Myra Lee
Dino Expedition had a good run. But for this evolution, the old band had to go extinct for something new to flourish. Named for Cat Power’s 1996 debut album, Myra Lee is about to release a debut of their own.
Out June 26, “Capture The Flag” is this band in their truest form yet. And just a few weeks ago, I spoke with vocalist and guitarist Tahlia Amanson about the band, the record and the songs within.
Listen to this interview anywhere podcasts are available.
The following transcript was generated using transcription software and may contain minor errors or omissions.
YY: I just wanted to start kind of broad talking about the album that's coming up. Very exciting. It's out very soon. Just a few really like a month away at the time of recording. And from what I read, I believe you recorded it in like just over two days or something like that in a basement studio on the Lower East Side. So how do you think that environment and the tight time frame you sort of had for recording this album influenced the overall sound on the record?
TA: Yeah. It allowed us to think, let's try this in one take, and there's really not time to be able to go back and make any edits, which I find is pretty awesome. I think when I started writing a few years ago, I became obsessed with the typewriter because you're not really able to edit and go back and delete. And that's kind of the way I felt with recording live. And just the two days that we did the first day, it was eight hours and we just straight through recorded all the songs. I think pretty much all of them, except two of them were in one take, and then the two others were just in the second take, miked up the room, everything drums, bass, guitar, vocals that one day, and then the second day brought in cello, viola and did some extra vocals. And I just felt just had a way raw sound than my first record. Thanks a million. I feel like it just really embodied the groove and the feeling of our band and how we play live and how we interact with one another. And I think I just really learned that going forward, I want to record live only I just, you can, I can now tell the difference day and night with listening to other bands if they recorded live. I don't know if a lot of people are able to do that. I feel like it's kind of pretty apparent, but it was just so fun. I've done track by track. But it just feels way more natural to do it all at once.
Yeah. Did you record your previous one track by track, or was that live as well with Dino Expedition?
That one was track by track and the band wasn't fully formed then. So it was me and producer Calvin Lauber who mixed and mastered this record as well as my last record. But it was just me and him hopping on every instrument, recording it track by track. So this one, it was really awesome to have like a, a previous foundation and relationship and, you know, have been playing with these people for over a year now and getting to play together and really just like have our ideas already formed and have played the songs live already, but, you know, still like add stuff in the studio. And yeah, it was just a way grittier, raw, which I feel like is kind of like helping the evolution of where we're wanting to take the music instead of more cleaner. We really wanted that kind of grittier sound.
So did working with Calvin Lauber for a second time sort of just help? It feels like there probably wouldn't have been many barriers there, working with somebody that you already had a previous relationship with. I'm assuming he, you know, sort of knows your direction, knows your vision a little bit better. It's easier for you to communicate that with him.
Oh, yeah. No, he knew exactly. He especially knows like what I want for vocals because I feel like if my vocals are very, I have kind of a quieter voice and I don't want them to be on top of everything. And I feel like that's so hard in live shows to communicate with the sound engineer. And he knows exactly. Same with my friend Jeremy Harris, who audio engineered the two days in the studio. And he's a good friend from back home in California who I met through another musician friend. And yeah, he was running panoramic studios in Stinson Beach, California for the longest time. And then he moved out here a few years ago and it was, it was crazy. I always wanted to like record with him, but my band was in New York and he was in California, and that's expensive to fly out, just one person along with instruments because I amp to every show. So it was, I guess you could say serendipitous that he had moved to Chinatown and I was like, let's, let's record. I have a lot of songs. So.
And so you've introduced cello Viola EBow into this new record. A lot of new sort of textures, sounds. How do you because you mentioned, you know, playing live. How do you translate a lot of those songs into a live setting? I'm guessing maybe you just strip them down a little bit.
Yeah. So unfortunately, my friend Omid, who plays cello, he is so, so busy. So he cannot play on every live set we do. But the ones that he can't be on, we will use him. We're currently testing out another guitarist to have kind of like the textural guitar parts that we had on the record and for new songs that we haven't recorded yet to have kind of like a little bit more textural stuff going on because we're just a three piece right now, which I'm kind of having. I'm deciding whether to add someone because I just love the three piece, and I feel like it's just, it's very easy to move with in regards to being a smaller band, playing smaller venues with different sound engineer every time. It's kind of like we hop on stage and we don't really need to soundcheck because we already know and I'm bringing my own amp. So we just plug in and go from there. But yeah, I mean, it's the, the songs are going to be definitely not how they sound fully in the recordings in regards to, you know, we won't have cello and viola every time we play live. But you know, that's what happens every, every show is so different. I feel like I go into every show and I'm, I could be feeling really awful that day and my set will probably be ass. Because I'm not feeling great that day. And then some days I'm just like, I like have a good feeling about the show and then it usually turns out pretty well. So, you know, it really depends.
Yeah. And I'm guessing as a trio too, it makes kind of everything across the board a little bit. It sort of simplifies things, I would guess, you know, from playing on stage recording, I understand you're the main songwriter, but you have also mentioned that Aiden and McCabe sort of shape, texture and intensity. And so I know we moved off the record a little bit, but if there was like one song you could point to that you think underwent like the biggest transformation once it sort of got input from the rest of the band. Is there one that comes to mind?
Ooh, yeah. It's I mean, I feel like there's different, I could have different responses to this question. So we all created Trapped Together. I mean, I brought the song written, but every other song I had previously written with before they joined the band. So I had other musicians playing on them. Okay. And obviously Cabe and Aidan brought their own versions of that song. In regards to drum parts and bass parts. I feel like Gold Soundz was a big switch in regards to the drum parts. Aidan. Like it's just a wizard. Both Aidan and Cabe are wizards with. They're just, they're just incredible musicians, and I feel like it's really hard to find both a good basis and drummer who use simplicity to their advantage because, you know, people are always trying to go so extravagant and it's like, actually the most simplest things are really the most complex. And I feel like they really just have that with their mentality on everything, which is how I roll. And yeah, I feel like for the longest time, I felt like I was always fighting with my bassists in the past with sound and like on stage, it was just like just kind of going head in head and it just sounded so sloppy. And he, he just, I didn't even have to tell him every time, like what I was looking for. He just knew, I guess more on your question. I feel like corkscrew drawers, just every time we play it, it sounds better and better. It is, I would say, the hardest song to sing in in regards to storyline. It's pretty emotional for me. It's also probably the hardest vocally, but just every time we play it, it always just sounds better and better. So I don't, I don't have to do, but maybe Corkscrew Joy's which is about to come out.
Your chemistry is great as a trio. You sort of understand each other. So I can understand, you know, being hesitant to change anything.
Yeah.
But you mentioned something about something like about memory or, or emotion when it comes to your music. And I know that a lot of your music is sort of based on memory or comes out of memory. And so how do you end up turning these often sort of emotional subject materials into a song and not just like, you know, a rant or like a journal entry? Is there some sort of process that you use?
Yeah, yeah. I was actually just writing about this today for someone else and talking about this recently. I, I feel like people don't really realize until they actually like physically read my lyrics, but they actually are extended haikus. I kind of, I went to Pratt Institute for a year then dropped out to record in Memphis and then pursue music. But there I started writing poetry and started writing a lot of haikus and realizing I loved imagery based words and just very descriptive and not using kind of filler words like and if, but like using those very minimally. So that's kind of the way I approach writing, and I usually start off writing just poems and then writing guitar riffs and putting the poems with that. It's never like I'm writing the song right off the bat. I'm usually like, it starts off as a poem.
That's cool.
Yeah.
I mentioned super briefly when we talked about your, the first album that you did, it was as Dino Expedition. I've read a few things here and there. You know, you've talked about sort of what went into your name change already, so I won't dwell on it too much, but I was wondering, what kind of things do you think you might have learned as Dino Expedition under a different name, technically a different project that you might have maybe carried over into this one? Or what might you have sort of used this transition for as an opportunity to like, change or improve upon?
I would say we're pretty similar in sound. I really enjoy the aspect of my really being like a stage name. People have already addressed me as Myra, which is really funny sometimes because my name is not Myra, it's Talia. But it's really cool. It's kind of like a it feels like a Hannah Montana esque way. Like I am, I am a it's my alter ego. And I'm going on stage and like playing this persona of someone with who is explaining or, you know narrating my own life. So there's kind of this aspect of anonymity that I, I like in some way. And I, I kind of write in that way. I don't really use I that much and I don't really refer to myself a lot of the times in the songs. So I feel like it really does do more justice. It serves more justice to the way I write and, and the way we play. I feel like Dinah Expedition is an awesome name and concept. It just, it was lacking correlation with the music itself.
Dino expedition is a very cool name. But yeah, I agree.
It's it's a cool name. Maybe I need to start like a post-punk band and and bring that back.
Yeah. There you go. So your debut album, Capture the Flag, is out June 26th, which is about a month away at the time of recording this. What are the next few weeks look like for you guys as a band and like, how are you sort of, you know, preparing for the release?
Yeah, it's kind of crazy. It's now a little over a year that we recorded this record, and we've been planning this out for a while, but I feel like all of our lives have like been so crazy recently. Like I'm moving very last minute. And Cabe just graduated music school at the New School. We have a release coming out on early June. Yes. It's called it's our third and last single before the record called Corkscrew Drawers and my favorite music video of anything I've ever made will be released then for that song and filmed in upstate New York. And I just feel like it's, it's a beautifully done music video that I, you know, always had like playing in my head. And I feel like we really just created the vision so clearly. And my good friend Ella Bogan, who I went to high school with, and then she went to Tisch for film at NYU. She like did everything and co-directed it with me. So I couldn't have asked for a better person to help make. And I feel like that also is something that I love. I love to work with friends. Like I love to work with friends. I think it's the most awesome thing to, you know, work with people you trust and love and also like learn from them and, you know, support each other's art and creations. I. I. I hope to do that for the rest of the time I am making music. But yeah. And then we have a bunch of shows planned for July and August. Hoping to do a tour East Coast tour later in the year once the record is released. I think we're gonna work on getting digital media for this record. So to be determined. Nice. Yeah.
You guys have a lot coming up, a lot to be excited about. It's cool to have been able to take an abstract sort of vision you had for that music video and then be able to translate it and just, and then be satisfied with the final product. That's the other thing.
Yeah, no, it was awesome. And my friend, this song is about my mom and it's about a pretty serious topic. And so there's also that showing it to my mom, which is going to be a whole nother thing in itself. But you know, she already knows about it. So I don't think it's too much to fear. But that's going to be, you know.
