Tattletale Saints @tattletalesaints - Tumblr Blog

Super Tuesday, meal replacement, and we have a master!

Hello! I’m writing from a rainy Nashville on Super Tuesday - the day when historically the presidential nominees will be more or less decided. And in this age of Trump - how the knees quiver at the prospect of him being the conservative nominee.

In more positive though equally intimidating news, I think we have a completed master of our record! Josh (Kaler - producer) guided us through numerous mix cycles and a couple of last second additions (wurlitzer and steel guitar) like a captain guiding jittery crew through harsh weather. Neither Vanessa or myself can speak more highly of this man. We’re working on the art at the mo with our good friend Ryan Kothe, and working towards getting the books for the indiegogo and all the pressing and such rolling and done.

Josh Kaler laying down some dobro

Life in Nashville is grand and the endless quest for work continues. I have been playing guitar recently with a killer ‘garage country’ artist named Aubrie Sellers that saw me on a radio tour last week up through Tennessee and Virginia, ending in Philadelphia to play ‘World Cafe’ - a great NPR syndicated show. This week I’m headed to Connecticut to play a giant casino :-/ and in a couple of weeks is SXSW, the huge music showcase in Austin TX where we will play on Willie Nelson’s ranch!

With Aubrie Sellers and David Dye from World Cafe

In more controversial news, I have been subsisting on a diet of pretty much exclusively Soylent ( https://www.soylent.com ) for about a year now. It came about when I mentioned to a roommate in NZ that ‘if I could just eat a pill that was a complete food, I would’ and lo and behold about a year later when I was living in the US he forwarded me the site’s info. I still love to cook and eat out, but to sub for all those shitty peanut butter sandwich ‘meals’ at lunch time - soylent is boss. Service announcement over!

The Soylent stare

To conclude, I’ll just say how much Vanessa and I are missing NZ - our family and friends, and just the place itself. We’re both loving it here, but cannot wait to come back to tour, hang, run, and SWIM!

Cy.

Cy playing with Mary Bragg (and Josh Kaler) last week

Snow day

Making a record

Yesterday I was discussing with a friend whether or not pedal steel was a good idea for a song, whether or not it was providing the colour and energy that I felt was missing, or if another instrument was a better choice. And while complaining that it had been a hard day in the studio, asking this friend (who also makes records) why we do this again he said to me, “we live in a unique time where we can argue about pedal steel and still eat and drink”. And in the midst of my whining about how the day had been challenging, I was slammed back to reality. It really is a huge privilege to get to do this for a living. To live a life safe and secure enough, free of immediate threat of war, disease or starvation that we are able to spend our time making art.

But while acknowledging the great privilege it is to be doing this, making an album is a challenge, any creative process where you’re pushing yourself and trying to reach for something great is. I’ve never made an album in this way before, with the luxury of being able to be creative without a time limit. There’s been time-frame goals of course, but previously we’ve always just recorded within a set time (3 or 4 days usually) and just known that if we didn’t get it done during that time, then that was it. So we’ve made albums that were very “live” sounding and not had the luxury getting to go away, listen and think about a song, and come back and change or add anything. Doing it in a few days, with no room to go back into a song, created a very tense and pressured environment and definitely didn’t feel very creative. All the creativity had to happen before the scheduled studio time, and once we got in to the studio we just basically just had to hit it hard and get as much done as humanly possible each day, which is not to say that I haven’t been happy with what we’ve ended up with on our previous albums. The way we’ve been working this time round has just felt much more like creating music, crafting the sound of each song and the overall album slowly, carefully and with the room to have fun with it. We certainly owe that luxury to Josh (our producer) and his way of working. Overall the whole experience has been really wonderful and has felt very much like a creative partnership between Cy, myself and Josh. As a producer and engineer he’s wonderful, but he’s also a killer pedal steel player, drummer and percussionist, and I’m excited for our fans to hear his creative contribution to our sound.

We’ve been working on the album since November (with some gaps for Christmas and tours) but we are super close, heading into the final stretch of mixing this coming week. We’ll share videos and tracks soon and we can’t wait for you all to hear it!

(Here’s one of the behind the scenes videos we’ve been making throughout the recording process, for more head to our Youtube page and for regular photos and short videos find us on Instagram )

Vanessa

#nashville #new zealand #recording #studio #americana #pop #creativity #vanessamcgowan

Yup, we’re sick of crowd funding too!

We’re at $5800 with 10 days left so it looks very likely we won’t make our goal of $20,000. And I totally understand why.

We raised $20,000 3 years ago for our last album, and since then we’ve traveled the world playing to hundreds of people, sold over 2000 copies of our first album, built a very strong mailing list and created, what I still believe to be, an incredibly strong bunch of people who believe in what we do and support us in continuing this career as a band.

But the thing is, people are sick of crowdfunding. I’m sick of it. I know most of you are. The way the music industry is now every independent band has to crowdfund to make albums (alongside all the people raising money for vacations, courses, products etc). Unless you have a wealthy family who can just give you tens of thousands of dollars, this has become the only real tangible way to do it, pre-selling the album and various fun merch items. Trying to be an independent touring band, living from the money you make on the road, it’s near impossible to keep up with the costs of keeping a band running… gas, pressing CDs, maintaining websites, paying for promotion… earning enough to stay afloat and make rent each month is a tall enough order without also putting aside $20,000 to make the next album.

I don’t want to diminish the incredible support of the 101 people who HAVE contributed. We sincerely appreciate you pre-ordering something before it even exists, and want you to know how much that vote of confidence does for us, besides the financial help it affords us. But when it comes down to it, it’s highly unlikely at this point that we’ll make our goal. So what happens? Why did we go for $20,000 if we could make this with less? We can’t. So we’ll take out a loan for the shortfall and spend the next 5 years paying it off which, because I’m being completely honest here, is going to be incredibly difficult and put an even greater financial burden on a business which, at this point, is barely staying afloat.

You’re not supposed to admit these things. You’re supposed to present an “everything is great! we’re killing it!” facade because, you know, everyone says that people like to get on board successful wagons… but the reality of the situation isn’t that all the time. We love playing music together. We’ve been incredibly lucky to find in each other another musician who’s musical voice inspires us and creates a sum-is-greater-than-the-parts musical connection. We work incredibly hard to write the best songs we can. Surround ourselves with the most genuine, talented and inspiring musicians we can. Since moving here from New Zealand we’ve dedicated everything we have to Tattletale Saints. But it’s hard. Part of the reason I stopped writing blogs is that every time I sat down I felt like all I had to say was, this is hard. It’s worth it, because we feel like we have something as a band worth pursuing, but at times it’s really, really hard.

We started pre-production yesterday with Josh (Kaler, who’s producing and engineering this album) and I couldn’t be happier with how things are happening musically. Having him oversee and guide this album is such an exciting thing and I truly believe we are going to come out with an album to be incredibly proud of, and that is a huge step up from our last. This album represents Cy’s growth as a songwriter and guitarist (he is truly killing it on electric guitar these days), my development as a vocalist and bassist, the new sound of the band with drums and electric guitars - something that we are both so excited and inspired by, the influence of living and working out of Nashville surrounded by all these amazing musicians and bands.

Moving to Nashville was the first giant step for us as a band, and though it has been the most challenging 18 months of my life personally, I’m so happy we took that step. This album is the next, and it is both exciting and terrifying in a way that I just have to keep telling myself ALL the best most valuable things in life are.

Vanessa

www.tattletalesaints.com/indiegogo

#vanessamcgowan #crowdfunding #nashville #recording #newzealand

The East Nashville Apocalypse

A few weeks from now, Vanessa and I will return to the west coast, nearly one year on from our first tour in that region. To me at least, it’s strange to think that we have lived in the United States for a whole year, mostly because much of it still seems so new and intensely foreign to me. I’m still highly enamoured of the new accents - the elastic drawl of my Georgia raised friends and the valley girl bounce of (some) folks from California; I frequently encounter words and phrases in my vocabulary that are incongruent with the American way of speaking (“chuck us that pen”, “it’s on the bench/counter”, “I’m gonna go for a pee/go pee”; I’m still grossly unaware of bulk of American stores, restaurants and foods that are such a way of life here in the states (I so often hear ‘Oh my God you’ve never been to a …. ?!?!?!?’); And I’m still blown away by just how fucking big everything is (the 20 screen cinema I went to last night and the ‘medium’ soft drink my friend Heather ordered).

This will also be my 2nd summer here. It’s now spring, and the temperature is a modest 82°F/28°C, but soon, it will be so goddamn hot that even in the night time it’s so swampy and humid it feels as if you could reach out and cup water from the sweltery air.

I really love how leafy and overgrown it’s getting - sometimes on my morning runs, through the undulating side streets of Inglewood, East Nashville, on the cracked roadsides and around the quaint wood and brick bungalows, I imagine what the city would look like if it was overtaken by plant life and swathed in waves of thick green foliage. I see it as a forgotten city, lost like a button somewhere in the middle of Tennessee’s sprawling hills. I like to think of myself and my roommates (and perhaps Vanessa) as the only inhabitants in this overgrown city, the air so thick and leafy green that every sound is choked and final. I imagine roaming the dusty linoleum hallways of the huge supermarkets and malls, inventing games and exploding curdled cartons of cream against the walls. Perhaps I should ease up on the zombie movies.

This morning instead of running, I rode my bike to and around the greenway near to my house. Riding home and coming up to the crest of the little hills around Riverside Village, I half expect to see the ocean laid out in front of me as I come over the top. I’m surprised how much I miss living near the beach, for growing up as a skier, I always fancied myself more of a mountain person that a coastal one. I suppose when you have neither, and when it’s so damn hot, the desire to swim is a natural inclination. Well, soon to California - where much swimming shall be had by all.

Cy and Rachel Baiman, somewhere in California

Photo by Mick Leonardi

#Nashville #Tattletalesaints #MickLeonardii #tennessee #apocalypse

Music, music, music

It’s Monday afternoon here in Nashville and the fact that I’m writing my Friday blog entry now is testament to the incredibly busy weekend I had. Since Cy and I are now in the USA on O1 VISA’s, and are legally entitled to work with other bands, we’ve been focused on getting ourselves a little more established in the Nashville scene - both for work reasons and because playing with other people helps inspire us creatively for Tattletale Saints.

On Friday night I played my first show with Modern Inventors, new friends who moved to Nashville at the end of last year just as I was heading back to New Zealand for the holidays. Their first gig in Nashville, and my first gig with them, was at Mercy Lounge opening for The Revivalists. It was actually a pretty big gig to play as our first together - it’s a big room and, though we were opening, the crowd was really full when we started. We’d had all of about a 7 minute sound check, so I wasn’t feeling incredibly comfortable with the sound on stage, but despite that it was really fun and the crowd was incredibly receptive to the band. I’m playing electric bass and singing backing vocals and, though there is definitely a commonality in influence and sound between Tattletale Saints and this band, it’s been fun playing electric bass and doing something that heads in a more rock/pop direction occasionally. I’ve also really enjoyed not being in charge of anything and just turning up to do my job and play as best I can - being both the band as well as the management certainly adds a constant level of stress to playing shows that you don’t realise until there’s some respite. Also playing in the band was Alex Wong who is a producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was playing drum set, dealing with click tracks and also triggering sounds using an SPD-S pad which definitely puts the multi-tasking required to sing and play bass into perspective. He’s a great drummer though and part of a nice scene of people who are relatively new to town that we’re finding ourselves falling in with.

On Saturday Cy and I played at Fat Bottom Brewing with Rachel Baiman, half of our long-time touring buddies 10 String Symphony. Rachel is one of my favourite people and I love when we do shows for her solo project. It’s a really eclectic mix of folk, pop and fiddle music that somehow totally comes together and works really well. I have no idea what I’m doing on the Scottish tunes we play but it’s so much fun and I think I feel the Scottish McGowan bloodlines stirring when we play those sets.

After that I went downtown and played my first Nashville Broadway gig. It was at The Wheel with The Date Nite band I mentioned last time (led by Zach Ryan and Shane Tutmarc). The NRA convention was happening (yay guns!) and lower Broadway was closed off to cars and swarming with people when I first arrived to start playing at 10pm. Lower Broadway is a fun hang sometimes, just last week a few of us went down and did the tourist thing for a laugh. And of course there’s always great musicians playing at Robert’s and a few of the other better venues, but there’s an element to the tourist vibe that reminds me of what I hated about living in Las Vegas. We played 10pm-2am with no breaks and I tell you, I think it’s one of the physically hardest gigs I’ve ever done. Growing up playing in Queen City Big Band I played 4 hour dance gigs, which were hard work, but we still took breaks! Close to 4 hours straight with only one break to use the bathroom while Shane kindly played bass on a couple of songs left me totally and utterly destroyed. It was with Nic Wiles on drums and we had fun playing all the rock n roll songs The Date Nite band is becoming known for. I sang lead on a couple too and I realised part way through singing Bonnie Raitt’s “Angel From Montgomery” (actually written by John Prine) that singing one of my favourite Bonnie Raitt songs, in a honky-tonk, in Nashville, may have been a dream I didn’t realise I even had until it was coming true. It’s moments like that that I really realise how far I’ve come since London days when Cy could barely get me to sing backing vocals with him.

( Modern Inventors at The Mercy Lounge - by Michael Weintrob )

#tattletalesaints #tourdiary #vanessamcgowan #nashville

Barefoot and boozy

As people in North America shuck their down jackets and woollen hats to tuck them into the closet for another year, I feel myself doing the same with shoes and socks. It is a proud component of my southern hemisphere heritage I refuse to part with. To me it is not some ‘granola’ custom that pairs with fire dancing and playing cajon - it’s just what you do when it’s hot. Then I think about June last year when I attended a bluegrass festival in Kentucky. The sky was clear, the ground was dry underfoot and the setting was informal; I had no shoes on and felt great. While walking across the bark pathway to mandolin workshop I noticed an older woman, eyes fixated on my feet. As I neared her, she raised her stare, looked at me squarely and very slowly and deliberately said ‘dis-gusting’, shaking her head. Later that afternoon, the same happened again with a younger fellow - he looked equally vexed by my barefoot self and said ‘what happened to your shoes?’. It is my mission to bring this custom to the people of America. For how can a people truly consider themselves ‘free’ when encumbered by heavy footwear?

Nashville gets crazy hot in the summertime, the air so swollen with humidity it feels as though you could cup it in your hands. In this weather, drinking beer, especially barefoot - is a glorious thing. I haven’t been drinking now since my return to the US (4 weeks ago) and last Saturday, after a righteous game of soccer with my good buddy Matt (Modern Inventors is his band) I had a triumphant return to boozy form. We (Matt, his bandmate Josh, and Vanessa) spoke of how drinking together as a band is a necessary right of passage to nurture camaraderie and a sense of togetherness as a band. There are few things more unifying then watching your friends struggle with basic motor functions as they try to get up from a sofa or barstool, as they try to drunkenly navigate through their theories about cannibalism, or as they revel in that primordial kill sensation as you all tear into a piece of fleshy pizza at 3am. Maybe it is only by experiencing those deep lows together that you can fully reveal the great highs?

Life continues swimmingly - new faces constantly filing up spaces and encouraging new pathways. New songs on the way and I might even go and buy a new pair of secondhand shoes. Newness all round! I have had a lot of coffee and am in love with everybody! Travel well people, and let bare feet reign. - Cy

#moderninventors #barefoot #nashville #summertime #tattletalesaints

David Rawlings walks into a dive bar...

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here. Starting over again in yet another city and giving up the years of contacts, work, bands, friends I’ve built up in every previous city I’ve lived. This is the 4th time I’ve started over again, moving countries to pursue study, love, music or a mix of all. And when times get especially tough I’ll be wondering why it’s worth doing it all over again, to be based in Nashville when I could live a much more comfortable, easy, financially stable life in New Zealand, and then David Rawlings walks into the dive bar I’m playing a rock n roll gig at, and I remember why this city is worth it. Being based in the place that so many of my musical heroes live is worth the step back in career, stability, finances we’ve had to take to move here. Playing that night in the smokey, noisy dive bar with The Date Nite Band (led by the impeccable Zach Ryan and Shane Tutmarc - check out what it’s all about here), I not only saw David Rawlings (producer, musician and half of Gillian Welch’s duo), but guitarist Laur Joamets who played on one of my favourite albums of last year (Sturgill Simpson’s, Metamodern Sounds In Country Music) got up and sat in with the band. Yes it was incredibly loud and no we didn’t exactly get to have some kind of amazing musical moment on stage, but the ability to meet and jam with these people, as well as just be able to check them out so frequently playing around town, is why Nashville is worth it.

On the days when I’m feeling weighed down by car troubles, taxes, insurance decisions and the overwhelming feeling that I’m failing at life by how frequently I have to turn to my (generous, kind, wonderful) mother for financial help - I have to trust that being here, moving the band, moving our lives will ultimately be worth it. That the experiences I’m already having here, are worth it.

The last few weeks Joe Pisapia, who produced our new single I Did This To Myself, has been playing a residency at The Five Spot. I managed to get along twice and the total creativity that was pouring out on stage was wonderful to witness. He surrounded himself with fantastic musicians and basically just let rip. His energy on stage is so un-self-conscious and so genuine. So un-pretentious. I love that in this town where, granted, there are many douche-bag singers who are trying to be the next “big thing” (whatever that really means) with no regard for creating anything truly beautiful or genuine, we’ve managed to fall in with some amazing people who are all about the exact opposite. It was amazing to be at The Five Spot, watching Joe and his band perform their fantastic songs, surrounded by wonderful friends who are also fantastic musicians and songwriters… all for $7 entry.

Here’s a song that Joe wrote called Sing It Loud, recorded by KD Lang on the album he produced of the same name. Last night he described it as being about his niece and the joyfulness she had as a child, that he hoped she never lost, that he wished we could all retain. The whole album is awesome, Cy and I both had it on heavy rotation on our headphones on the last tour. Video - KD Lang, Sing It Loud

Check out Joe’s version of the song and his whole album (art work above) here https://joepisapia.bandcamp.com/album/nightvision

At the end of last year we met Aaron Tosti from new Nashville based music licensing company Levelo at The Five Spot. We had just played a set with Jamie on drums and Aaron approached me saying that he’d loved it and did we have anything recorded that he could check out. I was a few beers into the night and my first reaction was a dismissive, yeah right - like this is going to go anywhere. I left him sitting at the bar, went outside for a while to talk to friends, honestly forgot all about getting him an album and only barely remembered to grab one and find him before he left for the night. I assumed that it was a wasted $4 (or however much they cost per unit here) giving him an album, but a week or so later we were emailing and discussing Tattletale Saints joining the Levelo family. Aaron has been playing drums for the rock n roll band I’ve been playing with the last few weeks and now that I know him a little better I was pleased to regale him with the story of how close I’d been to writing him off as another one of those big-talk goes-nowhere encounters. I’m not exactly sure why I was so quick to assume he was all talk and it was a waste of time. It wasn’t anything to do with him or the way he approached me. Aside from it possibly being the beer, I think it’s maybe just that I’m so used to having to do all of this ourselves, so used to fighting so hard for everything we do and achieve, that I just assume that nothing really great will fall in our laps. But Levelo is great, and I’m very glad I gave him an album that night. Check out our Levelo artist page here.

#vanessamcgowan #tattletalesaints #tourdiary #davidrawlings #joepisapia #KDLang

Road Rituals

I’m writing this from Fairfield Iowa where tonight we’re finishing this tour with Ali Sperry with a show at Cafe Paradiso. In the last week we’ve been to Cincinnati Ohio, Pittsburgh PA, Cleveland OH, Chicago IL and now we’re doing two shows in Fairfield - Ali’s home town.

While a fun time, this week long tour hasn’t been the most lucrative of runs. We’re not in a position yet in the States to demand high guaranteed fees from venues so whether or not we make a profit on the road really comes down to keeping costs as low as possible, staying with friends wherever we can rather than paying for accommodation, and relying on show attendance and CD sales to keep the tour financials healthy. It’s a hard balance between paying for promotion/advertising, using word of mouth to get people along and hoping the venues will get on board and push the shows as well. Some venues are much better at this than others and it makes a huge difference when they do help out.

We’re doing this right now, touring in this way, to get ourselves in a position that we can start working with a booking agent, definitely the goal this year. I would hope that within the next 6 months we will be able to take that step - a move that will help us step up the touring we’re doing and also take the US bookings off my plate. Booking agents only really want to work with you when you’re already successful so sharing contacts and resources with other touring bands, co-bill touring and doing house concerts is the way to start building your touring experience from the ground up.

The financial side of it is important, since we’re doing this as a business, but if you take that side of it out of things touring here is a blast.

We’ve been through some of these towns/cities a few times now and it’s really lovely to get back and visit with new and old friends. We’re building a support network all across the country and we really appreciate the people who help keep this tour train a rollin’.

Aside from increasing our fan-base and slowly, but surely, building up our profile here, touring does sometimes feel like one long, fun road trip and, so long as you focus on the positive sides of it, it’s an amazing experience.

I think everyone finds their little rituals and road survival habits, and it’s taken a while but I’m gradually discovering what keeps me sane on the road. At the risk of sounding like a princess: taking my own pillow, washing my face at night (anyone that tours with me knows just how much I like washing off my stage make up after a show), exercising in the morning and the quest for good coffee before we pile back in the vehicle and hit the road, are all some of the daily rituals that make life lived in a different city every night manageable.

Exercise is pretty important to Cy and I, Ali and Jamie (who we’re touring with now), Tom (who we were on the road with in NZ) and also Rachel and Christian (10 String Symphony who we toured with a lot last year), so we’re all usually pretty keen to prioritise making that happen before we hit the endless highways and sit on our asses for hours again. Cy is a long distance runner and will take off like a gazelle and run 10 miles a day easy. I probably more resemble an elderly and slightly overweight shetland pony, but running or walking is definitely something that keeps me sane and is a really great way to check out a little more of the area we’re staying in before we drive on.

We spent a few days off in Pittsburgh at the beginning of this run and I was so pleased to get to hang out there again. It’s such a great city, with amazing old gothic style buildings, what seems to be a pretty great creative/arts scene and an urban quality to the high streets and city area that I really miss living in Nashville. I love the chilled out, small town feeling that Nashville has but there are times when I miss the big city edge that I used to have living in London. Pittsburgh somehow feels like a mixture of both, but with everyone living in gorgeous loft apartments - though having only spent about 4 days in total there it’s only a very superficial impression at this point.

Vanessa x

(Jamie and I backstage at the Chicago show - taking any chance for WIFI I can while traveling)

#tattletalesaints #tourdiary

Back in the U.S.S.A.

I am well aware that while we have been basking in swimming holes, running barefoot along pristine beaches and floating down rivers, Americans have had a whole season of some of the most abhorrent snow and ice storms in their history – still, I want this cold weather to continue. We have been back in the States a little more than a week and it feels fantastic. Three inches of snow in Nashville the other day (a rare occurrence) and I frolicked around in it like giddy pixy bounding over lily-pads.

I’m writing this midway between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh – sitting in the passenger seat of my little black Honda Civic while Vanessa is erratically trying to dodge gaping potholes. We’re on a short run with Ali Sperry & the Family Vacation, before heading back to Tennessee this Sunday. On one side of the highway (a modest 6 laner) are wiry, leafless trees the colour of rusted steel wool, and out the other a frozen rock face with long stems of grey ice streaming down. It always amazes me how these roads plow clean through mountainsides – the sheer volume of rock and dirt that must be excavated to accommodate massive highways. Clearly New Zealand doesn’t have the volume of traffic to necessitate such measures – but for this I’m very glad.

It’s great to be back in the States, definitely missing NZ friends and family, but it really is sound posse I’ve found myself amongst here. We played a super fun, though lightly attended show at the 5 spot in Nashville the other night as part of Nick Pagliari’s (Moon and 42) songwriter night. Also on the bill was Molly Martin, whose album ‘Somewhere Between’ is definitely one of my favourites of the last few years.

With our new VISA we can legally pursue other music based means of work, so upon return to Nashville next week, I’m going to really push for more in-town work on guitar. Ingratiating oneself in a new scene is quite an intimidating process, with no real clear way to go about it except to just get out there, meet people, go to jams, and pretty much say yes to everything. I love playing guitar and singing in TTS so, so much, but also really cherish those times when I can just play guitar and not also have to focus on singing and oftentimes leading the band. So that - along with T-ing up some more co-writes – is my mission for the short term.

In other news, after a very boozy NZ tour (Tom and I pretty much exclusively drank either Manhattans or Negronis while travelling in our rather salubrious camper), I have decided to meter my alcohol intake a little so as to focus on running again. Note - I have been in this position before. As a matter of fact this is one of the recurring battles of my life - my love for long distance running and it’s clash with the lifestyle of late nights and drink. My struggle to enact a moderate approach to things in my life makes this particularly difficult, though ‘moderation’ has been a recurring resolution of mine for many years. Perhaps this is the year it will stick.

So, two highly caffeinated cups of shitty Tim Horton’s coffee in ma belly, I think I will sign off, listen to K.D Lang and the Sis Boom Bang (I’m quite obsessed with the song ‘Sing it Loud’ – written by our eccentrically wonderful producer Joe Pisapia), and look out the window at the crude remnants of the steel industry past and present that are so commonplace in this part of the country. Cheerio everybody!

Top of Mt Roy, Wanaka NZ.

Vanessa's humble home, Inglewood, Nashville TN.

#newzealand #nashville #running #mollymartin #kdlang #tourdiary #joepisapia

Dear Diary

We’ve decided to start writing a tour diary, with the aim of doing one entry every week, alternating who writes each time. We’ll be based in Nashville TN for the next few years and, though we won’t actually be on the road the entire time, we thought it might be fun to document what we’re doing as a band and let you guys in on the ups and downs of what it’s like to be a band from New Zealand, living in Nashville, touring the States.

So here goes, the first of what will be a weekly blog…

We’ve just arrived back in Nashville after touring New Zealand for 3 weeks and, for me, spending 2 months away from the US. I was shocked at how quickly I settled back into life in Auckland. I felt a little at odds for the first few days, just having gotten used to Nashville and the American culture, but very quickly fell into a pretty nice life of good coffee, catch ups with friends, running down by the harbour and hanging out with my family.

Cy arrived back just a few days before our tour started so we had a pretty busy couple of days rehearsing with Tom Broome on drums and doing the press/promo and live radio performances that Cy needed to be there in person for.

With our new single I Did This To Myself ready for release in January we had decided we wanted to do this tour with drums (a first for us) and chose Tom based on the time we’d spent playing with him in Bolo. We had a residency at the Portland Public House in Auckland before we left for Nashville last year and that band (with Finn Scholes on trumpet) was so much fun. Looking back now it really was the beginning of us heading in the direction of drums and electric guitar, we had such a good time playing in that format that it inspired us to capture some of that energy and sound in Tattletale Saints.

Tom is a fantastic drummer and we couldn’t have been happier with how it worked out with him. Those who came to one of the shows will know, he’s so tasteful and, though he really can play when he needs to, managed to just add the perfect amount of colour and groove to our songs without being overbearing. He’s also just the best dude and was a blast to have on the road. When you’re spending hours upon hours in the tour van that side of things is almost as important as how someone plays.

While we were on the road in NZ we were also waiting to hear back about our new US VISAs. We were in Dannevirke when the email came through saying they'd been approved, and the Tararua District Viking town now holds a special place in my heart because of it. Cy also bought some pretty great shirts and a cravat at an op shop there so it was a win all round. The VISA process for the US is expensive and stressful. I’m relieved to know that we don’t have to worry about it again at least for a few years.

The New Zealand tour was wonderful with great crowds in most of the cities, many epic swims and the chance to catch up with lots of great people all around the country. There were some cities where we’d had bigger crowds last time but weren’t as great this time round – I think we’re still learning which cities need to have the show on a weekend night and which will work no matter which night of the week it is. After the tour was done in NZ we had a week off and then it was time to fly back to Nashville.

I felt weird and a little nervous about leaving this time. I do love New Zealand and wish I could live a little closer and still have the same band opportunities we do in Nashville. It’s hard to live so far from friends and family but right now there’s just no choice if we want to pursue a touring career with our band to the level we’d like to achieve. There’s something about being in the culture you grew up in that puts you immediately at ease too. Living in the States isn’t hard, and I feel like I fit in pretty well within the American culture already but I must say, it was nice to spend a few months where I didn’t have to have the “Oh you have an accent… where are you from?” conversation once.

So we're back in Nashville and I'm fighting hard against the cold that has been threatening me since landing back in the depths of winter. We missed the worst of the cold weather (anyone I complain to is quick to point out) but it's still a pretty huge shock to go from summertime and beaches to finding snow and ice still sitting in the yard - brrrr.

Now that we’re back we’re looking forward to heading out on the road on March 7th for a week tour with Ali Sperry & The Family Vacation who we’ll be opening for and also playing in her band. This year we’ve already got 4 or 5 blocks of touring booked and will be adding more along the way. The main goal for us is the new album so we’re aiming for more time in Nashville than last year to give us the time and creative space to make that happen.

I’m excited to be doing some work with another great band who’s just moved to town, Modern Inventors. I really like their songs and the lead singer has a killer voice. I'll be playing electric bass and singing backing vocals for some shows in Nashville and on the East Coast in a few months. http://moderninventors.tumblr.com/

As part of this weekly blog we welcome your questions and comments too – we’ll endeavour to get back to as many as we can!

Vanessa xx

Here are a few of my favourite photos from the NZ tour... also pretty much sums up most of what we did while not playing: coffee, swims, campervan and cocktails.

(Photo at the top - Cy dancing on the campervan somewhere in the South Island)

(Palmerston North epic swimming hole)

(Pelorus Bridge)

(Campervan Barista)

(Ohope Beach)

(warming up at the Gin and Raspberry with a Gin and Raspberry - Wanaka)

(Tuning Fork Auckland back stage rider - tequila and vege snacks, yeah we rock stars alright)

#newzealand #newzealandtour #tourdiary #tattletalesaints

Thank you - new music - 2015 tour plans and ticket links

2014 has really been amazing. We’ve been on tour pretty much constantly, playing nearly 100 shows in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, and living in Nashville, TN since March. Nashville is a wonderful city filled with some of the most talented, generous, creative people. It’s amazing how fast it’s felt like home. Being on the road constantly certainly has some downsides (sleeping on couches, 1000’s of hours in the van and just generally being in each other’s faces 24/7) but the chance to spend the whole year playing in Tattletale Saints, sharing the music we love and meeting amazing people all around the world is something we're both very grateful to have had. This indie touring circuit is certainly kept alive by the generosity of music lovers and if you’re someone who’s put us up for the night, organised a show, shared a stage with us or come along to see us play somewhere - thank you so much. We couldn’t do this without you.

We have a couple more shows in the States this month, Golden City, Missouri on December 9th, Wichita, Kansas on the 10th and then it's back to New Zealand for our New Zealand Summer Tour 2015 (ticket links below).

New Sounds and Recordings

This year spent in the vibrant Nashville music scene has inspired a change in our sound and we are so excited to welcome the addition of celebrated drummer Tom Broome for our NZ tour. Performances on the tour will include songs performed as a duo, re-imagined versions of songs with drums, and brand new material off our forthcoming full band album, due for release in 2015.

We’re heading into the studio next week to start work on the next album, working with super creative producer/engineer Joe Pisapia in his East Nashville studio. We’re very excited to get to work and share these new songs with you!

2015 Tour Plans

We’re already scheming a few fun tours for 2015 and we want to introduce you to Caroline Spence who we’re going to be touring with on the West Coast in May/June. This tour will surely be a celebration of great songwriting, Caroline is a fantastic celebrated singer/songwriter who won the 2013 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Songwriter Showcase Competition, the Best Overall Prize in the American Songwriter Magazine Lyric Contest in 2013 and was the 2014 Kerrville New Folk Winner.

(click here if the video link doesn't work)

New Zealand Tour 2015 - Ticket Links

January

Wednesday 21st Whangarei - Old Library Tickets

Thursday 22nd Whangateau - Whangateau Hall Tickets

Saturday 24th Whitianga - Eggscentric Cafe Tickets

Sunday 25th Hamilton - The Meteor Tickets

Wednesday 28th Napier - The Cabana Tickets

Thursday 29th Whanganui - Sarjeant Gallery Tickets

Friday 30th Palmerston North Tickets

Saturday 31st Wellington - Bodega Tickets

February