In the studio, such freedom has been liberating for the band, but translating those creations onstage was a challenge that led TVOTR to make Cookie Mountain more of a "rock" record than any they'd previously done. "A big concern for us this time was we really wanted to write songs that were fun to play, no matter how 'complicated' they get," Adebimpe says. "Before, I'd been making the beats and the basslines and the guitar parts, and I could only pull off one-third of a good idea live," Sitek adds.
"Since there's so much to try and translate, performing it live offers a challenge," Smith admits. "It becomes like Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, where he gets obsessed with editing, just like edits the shit out of everything, and inevitably he stops performing completely. Onstage, you have one chance, and it's so difficult to play something perfectly."
photo: Roman Barrett
Not a rock band like everyone else is a rock band, hopefully
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All of this has left TVOTR facing one challenge: learning, as it were, how to become a rock band. Which is, of course, counter to the group's unspoken mandate to be five individuals working on one project rather than one sound drafting five people to execute it.
And so, in small ways, they seek to remain individuals. With what free time he can muster, Sitek is an in-demand producer. He's helmed records by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Massive Attack, Celebration, and the Ohsees, and is currently completing work on the debut album by Brooklyn's Dragons of Zynth, one of the first clear post-TVOTR outfits. When there's downtime, Bunton and Smith try to keep their chops fresh on their native instruments ("When we go on tour, its emotionally crippling for me to not play guitar that much," says Bunton, who, a few years back, fronted the now sadly defunct Pleasure Unit). And early this spring, both Adebimpe and Malone played solo gigs opening for other acts—Tall Firs and Scout Niblett, respectively—partly out of loyalty to friends, but also, one suspects, because no one wants to let his voice lie fallow.
After all, the moment might be ephemeral. Soon they'll be even older. Maybe they all won't live in the same neighborhood, as they do now. And maybe TVOTR are, despite all efforts toward rootlessness, very much a now sound. "You can't put our friendship in jail," says Sitek, back to the cigarettes. "Any time you want to do things your way, you really only have the people you're with. You don't have anything else. Money, you can be taxed on money. Your money can be taken away. And freedom? You can have that shit can taken away too. But your intent, that's something entirely different. We only believe in the things that you can't be taxed on, that can't be taken away."
TV on the Radio play the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of Celebrate Brooklyn with Matt Pond PA and Voxtrot, Friday at 6:30, suggested $3 donation, brooklynx.org/celebrate/schedule.asp.
