Taking a Dip in the Fish Tank
By Kaitie Firm, Contributor
After countless hours in the studio, local band Mind Fish is tackling the task of self-releasing their new album. Step out of the Athens comfort zone and open your ears to the rambunctious pop-rock quartet.
The practice space in bassist Trent Rissover’s house is a room called “The Fish Tank” and can only be described as a musical man cave. In a room that could barely constitute a jail cell, four fully-grown males cram inside along with their instruments. The room is so hot and muggy that it seems to spawn the same results as a sauna.
While I sit in the kitchen paging through “The Joy of Cooking” -– despite the boys’ best efforts of getting me to sit in on their muggy practice session -– they run through the last four songs of their set.
With sweat pouring off every inch of them, we take a seat on the front porch and somehow manage to have an interview in spite of the boys’ short attention spans and the number of mosquitoes attracted to our skin. At the mere mention of their new album, Measles, Mumps and Rebellion, lead singer and guitarist Dean Tartaglia leans forward and launches into a detailed description of their “13-song pop-rock opera.”
“It’s about a guy who’s in this town whose music scene is hypocritical and he tries to get all these girls to like him and he succeeds. Then he has a fling with this girl and she just totally smashes his heart into itty bitty reverb'd pieces. So he’s banished from the town, but he doesn’t want to let his fans down, so he trains to be the greatest pop star ever!”
He pauses to breathe before continuing.
“Then everyone’s like, ‘You’ve got a lotta nerve coming back here to this town!’ But he’s like, ‘I’m a pop star now!’ And then he wins the girl back and… the end!”
The pop-rock opera was recorded in various places. One of them was drummer Steve Warstler’s apartment. On this particular night, Tartaglia wasn’t his typical energetic self, so the boys went out and bought Red Bulls, determined to finish the song.
“I almost got evicted because Dean’s so fuckin’ loud. My landlord kept coming by, claiming that she wanted to check for bugs,” Warstler said with a few laughs and a roll of his eyes.
Measles, Mumps and Rebellion has been a longtime work-in-progress. Tartaglia began writing songs in the summer of 2008 and finished one year later. The band put in about 50 hours a week to get the album recorded, with Warstler doing a majority of the recording and mixing.
“Right when we started playing, we started getting a vibe. I kind of started singing differently. I started singing like I sing live. During Winter Intersession, we tried five drum tracks and a bunch of guitar parts. We scrapped so much stuff. So, in a way, it was kind of a waste of a month, but we also learned a lot about ourselves,” Tartaglia said of the recording process.
While many bands in Athens feel a sense of camaraderie and support from fellow bands and audience members alike, Mind Fish hasn’t felt the same connection.
“My problem is: Athens is like this big cultural melting pot. And then when it comes time in the music scene, it’s indie rock bands and party bands,” Tartaglia said, ending his statement with a smack to his stomach, effectively killing the mosquito trying to bite him.
Tartaglia leans back in his chair and recalls a Battle of the Bands show at The Union earlier this year. After waking up with nearly no voice, he took some vocal steroids so that he would be able to sing that night. It had a somewhat Incredible Hulk effect on him.
Mind Fish ended up playing to a crowd of people that showed little to no reaction to their music, which made an already frustrated Tartaglia even angrier. What resulted were mic stands being kicked over and stomped on and still, an unaffected audience.
“We feel really bad about the whole mic thing,” Warstler said, noting that it might have gotten a little out of hand.
Despite the frustration they feel about their lack of success in Athens thus far, the band’s new album is an unwavering display of their work.Measles, Mumps and Rebellion isn’t a 13-track mope fest. Underneath the previously described plot concept, it’s also about sexual discovery, weird thoughts and fetishes.
With the album’s release, the future is something that the band must consider. All four members have different ideas concerning their goals, but all yield similar results.
Dan Barbera, Mind Fish guitarist and member of Columbus-basedStomp the Condor, wants to tour all the time. “If somebody came up to us and asked us to tour, to open for some band, I would take a break from school and do it.”
For Rissover, easily the most reserved and mysterious member, it’s a more realistic approach. “I’m just tired of working shitty, minimum wage jobs. I sound like an asshole when I say this, but I just don’t want to do it. I would settle for getting less money and doing something that I like… but yeah, I do want money.”
Warstler, however, is ready to take a step back from the behind-the-scenes aspect of Mind Fish. “I had goals when we started the band, and I just want to say that we’ve accomplished a lot of those goals already. My goal now is to get somebody to produce us who isn’t me, to get someone to record us who isn’t me.”
As a band that prides itself on being tight and put together, Mind Fish is currently working on getting their set list down pat. For Tartaglia, all he really wants is to go out and spread their music to as many possible people that want to hear it.
