Bungalow Hate: Interview with Weed Diamond

There’s a plethora of bedroom projects cropping up nowadays. Kids certainly seem to be putting their private spaces to much better use than I ever did, turning their back on the N64 and turning off the idiot box. One such chap is Tim Perry, whose musical alias Weed Diamond is churning out a enough tormented pop and doo wop to separate him from the Garage Band copy cats who claim they’ve always listened to Barbara Alston and that Phil Spector has always been their idol. The sincerity of the vocals on Weed Diamond’s records penetrates the fuzz that makes them all but inaudible, making the high pitched sound of Tim’s voice, as with all great pop songs, just another layer of sound in the music. Stand out track, “Nothing To Write Home About”, from his free demo sounds like Woods singing at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance and fills every inch of the 3 minutes 41 seconds (the longest track on the demo by far) it’s given to grow with pained harmonies and slow strummed guitars. I got to have a chat with Tim the other day to get a run down on how the project developed and which is his favourite Raekwon record…

So, Weed Diamond is a solo project right? How did you go about making those first songs?

Weed Diamond: Yeah, weed diamond is just me right now. I'm looking for a few other people to help out with shows and stuff though. I don't really know what those songs came out of. i wrote and recorded them over the course of a few days a couple months ago and let them sit for a while and finally i showed them to one of my friends and he told me i should put it out there. It was just one of those weird creative bursts.

How long have you been playing music? Is this your first musical venture?

I've been playing guitar since I was 13 (I'm 21 now) so I've been doing music for a while. i grew up in a really musical family and for a while i hated the idea of making music, but as I've gotten older its become a larger part of me. no this isn't me first music project or anything. I've been in a few bands over the last few years but all of them have either gone by the wayside or things just fell through.

Cool, and what spurred you on to make music as Weed Diamond?

I think it was mainly me getting back to the basics, musically. things were getting too cluttered in my arrangements. too much going on and no direction. i wasn't having fun with music anymore. i took a break on writing for a while and when i finally sat down to play guitar i ended up writing "mr. vacant stare" and a few days later I had 6 songs recorded.

What was your main thinking behind that song?

lyrically?

Yeah

I wrote that about this "summer romance" i had last year and about how it ended badly, blah blah blah. i think a lot of people think its just about being high but in reality its a totally different subject.

Your name does tend to portray you in a certain way!

Yeah haha. that never really even occurred to me until I started getting feedback from people.

What is the reason behind the name?

I don't really think there is a specific reason. i liked how it sounded and i think it can mean different things to people or evoke certain imagery. i like names like that. I also didn't want to put a lot of meaning behind the name because i don't want my band name to be attached to a fleeting memory, you know?

Yeah sure, I guess that focusing on something abstract means that no meaning of it is lost as time goes by I guess - that what you were getting at?

Yes, exactly.

What are the main influences would you say on Weed Diamond?

I'd say Denver is a big influence. Just everything about my experience here. Musically, I don't really know. I actually haven't been listening to much music lately besides Raekwon and The Who haha.

Which Raekwon album have you been listening too?!

I've been listening to "only built..." a lot lately. that's the only album i have from him, but it's a classic.

That album is my favourite hip hop album of all time! I wrote a blog on it a while ago, as the office that I was working in started playing it everyday and rekindled my love - so sick.

I know, verbal intercourse is like the best song i've heard in my entire life.

All about incarcerated Scarfaces my friend! And guillotine swords

Its like a beatles album. every songs a classic.

Too true. I'm just listening to your demo now and I've noticed that the songs are really short and sharp hits. Do you think that your sound is pop? How would you describe it?

I think I would describe it as pop. When people ask me what type of music I make I just say "rock n roll." I think its the easiest way to describe it before you get into all those sub genres and stuff.



cool, it's weird because as the demo tape plays through you can hear so many types of music on it I find - like the last track "Stevie Wonder is Tooo High" almost feels quite proggy, like a solo in the middle of a cloud of reverb…but then I guess it finishes a lot more quickly than most prog songs!

Yeah, that song I actually used a keyboard and it has a really simple repetitive beat. I battled for a while about whether or not to include that song on the demo but I think its a good closer to the whole thing. It does have a proggy feel though.

So, you've got a 7" coming out on Transparent, right? How did that come about?

Yeah! They were the first people to contact me after I made the myspace for weed diamond. They really liked "let's burn one down" and a few days later or something they asked if I would want to put out a single this coming winter.

Have you played many live shows yet?

I actually haven't played any with Weed Diamond yet. I'm trying to set something up for the end of the month with my friend's band "Last Eyes." probably a wacky house show or something.

How would your recorded work translate to live, do you think? Would you get other people to play the different parts of the song?

Yeah, I'm hoping I can get a few buddies together and we can practice like 5 or 6 songs and try to work out a coherent set.

What do you tend to make your recordings on?

I usually use Logic to record all the instruments, but I did a cover of the bee gee's "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man" with a 4 track recorder. I'm pretty inexperienced with recording software so I'm still in the learning process.

With the whole LO-FI revivalist movement happening in seemingly every big town - lots of people seem to be jumping on the band wagon and recording with GarageBand - what are your views on GB?

I think garage band is great. I've never really used it but almost all of my friends use that because it’s easy, and free. But since anyone can use it, that definitely opens up the possibilities of their being a lot of half assed, processed music there.

I ask only because some people have expressed their hatred with the thing. It just seems like Wavves started a bit of a revolution with it, leading to loads of copy cats…What bands that around at the moment do you enjoy listening too?

I've been listening to Cameron Wisch's "Flower wars" a lot. Railcars new "Cathedral With No Eyes" is fucking phenomenal. Came out of no where for me. I've actually been pretty keen on a lot of some local kids around here, too.

Like who?

Last Eyes is really great. Like heartbreaking noisy guitar stuff. One big Denver guy is Pictureplane and his new album is really awesome. Pina Chulada is incredible. Their song "What You Mean" is in my head every time I wake up. This kid Colin has this project called alphabets and its fucking prolific. He's only 19 and he's made like 900 songs.

Jesus

Yeah, he's a prodigy.

What do you want to do next with this project?

I'm concentrating more on the mix of the recordings with my first release that I'm putting out. I don't want all the instruments to get lost in it and have it just turn out to sound like some fuzzy mush, and I'm in the planning stages of setting up shows and maybe do a mini tour.