Since releasing their first album 'Wild Like Children' two years ago, Tilly and the Wall have been quietly taking over America with their unique and raucous shows, and now have their eyes firmly set on taking on this side of the pond.

Gate-crashing their first day off in weeks, most of the band are found relaxing amongst their many shopping bags (Jamie is asleep) as they prepare to finish off their European tour which has already seen successful appearances at the Carling Weekender in Reading and Leeds and Rob Da Bank's Bestival on the Isle of Wight.

Many bands are given the "unique" mantle, but Tilly and the Wall really are a one-off. Formed in 2003 in Nebraska, Omaha, by friends Neely Jenkins, Kianna Alarid, Derek Presnall, Nick White and Jamie Williams, they have created a travelling road show packed with dancing, energy, music and is, as Kianna puts it, "a helluva a lot of fun."

Let me explain... Tilly isn't laid out in the usual band way. For a start they all stand in a line on the stage (no big frontman stealing the limelight), they pretty much all have a hand in the singing, although Kianna and Neely take on most of it, their music seems to have influences from absolutely everybody, from early pop and folk to German industrial, and they don't bother with a drummer. Who needs one when the glamorous Jamie can do just as good a job with the percussion by tap dancing on a metal plate?

Eight months after their conception, they were signed and Tilly and the Wall have been touring around America and Europe ever since, slowly building a legion of dedicated Tilly fans across the globe from their headquarters slap bang in the middle of the United States. "Omaha is kind of a slower paced place, which is so nice when you get back from touring." Says the effervescent Kianna, "There are a lot of those really long trains you see in films passing through. A lot of trains and a lot of music in Nebraska. People have the wrong idea of Omaha, they think that it's the kind of place where we don’t have soap and stuff like that and it's all farms, but was one of the first boomtowns and was known as the gateway to the West. It became a pretty big city."

"Although when Derek and Nick first moved there," Neely laughs, "they did have a chicken living under their house and they thought that was normal behaviour for folk from Omaha - that everyone has a chicken."

Their name comes from the children's book Tillie and the Wall written and illustrated by Leo Lionni. The band explains, "It’s a really cute story about a mouse and has really pretty artwork which is all kind of like cut-outs and collagey - which is a bit like the way we view ourselves, as a collage of different bits. In the end it made perfect sense. We had a show coming up and that was the name that we all agreed on from the list we'd made." Jamie's more matter of fact about it, "Well we had to put some kind of name on a flyer for our first show, and we thought that it was pretty cute, so we went with it and it stuck."

If you've not been along to see one of Tilly's shows, then you should pop along next chance you get - you're in for a treat. "The Tilly shows are a total party," Kianna enthuses. "We try to make them as fun as possible. We always like to make sure that the crowd are just as much a part of what we're doing as us. We like to give them back what they're giving to us, so we kind of feed off each others' energy."

Neely continues: "Although when they don't give us anything it can be kinda hard! But we try and give them something even if they are being like that. When that happens you can’t help but take it a bit personally - it's like 'WHY? Why are you being like that? Do you hate us? Give us some help! It's weird because we always have people come up to us after the show and are really comfortable talking to us, and I only know like, a couple of bands where I'd feel like I could do that and not be a bit intimidated. We love it when people come up to us though!"

When asked about their festival experiences here in the UK, their faces light up. Kianna picks up the thread: "The Reading and Leeds one is so different to other festivals - you can tell it's a lot more corporate, which I don't mean in a bad way but I've never seen anything like it. There was just this huge mass of people. It was so cool. And people were just off their rockers for the whole weekend."

Derek looks up from his cup of tea to conclude, "It was really different to Bestival which was really pretty and colourful and more refined in the way it was laid out - it was more like a fashion show than a festival!"

So they made it through their first lot of British festivals without having bottles of piss thrown at them?
"BOTTLES OF PISS?" Neely is incredulous, "Is that what they were throwing? It’s weird because we had some friends from Omaha over for the shows and they were looking at people throwing cups of beer around, and they were like 'Why would you throw your beer? It's really expensive!' But if they were throwing around bottles of pee? That's gross! I was watching the Arctic Monkeys and I saw this guy throw an open umbrella across the crowd, I grabbed it and said to him 'THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA' he was all sorry but I was shouting 'BUT WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!' it was broken and wouldn't shut so I had to crunch it down and then walk through the crowd and throw it away."

Kianna interjects, "Neely was a fourth grade teacher by the way!"

I was in total mum mode - I just went all responsible - He was really drunk and he could have poked out 12 people's eyes with that," Neely responds.

After bouncing backwards and forwards over the Atlantic on numerous tours this year, is there much difference between touring at home and in foreign climes?

"The main difference is that we drive ourselves everywhere at home," Neely explains. "We usually drive to our shows when we're in the States and that means that two people have to stay up or get up early to drive places, and that's really hard. We have a tour manager when we're here and that's something we never have in the States and it really makes such a huge difference. He organises everything for us and has absolutely everything down and tells us where we’re going and we follow what he says."

"It's so cool touring here but even though when we're touring at home we drive everywhere, to me it feels a lot less tiring than when we are in the UK. It's probably because we're only over here for a short amount of time so we have to pack all of our shows into that time whereas at home we can space it out a bit," Jamie adds.

This Christmas sees them taking two months off to concentrate on putting together their third album, which gets us onto the subject of Jamie's tap dancing - how do you write songs for feet?
Kianna answers for the napping Jamie, "She's very instinctive when it comes to rhythms and beats, but it's very similar to writing for a drum part - there are bridges and there are parts when you want it slowed down. Everything she can do just like a drummer." Derek adds, "It does take lot longer to write those parts though as she'll say "I think it should be a bit like this (does a kind of beatbox of someone tap dancing) and you're like "what does that mean?" so you've got to try and get your head around that part of it. And we also have to think of the bass drum beats to go with it. We are getting to know the names of a series of steps and moves and timings now though so it's getting a bit easier."

"We write a little differently to other bands I've been in before, in that we all go away and write independently and then come back and then whoever wrote it directs how that song should sound - we don't sit around in a garage jamming hoping to build something out of one riff," Derek explains.

Tilly and the Wall are always going to be seen as a bit unusual, as would any band that decides they don't need a drummer when someone tap dancing on a metal plate is just as good. The best thing about them is that they are making their music because making music is fun, rather than with an eye on record sales and their bank accounts. If you get a chance, get yourself to their next gig and dance yourself silly.

 

THE ALBUM 'BOTTOMS OF BARRELS' IS AVAILABLE ON MOSHI MOSHI RECORDS NOW.