Last week, Alex Wood had the chance to chat with Tim Reynolds, guitarist for TR3 and Dave Matthews Band, prior to the trio’s February 12th tour stop at SPACE. They discussed everything from TR3’s upcoming record to extraterrestrial life to the music of The Flaming Lips.
Like An Alien Invasion, the follow-up to 2009’s Radiance, was recorded at a small studio owned by a friend, allowing the band to take their time with the recording process.
“Because I’m on the road so much I decided… well, let’s just not put a restriction on when we’re going to be finished. Let’s just do it until it sounds like what we want it to sound like,” Reynolds said. “We took our time and it was great.”
The guitarist described his attention to detail on the record, fixing small phrases to try to make the music match his vision.
“It was so satisfying to just sit and mull over things and get rid of what you don’t like. If something wasn’t working we would still rearrange it and then be, like, going on a personal search for the funk and trying to find ‘well what do I want to do with this song’ and searching for different grooves. It’s very satisfying to have the time and the space to do that,” Reynolds said. “It’s been one of the most joyous and fun processes, even though the longest I’ve ever spent on a record.”
Reynolds describes Like An Alien Invasion as more “groove-oriented” than past TR3 records, leaning on funk and soul music while also incorporating more acoustic guitar and “sonic variety in guitar tones.”
“It started out some of the songs were almost, I don’t know if progressive rock is the right word, but songs that have different time signatures and different sections, and we still do that some but I realized I do that a lot and kind of wanted to try a different approach, because I love groove music and funk, so I kind of took it back to some of those,” Reynolds explained.
Though the name Like An Alien Invasion feels like a natural choice for the band, the title was actually written to describe the artwork.
“We had a t-shirt that we made last year with these kind of like three glowing globes over the ocean horizon with lightning coming out of them into the water but it’s a red sky and the globes are kind of eerie green and the water’s got a green glow in it,” Tim described. “We wanted to use our artwork, it was our friend’s that passed away and wanted to kind of represent that.”
In describing the long search for a suitable title, Tim joked that “we’re all old and we’ve heard album names forever.” Upon describing the artwork as “like an alien invasion,” the debate was settled.
Despite the extraterrestrial name, the new music isn’t necessarily intended to sound spacey.
Reynolds was particularly proud of the album’s closing track, a “pretty song” where “crazy shit starts going on” in the second half.
“I kept thinking about how I wanted to hear some weird sound effects in the end, and I had in my mind what I wanted them to sound like and then I went and did it, and it didn’t come out exactly the way I thought in my mind but was actually better, a little weirder.”
As for Tim Reynolds’ beliefs on extraterrestrial life, his New Mexico past hardly qualifies him as a believer of alien communications.
“I guess I used to live in New Mexico, you know, people talking about the aliens and stuff. But that sort of thing I’m not, like, into ‘oh my God the aliens!’ I’m sure there’s life in outer space but I probably say for me personally a lot of what people see is more or less like stealth technology, experimental military shit. But I’d love to believe there are interdimensional beings communicating with Earthlings. You know I’ve felt that way before, and depending on what kind of drugs you take you can feel that way too,” he said with a laugh.
TR3 plays at Evanston's SPACE “almost once a year, if not more,” with Reynolds being an adamant supporter of the small venue. If nothing else, SPACE offers a welcome change from the Dave Matthews Band amphitheater tours.
“There’s a certain kind of intimacy with playing a little chill, acoustic show and then there’s a different, I don’t know if intimacy is the right word, but you know, a bar with a lot of drunk people yelling and screaming and playing really loud. That’s a different kind of intimacy,” Reynolds said before describing the significantly larger Dave Matthews Band shows. “It’s more surreal on a big level, for sure. And on those gigs it’s kind of like a sideman. You don’t feel the responsibility to entertain. I don’t know if that’s the right word. Dave’s the focus, so you’re just kind of playing the guitar and it’s kind of fun to be free to just do that. So with TR3, it’s kind of thinking about the bigger picture more. But that’s what makes it fun, too, you’re kind of keyed into the whole thing in a kind of different way.”
The trio’s other members, bassist Mick Vaughn and drummer Dan Martier, have been performing with Tim since 2007, playing a large role in the band’s sound.
“When I moved to the Outer Banks with Mick and Dan it really opened up more stylistic things, more authenticity in rock and stuff,” Reynolds said while describing the trio’s long evolution from jazz to rock.
“It’s also changed with the times, you know what I mean? I’ve gone through many different musical phases, from that point to here. There’s always a musician’s search for new stuff and I guess the hard part is, as you get older and you get more established, not getting so immersed in your personal, fresh tangent… Because when you’re younger you can afford to kind of go off the deep end.”
Though this makes the guitarist sound conservative in describing his style, fans know him as anything but. Reynolds’ style involves strange tones and effects, alternate tunings and experimental methods, creating a delivery that’s truly his own. In questioning his inspiration and methods for developing such a unique style, Tim was quick to admit prior influences.
“It’s kind of like, if you want to go to that level or take it to a different extreme. I remember the first time I heard Ralph Towner, this great guitarist who plays acoustic and plays piano, really known for his excellent 12-string playing. It was on a Weather Report album before they were famous and it was more like, really dark, a different kind of exploratory music. But there was a 12-string guitar solo that was just like the most out thing I ever heard,” he said. “So then you take it to the next level and detune the 12-string even more. I remember years ago trying to tune it in fifths but breaking the strings because they’re not supposed to do that. Doing shit like that just for the effect of it.”
Surprisingly, effects don’t play into Reynolds’ practice techniques.
“When I’m practicing I never use effects. I’m always just practicing guitar, like, acoustic,” he said. “I like just the way it sounds. The sonic, acoustic instrument of it is already perfect, you know?”
The bands that inspire Tim Reynolds’ songwriting demonstrate the guitarist’s broad appreciation of music, modern and old, rock or jazz, inevitably contributing to his distinctive style.
Reynolds lists Radiohead, Skinny Puppy, Ogre, Muse, new Nine Inch Nails and Brazilian samba jazz as current influences, as well as showing a deep, almost defensive appreciation of the latest record by The Flaming Lips.
“I like the Flaming Lips’ The Terror. That’s just great. I was so mad at NPR when they dissed it, recently, and they were like doing ‘This Year’s Flops’ and they included that. Are you fucking kidding me? When I first heard it I was like, ‘well that’s just kind of mellow. There’s no drums on it.’ But there’s all kinds of drums on it! I just like that they took a different approach and made you listen to it in a different way and after that you’re like sucked into it, you don’t want to stop listening to it.”
Other contemporary favorites include Atoms For Peace, Devotchka and, surprisingly, new Vampire Weekend.
“I liked the last Vampire Weekend record. It’s great. They’re just really good, you know? Really good musicians, cool songs. Once in a while it’s a little, super almost bubblegum-y, but they’re just so good at it. It’s like fuck. It’s ridiculous,” he said.
Another favorite for Reynolds is Flamenco guitar, a subject the musician was perceptibly excited to discuss.
“The new young guns at Flamenco guitar, they’re like my age,” he said with a laugh. “I’m just enthralled by the differentness of that music… I kind of became intrigued by how weird it is as far as structure of chords. You can break it down by saying, ‘yeah, they do that chord progression that’s a typical, you know, kind of rock progression, but it’s also like they take it to so many different levels in a modern way. But the tones that the real masters get, it’s just ridiculous. They get these great low tones. It’s not like jazz where you kind of work up and play a long solo and it kind of gets involved. It’s like a whole different thing. It’s just fresh to me, checking it out.”
With Like An Alien Invasion coming out “no later than May,” Tim Reynolds will tour with TR3 through March before joining Dave Matthews Band’s summer dates in April. Though DMB has promised a significant change in their summer tour this year, Reynolds knew few details.
“I really don’t know much about that, other then they’re going to try something different. I’m not really sure what it is yet other than we’re going to do some acoustic. That’s all I really know about it… I think there’s more stuff in store but I don’t really know what it is yet,” he said.
Regardless, fans will be hearing a lot more from the prolific guitarist over the next year.
