Just a few hours’ drive from New Orleans, the members of The Tontons were all born and raised in the sprawling metropolis of Houston, Texas. In their fourth year as a band, they’re starting to gain some ground with bigger festivals and national touring. We sat down with them a few hours before their set at Hangout to talk about how they got to this place, where they want to go from here and taking back “lounge.” The Tontons are: Adam (guitar) Justin (drums) Tom (bass) Asli (vocals) and Chris (guitar).
Everything I was able to dig up in my research on you guys labeled you a “blues-pysch” band. But I didn’t get anything like that from listening to your material.
Tom: We don’t know who came up with that. Sometimes we’ll find ourselves just saying that because we have a hard time explaining our sound.
Asli: It’s hard to define yourself. But Houston is the type of city because the music scene is so small that they demand that you’re in a category. Like you’re tejano, or you’re rap and that’s what you do. So I think somebody, they were trying to figure out something for us and all they could think was “there are guitars… blues pysch!” This was before there was a big indie scene. So the first few bands that were indie got labeled really weird things. Nobody was just “indie.” It would be like “oh, they’re Folk-Americana,” but really they were just indie. We just happened to be “blues-psych,” but we’re really not at all.
The thread that I kept hearing throughout your songs was a real “lounge” feel. It has a negative connotation in a lot of ways, but Tom Waits is technically a lounge singer. I think you guys could help reclaim the term.
Tom: Especially when we first started the band, most of the music we were writing was better suited for a dark club. We used to play house shows and we didn’t really fit in, because people wanted a party. We played a couple outdoor shows and agreed that we needed to change up the set, because some of these songs did not translate to daylight. [laughs]
Since people seem to have such a hard time coming close to a genre label for you, what would you coin yourself as?
Asli: Sexy music. That’s what we started out trying to do.
Tom: At first that’s what we started out trying to do, but then we just gave up. [laughs]
So you want to aim for rich, complex music… that people make babies to?
Tom: Yes. That face… [ASLI gives her best soulful baby-making face]
Our other writer, Kate, has been asking this question to other bands, so I’ll ask it, too: time travel—when and where do you go and why?
Asli: I know this joke has been made, but we’re all ethnic, so we should definitely go forward.
Tom: Yes, forward.
Asli: We don’t know where forward… just forward. Actually, you know what, as a black chick this is pretty much the most kickass time. I don’t see it getting any better. Because I’m like super novel right now so I get a lot of shit that other people wouldn’t. I think maybe I’d travel back in time to a really good night I had and just drug myself so I can re-live it. I don’t think I’d go anywhere because this is a really good time in my life.
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