his makeup.
You're probably not alone. Previous Roy Tinsel
recordings had a more blues or folk feel, while Crash
Course has a lot more messy, noisy rock on it.
How do all those things play in?
RM: The idea of Roy Tinsel and why I get all done
up in makeup and kind of look pretty but also creepy at
the same time is that that's something I really like, mixing
two different things. To me, even the most successful hard
metal has that sweet or somber element mixed in there that
creates tension. I like that tension between the creepy
and beautiful, between sweet country and hard metal.
How do people respond to you when you play?
RM: Before, I think we were sort of far off the
map and hard to categorize, hard for people to get into.
Now, I think people can see us now and think, oh, they're
doing those metal double-leads. There are more ins, more
places to grab hold of.
JM: What it feels like to me is, y'know, when you're
in high school, and there's a rocker girl in your class,
maybe, and you have a big crush on her. And then there's
the really cute girl in the class, and you always
want to talk to her but you never do. But then there's also
this girl who's real weird-looking. But a couple weeks later,
you start thinking, whoa, there is something real cute about
her. By the end of the year, you have such a big crush on
the weird girl, and you've totally forgotten about the real
pretty girl and the rocker girl. That's what Roy Tinsel
feels like. There's an uncomfortable attraction.
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