by Michael Todd
(Editor's Note: This Q&A is part of a short series of interviews with bands playing Friday's "Hear Nebraska Presents a night of Punk Rock 'n' Roll" show at the Hole in Benson. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., costs $5, and features a gnarled bill: Baby Tears, Bullet Proof Hearts, Dads and Scratch Howl.)
If Omaha’s stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll band Baby Tears were a house, the bathtub would be rusted, the floorboards would be giving in, and the walls would be overpunctuated with holes. But it would be the greatest party house in the neighborhood.
Hear Nebraska spoke with Baby Tears’ guitarist, bassist and vocalist Todd VonStup — who shares his duties with bandmate Ethan Jones — about the band’s ramshackle recording process, their history of injuries and listening to 2 Live Crew and Chopin back-to-back.
Hear Nebraska: I’ll just start by saying I love your Rusty Years demo. Could you talk about how you recorded it for under $30?
Todd VonStup: Basically, Ethan had a garage sale and found a $20 four-track, so we used that, and then we just have a bunch of old mics and stuff we’ve collected over the years that we all brought in. Then we ordered a bunch of tapes, set up in the house: drums in the dining room; guitar amp in the bedroom; and bass amp in living room. Then we spent about three days recording that. Then we just bumped it into the laptop and did our thing.
Rusty Years Demo Mixes by Baby Tears
HN: Your blog says your 4-track recorder was broken. How is it broken?
TVS: Well, we did our first demo, that self-titled CD on there and it worked fine. But when we started recording this, we realized that the third track was dead, so we only had three tracks to work with. We had to work around that. Then also as we were dumping the songs off the tape into the laptop, something was dying on that, too, so it’s a dead four-track now, but we put it to good use.
HN: One of the demo’s songs, “Revenge of the Innocent,” ends with what sounds like a slot-machine jackpot. How did that come about?
TVS: Oh, the sounds you’re talking about? Yeah, I think that was a xylophone. We just played around with a ton of random noises. That was just a toy xylophone that we played at the end. We did stuff like that. And I know Ethan or Jeff recorded a car alarm going off, and so, we just got a lot of random sounds that we just layered in there.
HN: Do you want to include more sounds not produced by guitar, bass and drums? Or do you ever patch those into live shows?
TVS: Just for this record it seemed like something fun to do. I think it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I always like the first Pink Floyd record, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and how they did that. In terms of live shows, we’re pretty stripped-down, minimalist rock ‘n’ roll.
HN: From the photos you’ve posted on your blog, it seems like you and the other band members have trouble with getting injured in some way. Want to rundown the list of battle wounds for everyone?
TVS: Uh, let’s see, injuries. Ethan had surgery for his nose thing. I got glass in my hand and it severed a tendon in my thumb, so I had surgery for that. I don’t know, we’re just stupid. I do it more than the other guys, and I’ve got scars all over my hand from the glass from just throwing stuff. I couldn’t actually chalk them all up, it’s just happened all my life (laughs).
HN: How did you get glass in your hand, though?
TVS: Cleaning out my garage … well, uh, there’s two stories, I guess. There’s the story I tell everybody, which is I was cleaning out the garage, and the other story was I got pissed and punched a picture frame.
HN: I read your favorites bands to listen to back in February included Chopin and 2 Live Crew, which I know of only through a mass media law class last semester. When would you listen to Chopin and when would you listen to 2 Live Crew?
TVS: It’s kind of funny because when we were recording that record, on Sunday we were done recording because it was all live takes. Then we start doing vocals, and we were still like drunk and everything. Jeff and I would just listen to 2 Live Crew to get in the mood, and every once and awhile, we’d switch it off and listen to Chopin. I don’t know, I find myself kind of moody, so I kind of like to jump all over the place. I get bored if I listen to the same thing all the time.
HN: What do you want the other bands this Friday to say about you after your set?
TVS: I hope they like it, I guess. I just like doing what I’m doing, but it’s always nice and cool when people like what you’re doing.
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Michael Todd is a summer intern for Hear Nebraska. He has never had stitches, but he sure should have. Thing is, he's tough. Contact him at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.