| Tiny Moving Parts Session | |
| Violitionist Sessions |
Session Date: August 14, 2013
Posting Date: September 9, 2013
Artist Hometown: Moorhead, MN
Links: Facebook, TinyMovingParts.com, Bandcamp
Recorded by: Michael Briggs @ Civil
3 QUESTIONS
ONE: How did Tiny Moving Parts get started?
Billy Chevalier: Basically, Matt’s my brother and Dylan’s our cousin, so, in junior high or somewhere around then, we got instruments and sometime around then we started playing Blink 182 covers and slowly started learning more and more music. We were in a band called the D Cups when we were in high school. It was us three and another guy. Basically somewhere around 2008, you think?
Dylan Mattheisen: Yeah…
Billy: Around 2008 or so, we started Tiny Moving Parts with us three, and…that’s it, I think. Do you guys want to add anything?
Dylan: No. Basically…I got my first guitar when I was like 11. Billy had drums back then, and Matt had a guitar when he was like 11 or 12, and so we’ve been playing together for like 11 years or so. But, Tiny Moving Parts has been like, five years, I think. Even for touring purposes, like, you hear of so many bands that can’t do more than two weeks on the road because they just want to tear each other apart and argue all the time, and since we’ve been best friends since day one, it helps out a lot. And, I think just the fact that we know how each other work…I think, playing together, I think we learned a lot from each other, and what to do and what not to do, and just kind of connects really well for an overall band.
Billy: We learned our instruments together, two, and we’ve only written with each other for basically our whole lives, so it’s kind of like the only way we know how to play is with each other. That’s the only thing we’ve ever really done.
DJ: So have you guys developed telepathy to use when writing parts and stuff?
Billy: I guess you could say that. We don’t really ‘jam’ ever. We’ve never really even jammed. We have ideas and we kind of play them for each other and write parts around them. We don’t really…I don’t just start playing and then we just write something. That’s never happened.
DJ: So you write everything separately?
Billy: No— Well, no. Basically, Dylan writes a lot of little things and then we mold them together, and be like, ‘That part sounds dumb, just change it,’ or something.
Dylan: We literally— We make a song and we rewrite it a good 5+ times until we’re fully happy with it. Like, there’s songs we’ve written a few times and we’re just like, ‘Well, we still don’t like it,’ and we won’t put it out. But, yeah, we don’t jam. We don’t have jam sessions or anything.
Dylan Mattheisen: Yeah…
Billy: Around 2008 or so, we started Tiny Moving Parts with us three, and…that’s it, I think. Do you guys want to add anything?
Dylan: No. Basically…I got my first guitar when I was like 11. Billy had drums back then, and Matt had a guitar when he was like 11 or 12, and so we’ve been playing together for like 11 years or so. But, Tiny Moving Parts has been like, five years, I think. Even for touring purposes, like, you hear of so many bands that can’t do more than two weeks on the road because they just want to tear each other apart and argue all the time, and since we’ve been best friends since day one, it helps out a lot. And, I think just the fact that we know how each other work…I think, playing together, I think we learned a lot from each other, and what to do and what not to do, and just kind of connects really well for an overall band.
Billy: We learned our instruments together, two, and we’ve only written with each other for basically our whole lives, so it’s kind of like the only way we know how to play is with each other. That’s the only thing we’ve ever really done.
DJ: So have you guys developed telepathy to use when writing parts and stuff?
Billy: I guess you could say that. We don’t really ‘jam’ ever. We’ve never really even jammed. We have ideas and we kind of play them for each other and write parts around them. We don’t really…I don’t just start playing and then we just write something. That’s never happened.
DJ: So you write everything separately?
Billy: No— Well, no. Basically, Dylan writes a lot of little things and then we mold them together, and be like, ‘That part sounds dumb, just change it,’ or something.
Dylan: We literally— We make a song and we rewrite it a good 5+ times until we’re fully happy with it. Like, there’s songs we’ve written a few times and we’re just like, ‘Well, we still don’t like it,’ and we won’t put it out. But, yeah, we don’t jam. We don’t have jam sessions or anything.
TWO: What are the best and worst moments from your current tour?
Billy: The worst moment was definitely Philadelphia. We got broken into. We got to the city at like 3 am. Our friend drove us from the city before us, and we stayed at his place in north Philly in a sketchy neighborhood. We brought the guitars in, and then I went out in the morning to get my toothbrush and saw that the side window was shattered all over the sidewalk. I just went back into the house and was like, ‘Guys, we got broken in to.’ Luckily, they only took Matt and Dylan’s cameras and a cooler full of beer, so…
Matthew Chevalier: Nothing of yours, though.
Billy: The beer.
Matthew: That was my beer!
Billy: I was going to drink it, though. It was good that we didn’t have to replace any musical instruments, though. It sucks we lost cameras, but at least we could move on without having to go to a Guitar Center and buying a bunch of stuff.
DJ: So what was the best moment?
Matthew: I liked the last show with the Front Bottoms in Richmond. It was our first time playing Richmond, and kids were like falling on stage and singing along and crowd surfing to our songs and it was like…it was just crazy.
Billy: Very unexpected.
Dylan: Sold out show, and it was just 250-300 people and everyone— everybody was going nuts for the Front Bottoms every night, and it was always fun, but that show in particular the kids actually went nuts for us, too, and it was pretty cool.
Billy: We had someone in the audience ask us to play a song that I don’t even think is on the Internet, that’s from like 2007 or something. It was cool to know that there were people there that knew us from like five, six years ago.
Matthew Chevalier: Nothing of yours, though.
Billy: The beer.
Matthew: That was my beer!
Billy: I was going to drink it, though. It was good that we didn’t have to replace any musical instruments, though. It sucks we lost cameras, but at least we could move on without having to go to a Guitar Center and buying a bunch of stuff.
DJ: So what was the best moment?
Matthew: I liked the last show with the Front Bottoms in Richmond. It was our first time playing Richmond, and kids were like falling on stage and singing along and crowd surfing to our songs and it was like…it was just crazy.
Billy: Very unexpected.
Dylan: Sold out show, and it was just 250-300 people and everyone— everybody was going nuts for the Front Bottoms every night, and it was always fun, but that show in particular the kids actually went nuts for us, too, and it was pretty cool.
Billy: We had someone in the audience ask us to play a song that I don’t even think is on the Internet, that’s from like 2007 or something. It was cool to know that there were people there that knew us from like five, six years ago.
THREE: What are your plans for the next two years?
Billy: Well, we get home on the 22nd or 23rd of August, this month, and we already have some studio time for September 4th booked. We’ve got one song and we have to write another for a split we’re doing.And then we’re going to do a tour down to Florida for The Fest, and then we want to go to Europe. We also want to go to Japan and Australia, but we’ve got to be realistic.
Matthew: We’ll have a new full-length out, and then I think it’s going to be a lot of overseas touring and stuff.
DJ: Is there a timeline on the full length?
Matthew: We’re shooting for May or June next year sometime.
Billy: Yeah. We quit our jobs, so we should have a lot of time to write and record…
Matthew: We’ll have a new full-length out, and then I think it’s going to be a lot of overseas touring and stuff.
DJ: Is there a timeline on the full length?
Matthew: We’re shooting for May or June next year sometime.
Billy: Yeah. We quit our jobs, so we should have a lot of time to write and record…
– Interview and transcription by Dale Jones.