MFNW Preview: Talk in Tongues

While most kids in Middle America grew up being shuttled between sports practices and shopping malls and back again, McCoy Kirgo had a radically different experience. The product of musician parents in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Kirgo, 22, was essentially born into the kind of bubble most 20-somethings with artistic aspirations could only dream of. Rather than being reared on pop radio and football, Kirgo spent his youth at alternative schools with the quintessential California heavyweights of the early ’70s  soundtracking his formative years. How else would he have landed on the slinky, swirling sounds that make the retro psych of his group, Talk in Tongues, so readily accessible? The flashes of brilliance that make the band’s debut LP, Alone With a Friend, such a worthy addition to the playlists of anyone with a taste for flower-powered alt-rock are far bigger than current fads—they’re the product of talented kids whose very idea of “alternative” is what us normies consider “everyday life.” 

Willamette Week: As a relatively new band, what are you expecting from MFNW?

McCoy Kirgo: I've been to plenty of festivals as an observer and a music appreciator, so I guess I kind of see it being somewhat of an Outside Lands type vibe. It's kinda northern, probably beautiful like the rest of Oregon.

Pretty much everything is considered "northern" when you're an Angeleno, right?

[Laughs] Yeah, basically anything north of L.A. is "northern." You go to Bakersfield and you're in NorCal.

Do you go to Bakersfield often?

Fuck no!

At any point in your youth did you start to realize that Silver Lake was changing quite a bit?

Definitely. I had always known it to be a "hip" area, and there's always been a really great art community based here. I guess becoming older and wanting to go out and see shows and exhibits and all that shit, I started to realize a little more that I live in an area that's really happening and other places aren't necessarily like this. It's one of the cooler suburbs outside of downtown Los Angeles.

Did growing up in that environment shape the way you approach music and get in to different bands?

Well, now that you say it, it probably influenced me a lot. My friends, when I grew up, weren't really playing sports or anything like that. It was always a little bit, for lack of a better word, "edgy." I grew up with kids who were making music from a pretty young age or skateboarding or bending the rules a little bit. I think its because all our parents were doing the same thing. We all had pretty cool parents.

What did they do?

They're both musicians.

Well, there you go. Did they put a pair of black Levi's on you when you were born and call it a day?

[Laughs] Probably. They let me do what I wanted. I was a weird little kid. I used to wear tights to school and I thought I was King Arthur and shit.

And this wasn't a problem?

No, because I went to an artsy little elementary school—a Waldorf School—and they have something called the Elves Faire every year [in Pasadena], so that pretty much says it right there. 

So you just got off a pretty large tour with Blonde Redhead. What's it like touring other parts of the country where maybe kids can't wear tights and dress like King Arthur when they're young? Was that culture shock? 

Man, all the time. I always say it's funny because you go to these midwestern towns and cities and you see trends that you thought had died out 10 years ago and they're still very dominant there. Everybody still loves Korn.

What were you listening to at various ages, like 10 or 15?

When you're younger your parents give you a lot. They're like your biggest influence. I would listen to a lot of Neil Young and the Band, Ry Cooder, Little Feat. My dad was a slide player, so he played a lot of music for me with slide guitars and music he grew up listening to as a kid. He's a session guy who played with Les McCann when he was my age. actually. He still does sessions to this day. Last year he played with Tom Jones on, I think, The Tonight Show or something like that. He gets funny gigs like that where I'll ask him what he's doing and he's like, "Oh, I'm gonna go practice with Tom Jones."

What was the first thing you recall listening to that made you think, 'Wow, this is really different,' or that it was something you would add to your repertoire?

For some time, maybe the age of 17 to 20, I was in this phase where I didn't think any good modern music was being made. I think we all go through that rebellious "This is what I like and everything else is bullshit" phase. I would listen to a lot of Buffalo Springfield and the Dead and all these late '60s, early '70s bands that put out their best albums right around then. Crosby Stills and Nash was another big one because I really liked three-part harmonies. The first time I heard them and the way they could harmonize with one another, I was like, "Ooh, that's nice, I want to do that for sure." But then I grew out of that and started wanting to make more experimental music that younger and older people of today would appreciate. I really fell in love with synthesizers and wanted to use those in my music. I wanted to be able to play with bands that I looked up to that are putting out new albums today. I don't really know what it was, but one day it was a switch where I realized it was a fantasy thinking nothing good was happening today. There's a lot of great music coming out.

Can you trace a line from this point to you starting Talk In Tongues?

I was in a band called Jacaranda Red before this one, and we would mostly play party shows around LA. It was fun because we had all just graduated high school, so it was the perfect time to be doing that. Life isn't that serious yet because when you just graduate high school you finally have that year to be free. Everyone really liked doing it but I think I was the only one who wanted it to become something—get a record deal, make an album, all the things that you get excited about before it all happens. So then that fizzled out, but through that I met a lot half the guys who are in the band now from playing gigs around town and meeting people that way.

How did you guys land on the sound you have now? You said you flipped a switch and got back in to more modern music, which sounds like it was around the same time psych was making a big comeback with groups like Tame Impala and Temples making it to the U.S. in a big way.

There was something I really liked about how big that music sounded. I'd watch YouTube videos of psych bands that are out today and it just looked like a lot of fun. Of course, there's also a market for it, which is another bonus.

Do you think that market is nearing the point of being oversaturated?

I think it's getting close. There's a lot of bands that just put themselves out there like, "Yeah, we're a psych band!" They shop at Jet Rag on La Brea and they've got their weird guitar and their tunics. It's very Echo Park and Silver Lake and it's cool, I'm not hating on it at all, but you do have to kinda sort through the mass of it.

In creeping on your Facebook page, mostly due to lack of information about you guys, I came across a nugget from Twitter were Charlie Sheen recommended your record out of nowhere. Have you looked into that further? 

I still have absolutely no clue what that's about. It was one of the weirdest fucking things. A friend messaged me on Facebook and was like, "Yo, you've probably already seen this but if not, check it out.'"And it was fucking Charlie Sheen tweeting about our band. It was the strangest thing. Of all the people that I would've wanted to tweet about my band, Charlie Sheen…I didn't know what to think about it. Is it good? Is it bad? What kind of music am I making that Charlie Sheen really likes it? Fuck.

SEE IT: Talk in Tongues plays MusicfestNW at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Saturday, Aug. 22. Go to musicfestnw.com for tickets.

WWeek 2015