Austin – Though many bands travel from around the world to play Austin Psych Fest, the booking team makes sure our hometown bands are well represented. Mirror Travel released their debut full length, Mexico, in late 2013 and has since been gaining momentum since changing their name from Follow That Bird. The best part of which, they’ll tell you, has been the end of Sesame Street questions. The album has innate desert feel, some of which came from recording in Marfa and the rest feels dreamy as if Lauren Green, Tiffanie Lanmon, and Paul Brinkley are letting you in to their teenage bedrooms. Like the desert, the music feels slow as it breathes and moves, especially on the middle track, “Pinholes.” Though they’ve been playing around Austin for some time, they’ve felt like a band of outsiders not quite fitting in to any of the music pockets. Coming off of this album release, they are finally getting some of the recognition they deserve. I caught up with the band at their storage turned practice space, that looked more like the secret clubhouse of a club I would definitely want to join due to a creepy cat painting and poster of long red fingernails.
Ilyse Kaplan: You recorded your album, Mexico, in Marfa, what was that experience like?
Lauren Green: It was good, it was interesting. We had all been there before. It was nice to get a local’s perspective on it. We would start recording early; around 10 AM then take a break and record again at lunch.
Tiffanie Lanmon: I think the best part about it was just getting out of town. We were gonna record in Austin and you take off from work and everything but you’re still living your normal life. It’s nice to be completely removed. We all lived in the same house together and would make breakfast together and go to the studio, eat lunch, maybe go for dinner, and just keep working. It was like it never really stopped, or got interrupted. We never even really went out while we were there. People told us what was going on and we were like “we’re tired.”
IK: What was the house like that you stayed in?
LG: It’s since been converted actually in to a painters’ studio. It was pretty bare bones. The guy we recorded with, Gory Smelley, let bands stay there. It was called Greyfeather and the studio, well I guess everything, was just down the road.
TL: It was a one bedroom but it was broken up so the rest of the house was all living room with extra beds in there. It was just like a full house, but pretty minimal. That was probably my favorite part was sitting out on the back patio and there was just this big field.
LG: At one point, we were sitting out there and this horse escaped. We were like, “is this a dream?” We watched the guy come wrangle it and catch it. It was really nice.
TL: I brought my record table too. We all unloaded and brought records and tapes and just made it our own little house for a week? No, two weeks, how lucky were we?
IK: Your record is very dreamy sounding; did the desert lend itself to creating that music?
LG: A little bit. We already had it happening but the intro song we wrote out there and a few over dubs we decided to add. I think there were influences from our surroundings before. Like she said, we brought records, only the ones that we would want to listen to. I think what we were listening to at the time also had to do with that too.
IK: What were you listening to?
LG: We had The Cocteau Twins.
TL: I brought that Souxsie and The Banshees record, Patti Smith; I brought a mix tape that I made that had random little bits of things on it. Martha and the Muffins—that Martha and the Muffins record matched the wall.
Paul Brinkley: I know I brought these four track tapes.
TL: That was really helpful too, to listen to our demos.
IK: I saw you’ll be playing Marfa soon after Psych Fest, are you excited to go back?
TL: Yeah, I’m excited to do that right. Last time was a little hectic for so many reasons. If you only knew the troubles I saw that weekend. It’s actually kind of a good story.
PB: My car broke down on the way out there. I was planning to get there early so we could practice then play the show. Then I came to town as they were playing.
TL: Lauren and I had already played one song; he walked in on song number two. Everything closed—well it usually closes at midnight but it closed at one that night so they kicked us off really early.
PB: We only got to play for twenty minutes.
LG: I think there had been a fight there recently so they were trying to make sure that didn’t happen again.
IK: What has it been like building a following in the Austin music scene?
TL: I mean, have we? It finally hit me this week, looking at all of our shows in Austin, these are all good shows, when did that happen?
LG: I think putting out the album has definitely helped.
TL: That’s been big. It’s nice to finally have something that we’re proud of and play it and have people respond well to it, then play it over and over again. You look and see people respond to it and it’s like okay, I guess people like it.
IK: What are you most looking forward to in playing Austin Psych Fest?
LG: Getting to see a lot of great bands. I’ve actually never been to the festival. I like being outside and hanging out with people.
TL: I’m excited to see Acid Mothers Temple again. That’s why we went last year. Being there last year, I noticed the festival is so calm. I’m just excited to be a part of it and be a part of the energy creation. We really will be because we’re playing like, first, kicking off Saturday afternoon, which is so nice.
PB: I didn’t even look at the line up because I just want to see what happens, wandering around. That’s kind of what I did last year. I wasn’t even there for very long, I was just wandering around and seeing what hit my ears.
IK: That’s the nice thing about the festival; it’s not stressful to get around.
TL: And it’s not crammed in, so you can get to the front of any stage.
IK: I also like how many older people there were with lawn chairs.
PB: I’m down for some lawn chairs. That’s like some of the first shows I ever went to at Sea World, you would just sit up on this hill and could kind of see what’s left of The Beach Boys down there.
IK: What does the community surrounding Psych Fest feel like for your band, or do you feel a part of it?
LG: I guess not yet in a way because we’ve never really been invited. I feel like it’s kind of a new thing.
TL: Holy Wave we’ve played with but really aside from that, this is our first invitation to join the party.
IK: Are you excited to have finally gotten that in?
TL: Yeah, well what’s funny is we weren’t actually invited.
LG: We invited ourselves…
TL: We did! I was like, you know what, I’m gonna send an e-mail to him and see if we can play. What was really nice was, I sent the e-mail and like fifteen minutes later I got a response that was like “yeah, we’ve heard of your band, when do you want to play”? It was really wild, that’s the power of asking.
IK: How did you begin to develop your sound?
PB: It depends how far back you want to go. It’s an act of discovery. Outside of that, it’s just trying to figure out how we’re playing stuff, how it’s working live.
LG: I think also when we were recording in Marfa, we had somewhat of a say in what was going on. We’ve worked with great people before but this time we knew what to ask for.
TL: Part of it is having an actual object that’s a full length, the other stuff we’re definitely proud of. I was really proud of “The Ghost That Wake You” that we did with Louie Mellino here in town, but having a full length that’s like “yeah we did it,” like this monument. Having that kind of document allows us to move forward and have more discovery.
IK: Paul, how did you personally influence the sound when you came in to the band?
PB: Well, I don’t know that might be a better question for them.
TL: The bass player we had before came from kind of a punk background so he had a style that was really different.
PB: It changed the whole dynamic of the band because we were three cooks in a kitchen all of a sudden.
TL: Definitely. I think more than anything, it was a whole new way of writing.
IK: Can you touch a little on when you changed your name from Follow That Bird? Did it help to solidify the band or bring you in to the next chapter?
PB: It was a better name for the record we made and being at that juncture, if we were ever going to change it, it had to be then.
TL: It solidified that this is Mirror Travel. Paul Brinkley is in this band. Because before, Lauren and I added a bass player two years later and it was always like, who was that guy? Who was that girl that was playing with you? It was always this person that was aside from the two of us. We wanted it to be, “this is us.” Follow That Bird was always Tiffanie and Lauren plus someone else. Now, it’s Paul, Tiffanie, and Lauren.
PB: We don’t have to answer anymore fucking questions about “Sesame Street.” “So do you guys like that ‘Sesame Street’ movie?
TL: I don’t even want to see it! I don’t even want to know what it’s about.
IK: Along with Psych Fest, you’ll be playing the Stargayzer Festival this summer which is one of Austin’s first big queer based music festivals, how did you get involved with that?
LG: We’re really excited; the line up came out recently.
TL: It’s so super good! I’m personally really excited about it because I’ve had my own personal struggle with not being invited year after year to play Gay by Gay West. I try not to have my feelings hurt by it, but every year they are. It’s definitely a curated affair; I don’t know why we don’t get invited. One year they asked us, I was so excited, then when we followed up they were like “oh, no we booked it you’re not part of it.” The people who put it on are awesome, we always attend and enjoy being part of it as a spectator but it was really exciting to be like finally my musical world and my personal world are combined. It’s been a separate thing, you know, Hotel Vegas is not a very queer place. As much as some of those guys like to boogie, it’s not the same. So it’s very excited to be a part of it.
LG: To be invited to festivals in general, we’re turning in to Dave Matthews Band.
Learn more about Mirror Travel HERE.
Ilyse Kaplan
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