Artist Feature: Tilly and the Wall

Originally published in the Summer 2008 issue of Redefine.
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Omaha's Tilly and the Wall has one piece of advice -- watch your step.

The emerging band, which has been stomping its way into the hearts of music lovers since its formation in 2001, just released its third album. The album illustrates the nurturing and delicate relationship that Tilly and the Wall has with music. One clumsy step can shatter all of the hard work that tap dancer and percussionist Jamie Pressnall, vocalist and guitarist Derek Pressnall, keyboardist Nick White, and vocalists Kianna Alarid and Neely Jenkins have poured into the music.

Tilly and the Wall cultivated the album's vision with tender care and will not let anyone stunt its growth -- a sentiment that is explained in the song "Blood Flowers."

"I waited for something to grow and flourish with time/ I counted each hopeful raindrop as it poured to its death/ I dusted the mournful frost and warmed it with my breath/ You better watch where you're walking, there might be somebody's blood flower growing/ You better watch what you're doing, don't go fucking around in the garden."

From music to the cover art, Tilly and he Wall has carefully developed an album that creates a unique experience for listeners, says Alarid. The album is technically untitled but is affectionately referred to as O because its cover is an oval-shaped frame that can be filled with anything a listener chooses to fill it with.

However, if nothing comes to minds of the listeners, they will have artwork to choose from. The band rallied numerous artist friends and had each of them design handmade prints for the album. Each cover has a limited run of 1,000 copies. In addition, each member of the band created a cover of his or her own, and they ran only 250 copies of those particular pieces.

To ensure that each cover has its own distinctive vibe, band members gave the designers very little guidance.

"Some of them would call and say 'I want to talk about the record,'" Alarid recalls, "but we would say, 'Nope.'"

The various covers are not the only things fans can look forward to; the latest release has a great amount of confidence and finesse.

While the band's debut Wild Like Children had some memorable tracks, its overall effort was subtle. Two years later, Bottom of Barrels was released and led to opportunity; the band was given the chance to play gigs at notable music festivals, such as, the Reading/Leeds Festival and Coachella.

But O is edgy and scorching with passion. Alarid credits the band's musical progression via touring and, to put it simply: time. The band has worked on learning about each other's songwriting techniques, and each member contributes to the process.

Members of Tilly and the Wall have used their abundant songwriting skills their advantage. It would be easy for a band from such a musically-inclined city to sound identical to the handful of successful Omaha bands like Cursive and Bright Eyes, but Tilly and the Wall has managed to create a lovely coherent sound of its own.

"When you have five different songwriters, it kind of makes a unique sound because you have to make five people's sound fit together," Alarid says.

Tilly and the Wall may not sound like most bands in Omaha, but the band does have strong connections with the city's music scene. Jenkins and Jamie Pressnall used to be in Park Ave. with Conor Oberst before his Bright Eyes fame. Years later, Tilly and the Wall was Oberst's first signing to his Team Love record label, a Saddle Creek affiliate.

Oberst also had a hand in production for Wild Like Children, but for O, Tilly and the Wall turned to another Nebraskan, Mike Mogis.

Mogis, who owns his own state-of-the-art studio and has worked with a lot of staple indie artists, such as, Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley, and M. Ward, brought a lot of ideas to the table and allowed the band members to carry out various ideas that they previously did not have the resources to do so. Mogis suggested an array of instruments and different micing techniques for the band.

"His brain is always going a thousand miles an hour," Alarid says.

The band always wanted to included a tap dance troupe on a recording, and the vision was made into a reality on the track "Pot Kettle Black." A 10-person stomp troupe was recorded in an elementary school gym specifically for the song. The track is a powerful, tongue-in-cheek message about trash-talking; it shows Tilly and the Wall's hidden fierceness. The vocals reveal the appealing intensity of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and Pretty Girls Make Graves' Andrea Zollo.

However, listeners should not be alarmed by the forceful passion of O. Tilly and the Wall's gleeful group chants and hand claps are still very prominent. Songs like "Jumbler" and "Poor Man's Ice Cream" feature infectious thumping rhythms and trade-off vocals between the female and male vocalists.

The cheery attitude that is the essence of Tilly and the Wall has even caught the attention of Sesame Street. The band recorded a video for their rendition of the "ABC Song," which will be featured on the show's 39th season this fall.

As for Sesame Street characters, Alarid chooses Grover as her favorite.

"Having a monster that is insecure is so cute."

Before catching Tilly and the Wall on national television, fans can experience the band's exuberant passion all over the United States this summer. Just be sure not to trample on any thriving flowers.