TAT
The SiS Interview by Rob Fatal
Photos by Heather Russell
When the UK pop punk trio TAT takes the stage and executes their jaw-dropping live performance, as it is coming to be known, you can’t help but think that these kids got it made. From afar it looks as if they've got growing fame, good looks, loads of money and the easy life partying like rock stars and touring as support acts for some legendary rockers including Alice Cooper, NOFX, and Bouncing Souls. The reality, however, is much less glamorous.
As I sit down with group outside of the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, CA, I start to see just how tough the climb has been for this young group. In an era of overnight Myspace band sensations, TAT is the real fucking deal. Their story is one of struggle, strength and stamina; from dodging the INS to driving their own tour van around Europe, from showering in seedy truck stop bathrooms to spearing their own bison on the Great Plains for dinner. TAT is one of the few bands I know who has honestly earned every hoot and holler they get.
SIS: I’m here with TAT from London, England. Intros?
Nick: Hello I’m Nick, I play Bass.
Tatiana: I’m Tatiana, I sing and play guitar.
Jake: I’m Jake, I play drums and sing.
SIS: We are at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, CA, a pretty legendary venue. How did it feel tonight compared to other nights on your extremely long tour [5 months and counting]?
Nick: This was really cool. Kinda walked into the place with skate ramps and sofas and it was covered in graffiti. It was really refreshing.
Tatiana: Really fun, really nice venue. I really enjoyed tonight. Really hot onstage [but] really fun.
Jake: It was beautiful; it was a wonderful experience. I second everything [Tatiana and Nick] said. It was a very refreshing change to some of the venues we’ve been playing. It’s a really cool little place.
SIS: So what kind of venues have you been playing?
Tatiana: We’ve done everything from like a parking lot and field on Warped Tour to arenas with Alice Cooper and then we did a club tour with MXPX, Lagwagon and Only Crime so we’ve really got the scope of venues across this country. But all of them have been a lot of fun. The bands we’ve toured with have been absolutely brilliant.
SIS [British accent]: Lets switch accents for the next question.
Tatiana [California valley girl accent]: Nick, tell him that story about that day we were talking and our accents…
Nick stares in a confused manner
Tatiana [California valley girl accent]: We were on stage and I’m like ‘we’re from London, England’ and I said it like 7 times. And at the end of the show this girl comes up to us and she was like ‘Hi, I think you're hot’ to Nick and then she was like ‘so where you from?’
Nick: And I went ‘I’m from Australia’. And then she goes, ‘I knew it! I’m great with accents. Whereabouts?’ And I went, ‘um, Melbourne, Sydney.’ [And she said] ‘Oh I love it there, I heard it’s lovely.’ She was great with accents.
SIS: Reverting back to our normal language patterns, back on Warped Tour 2006 was your first time touring the United States. You were with Shira on the Shiragirl stage and it wasn’t the most comfortable ride around the country was it? Who was driving?
Nick: It was me and our good friend and tour manager Jason.
SIS: So now I’m sitting in the parking lot of the Phoenix Theater and I have to ask, which one of the tour busses is yours?
Tatiana: See that van on the right [of the tour busses]
Nick: The pimped out blue one.
SIS: Nice, do you have a name for it?
Jake: The Dark Helmet.
Tatiana: That’s a shit name. If I knew that was the fucking name of our van I wouldn’t have ridden in it.
Jake: [Our merch girl] Holly named it the Dark Helmet after, of course, Spaceballs.
Tatiana: Dark Helmet? I would have called it Nick-bell-da-fug-buh.
SIS: So when you came into the country the first time did you have issues getting in? I mean did you have your manager take care of all the necessary paper work?
Tatiana: We’ve had a manager for about 5 months now. For the three years before that it was just us. So we basically came here and [beep noise] is what we did. Ya, um, it wasn’t legal. We’ve got visas now.
SIS: That’s good because I had the INS wafting behind that tour bus ready to pick you up.
Nick: Isn’t it great how our countries make it so easy for people to express themselves? Isn’t it fuckin’ awesome?
SIS: I think it’s great.
Nick: Bastards.
SIS: So are you in global isolation in the tour bus, do you know what’s going on with world events or do you try and keep up with that?
Tatiana: Everyday we get the local newspaper and in the other city there were two rabid cats who attacked a woman.
SIS: I’m glad you know about that.
Tatiana: Well, keeping up to date with current events.
Jake: I get news from my friends who have kids and they go, ‘oh, oh, she burped’. And that’s kinda the headline: BURP…millions dead.
SIS: That’s so sad. So how’s the tour been so far?
Tatiana: The first three weeks of this tour were hell. We were in Canada so that already sets the atmosphere for flames and glory. We had a really good time in Canada on Warped Tour, then our driver had to bail on the third day. And he was the one who was insured on the vehicle and we could only drive if he was insured. So we’re sitting there uninsured with this van, we’ve got visas we don’t want to fuck up so we didn’t want to start driving and get stopped because we’ve been pulled over like 75 times in the last 5 months we’ve been on the road… Lagwagon were like, "come in and stay on our bus for the rest of the tour." So, we moved in with Lagwagon, it was great, everything was sorted. They were awesome…
Nick: We even had to move in with MXPX for a few days.
Jake: They’re wonderful people and really helped us out, both bands. Really awesome guys. Really saved our asses.
SIS: So how does it feel to be the rookie/little brother, little sister band on this tour?
Tatina: It’s slave labor. I’m joking. Well, you saw us packing up [MXPX’s] shit but it’s cool. It’s really nice to be on tour with really cool people. And we’ve been really lucky, in the last two years we’ve toured with the Bouncing Souls, Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, we’ve toured with NOFX, Bad Religion, we’ve been on Warped Tour with a whole bunch of bands, we’ve been on tour with Alice Cooper, Lagwagon, MXPX, Only Crime. All fantastic bands who’ve been really good to us and supported us.
SIS: So do you guys feel like you’re paying your dues right now?
Tatiana: Ya, we’ve been touring Europe for the last four years. Living in shitty vans with rain leaks in the winter, which sucked. We’ve been playing clubs to no people, to bar staff, for years. So we come out here and although it is hard work, we’ve been really lucky to tour with those bands but at the same time we’ve definitely definitely paid our dues for the last four to five years. [Because we’re brand new in the US], someone was like ‘oh my god you came out of nowhere.’ And it was like, well, we’ve actually been around for a while. I suppose you’ll find that with most bands because you have to hone your skills and learn the ropes really.
SIS: Last question, what is your idea of making it?
Nick: Made it for me would be able to live off playing music and touring around; to buy a house and be able live comfortably like a normal person but do it by music rather than some nine-to-five job.
Tatiana: I think I would second that but I would add a bit more. On this tour in particular it has really blown me away; we’ve had people at almost every show come up to us and some people really move me. There was one girl who came to a show in New York and she had made us a hoodie. She made her own logo, written lyrics on the back, walked into our dressing room holding and was like, "You guys have changed my life. I couldn’t be myself, I’d get bullied and school and now I can be myself. And I have you to thank for it…" I was like wow, if there was anything it would be to touch people. There was another girl in Denver who was apparently a meth addict and she was like, "You guys inspired me to come off drugs." And as soon as we had done the show, she had asked us to sign her arm. She went away and a half hour later came back with our autographs tattooed on her arm. It’s amazing to touch people and to me that is making it. Whether it’s one person or two people, or your mom who I touched last night.
Nick: I feel a little selfish now.
Tatiana: Ya, my goal was to make you feel like a piece of shit.
Jake: I’m gonna go with both combined: getting to point where you’re financially stable and the more and more people we get into our music on such a level, as Tatiana was saying, people that are really inspired by our words, people that get totally crazy by our music…we feel like we’ve made it everyday.
Tatiana: As far as touring goes we’ve always toured in a van. We live in the van, we eat in the van, we sleep on the floor in the van, we eat the van. That’s what we do. We shower in desert truck stops or we wash in the sink and it’s a way of life. But a lot of people who would think [Nick’s answer was] a selfish answer are sitting comfortably at home listening to records while bands are busting their asses for years. It tough and you get a $5 buy out at night to eat and you’re in debt and you’re losing money. So to want to be able to actually have a house, that’s what everyone works to when they are not in a band anyways. So I don’t think it’s selfish; I think its normal to want to live off of what you love and what you do.
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