In the studio with The Knew
Tyler Breuer and Jake Hansen of The Knew.
Denver garage-rock quartet The Knew is currently holed up in Macy Sound Studios in Denver, putting together its first full-length: an 11-track, as-yet-titled disc that aims to capture the band's soulful grit better than its two EPs did. Before the group's show opening for Better Than Ezra tomorrow, Oct. 2, singer-guitarist Jake Hansen and guitarist Tyler Breuer spoke with The A.V. Club in the studio about the album's progress—specifically about how tacos, robot-jaguars, and hidden-track fart songs factor into the intricate process.
The A.V. Club: How is the new album different from the last two EPs?
Tyler Breuer: We want this album to be less polished than our previous ones. If you listen to our old ones, they sound awesome, and everything was pushed to the front of the mix. It sounds awesome, but we don't sound that awesome. [Laughs.] The rhythm section for this album is going to set it apart. Tim [Rydner] and Pat [Bowden] were in there doing exercises they've never done before, just to get in sync. Plus there's a melodica on the album, and an acoustic guitar. We haven't had that in a long time.
AVC: So you're getting sensitive?
Jake Hansen: Yeah, the acoustic song will be a jam.
TB: Yeah, that song'll suck.
AVC: What do you guys eat while you're recording?
JH: We stick to the big ones: Tokyo Joe's, Chipotle.
TB: I ate at Five Guys Burgers And Fries the other day. It was terrible.
JH: It tore you apart.
TB: It's the free peanuts that did it.
JH: You went in there because you thought it was free penis.
TB: Long story short, I ate more peanuts than I did my hamburger. There's this big barrel of them.
JH: Can you throw them on the floor like a Texas roadhouse?
TB: No, you can't do that. It's not a roadhouse. But it made me sick, and I threw up everywhere.
JH: Then you went to that tacos place.
TB: Yeah, tacos spelled T-A-C-O-S-S. Next to Secrets, the smut shop. I ate there and it was okay.
JH: No, you felt like shit after that, too. Sweating.
TB: Then there's the Family Dollar across the street that has some good stuff. Tim bought a lot of candy there.
JH: Yeah, so we've been eating some food. Occasionally recording.
AVC: If the new album were an animal, what would it be?
JH: I would think something with four legs, because there's four of us. Maybe that Volcom thing that's four cats. Megacat?
TB: Like Transformers?
JH: No, it was Voltron.
TB: Wasn't Voltron more like a robot than an animal?
JH: Yeah, but they were like robot cats. Their hands were the mouths of jaguars. This interview is going to take some fact-checking.
TB: It sounds like a housecat.
JH: Yeah, this album would be a tabby cat. Maybe it'd be a bronco. I'm just looking at things that I see and saying them. It'd be a magazine cat.
AVC: Are you going to put a hidden track on the album?
TB: I doubt it. We've had CDs before where there's like a fart song at the end, and it’s actually pretty funny. Ah, we'll probably do one. [Laughs.]
Our fact-checking showed that Voltron is more like a robot, with a robotic human head and robotic jaguar hands, and also a jaguar- or cougar-type hat. —Ed.
