Retro-pop duo Tenniscomposed of husband and wife Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, burst onto the blogosphere in the early 2010s with their charming, ultra-lo-fi album Cape Dory. THE accompanying story – that before recording they had sold all their possessions, left their lives in Denver behind and literally set sail on the Atlantic Ocean – could have destined the couple to disappear into obscurity as a kitsch marvel of an album. Fortunately, this did not happen.
Comparisons can be made to all manner of female pop from the ’60s and ’70s. But the sardonic, questioning lyrics add a modern edge – and, at times, existential dread – to their otherwise past-evoking tunes.
Before recording their fourth album, Yours on condition, the two men returned to the high seas for greater clarity and inspiration, but this time they headed to the Pacific Ocean, specifically to the hidden Sea of Cortés. They left the record label world to self-release on their label Mutually Detrimental.
Open tennis for the Shins on Sunday, July 30 at Waterfront Park in Burlington. Seven days I recently met with Moore by phone.
SEVEN DAYS: In a meeting with Nylon magazine, you offered some thoughts on gender equality in the music industry. Want to elaborate?
ALAINA MOORE: The biggest (problem) would be the challenges and stereotypes and assumptions that women and gender non-conforming people face. Music is a great way for people to identify or empathize with someone whose experience is completely different from their own.
For example, it’s very rewarding for me when I look out into a crowd and see people from all walks of life – but men in particular – singing lyrics that perhaps express a deeply personal and feminine perspective. They may not know exactly what it means, but there is a connection.
As far as my goals of being a feminist and a woman in the world and using my art, that’s the only thing I can think of doing with it: trying to break down the barriers between human experience. Because music is so shared, especially pop music. It sort of erases the divisions between different people.
SD: I have always been fascinated by the lyrics of your song “My Better Self” from your second album, Young old. What is it about?
AM: I’m just talking about the ambiguity of language and how it’s totally necessary, but (also) how the same word can mean a very different thing to two different people – even two people who really share the same same ideas.
We kind of cycle through words to refer to things – especially euphemisms for difficult and controversial words, or words that attempt to (define) a loaded concept… because it’s never quite the right word.
SD: It seems like your experience with your label during the Ritual in repetition ride a bike wasn’t the best. Is there a way for an indie band and their label to truly be on the same page?
AM: The biggest issue isn’t the label versus the band. I’ve never felt like this. I loved all the labels we worked with. The real problem is art and commerce.
We certainly try to make money from our work. I feel like in this day and age, that might even be the definition of a band’s success – whether or not they can make a living from it.
We don’t make money selling records anymore, so licensing is where the money is. I truly believe that this will at least subconsciously change the way people write music. I like the fact that there is no longer really this concept of overselling. In the 90s, this meant the death of a group, the destruction of its credibility. And now I feel like no one ever says that. You would have to do something very disingenuous for someone to say that about a musician.
The way Patrick and I bounced back from a frustrating album cycle, business-wise, was to start our own label and self-publish. This gives us a lot more freedom than before. It has been extremely rewarding and we will continue to self-liberate for as long as I can foresee.
SD: I understand that you recorded demos directly on the boat during your last expedition.
AM: Yes. We gave ourselves a lot of time, without expectations and without any real deadline. It was a lot easier to write and took the pressure off of every little thing we tried. We could start a song and get halfway through and say, “Yeah, that’s nothing to me,” and just throw it away, move on and not feel devastated.
When I write, I feel so invested in every little thing I do. It can be very emotionally devastating for me, and writing that way, in an environment where it wasn’t the most important part of my life – (because) our number 1 concern at all times was our safety and the safety of our boat. – honestly, it really contextualized music making for me. Everything we did was just for joy instead of the most important thing I will ever do in my life. It made songwriting joyful and natural.
SD: Did any of the individual instrumental and/or vocal tracks actually make it onto the record?
AM: We re-recorded everything, except there’s a really weird and crazy delayed guitar part in the background of the song “Fields of Blue.” It’s the only thing that survived. Doing a demo on a boat is not very conducive to real music.
SD: That’s right, unless you want all that crackling, seagulling, and splashing noise.
AM: Exactly – which might be interesting one day. This might suit a folk singer much better. Maybe if we changed genders it would work.
SD: Do you think you have any songs that don’t translate to live performance?
AM: Oh, yeah. All the time – like half of our songs. There are some we just can’t understand. Or there are some that we thought would be so good live, and then they’re not.
There’s a song on our new album called “Baby Don’t Believe” that’s our favorite. We were so excited to play it live and then we added it to our set and we played it at about 10 shows and we were tinkering with it and we thought: No, it’s too slow and linear. It just didn’t fit.
SD: Tell me about your visual partner, Luca Venter.
AM: He’s more or less our artistic director for this whole album cycle. He is like a member of our family. We are working on many projects, including a very extensive visual documentation of our sailing trip.
SD: What is the process of creating a visual representation of your music like?
AM: It comes and goes. Sometimes I have a vision in mind, and other times we brainstorm together, usually over a gin and tonic. Other times – he knows our tastes very well – he comes across an image and shows it to me, and we say, “That would be an amazing aesthetic for a music video” – like a color palette and lighting, for example. . We think more in terms of abstract visuals rather than storytelling (videos). I’m not really interested in literal interpretations of my songs. I want more abstract and associative images.
