While you were in …

NOTE: Oops. Forgot to post this before leaving work last week. Anyway, here is the extended remix of my interview with Tapes N Tapes.

In the mid-2000s, Tapes ‘N Tapes were the beneficiaries of an internet blitz. They got plenty of chatter from all sorts of music geeks with dexterous finger pads, and the wherewithal to buy a domain name.

But unlike internet trends like “Chocolate Rain,” and the make up smeared divo crying “Leave Britney alone,” the Minneapolis-based band continued to pick up accolades offline, you know, IRL.

They released “The Loon,” in 2005, and re-released it in 2007, and the rating scrooges at Pitchfork even gave them kudos.

“Tapes ‘N Tapes do it by the book — that’s to say, off the cuff, taking cues from indie legends and newbies alike with star-pupil rigor, but never sweating the exam. Here’s the charismatic, playfully slipshod band unconcerned with making all the loose ends meet up, audacious enough to leave the dot-connecting to us.”

The foursome followed it with “Walk it Off,” in 2008, which didn’t necessarily make the critics froth. Since then, they’ve been touring, relaxing and writing. Their next album — yet untitled — has a tentative end-of-the-year release date.

Josh Grier talked to the News Tribune about Tapes ‘N Tapes new album, internet burn out, and how it has boggled his mind that people like their music.

Q. What’s the status of your upcoming album?

A. We are done with it. We finished recording in about April, got it mixed and mastered in the middle of July.

It’s all done. We’re very excited. We played almost all of the songs out live, that’s been really awesome for us. … It’s kind of like a combination of our first couple records. It’s not quite as rocking and overdriven as our last record, (although) there are definitely some rock songs on there. We just wanted to make it sound really nice, since we were producing it ourselves. We were really focused on how it sounded.

Q. Why did you decide to produce your own album this time?

A. We’ve pretty much done everything on our own until the last record. That was a really great experience, but now we’ve gone through the process a bunch of times and we have an idea of how we want to do things. We had enough faith in ourselves to say ‘That’s good enough,’ or ‘That’s not good.’ Eric*, our bass player, he produced the engineered “The Loon” originally.

It made us all be really engaged in the process. At the end of the day, if something wasn’t good enough, it was our own fault. This is exactly how we wanted it. … It just made everyone a more active participant in the process.

Q. So what else have you been doing for the past two years?

A. Spent a lot of time just being pretty normal and being at home. There were three years that we were on tour all the time. That was an amazing experience. But I’m kind of a homebody. After the last touring cycle, I wanted a little breath. To be at home for awhile. Living out of a van isn’t the most normal thing to do.

We were playing music pretty consistently when we weren’t touring or recording. I wasn’t in a big hurry to get another record out and go out touring.

Q. Were you worried about losing momentum? That people would forget about you in the off time?

A. Maybe we should have (worried) about it. I wasn’t really worrying about it. It always boggles my mind how many people enjoy our music. It wasn’t expected. There wasn’t that thought that we have to keep going so we don’t lose our momentum. I do think that nowadays bands put out music so fast. People are trying to be relevant. But that wasn’t at the forefront of our concerns. Maybe that will bite us in the ass.

Q. As a band that first got a lot of internet attention, what site do you frequent to find out more about what music is out there?

A. I kind of got overloaded on internet stuff, like in general. I had a hard time sorting through all the stuff out there. Most of the time, finding new music, either I hear about it from friends or I go to the record shop down the street. If there is cover art that looks cool, I’ll get the record. Or talking to people. It’s more reliable than finding the next buzz band.

Q. What are you listening to these days?

A. Old world music. Psychedelic music. A lot of it is just compilations. King Tubby, recently. Jorge Ben.

I’m definitely a fan of having stuff on vinyl. I think it’s interesting how many formats are available. USB sticks, it’s cool. It’s an interesting way to be creative.

Our next album will come out on vinyl. We actually have some tapes of “The Loon” that we have laying around.

Q. What was the most surreal part of your ascension into popularity?

A. Honestly, it was all pretty weird to me. I really never thought there would be people who would (have) an interest in our band. It was totally surreal to be on a show you’ve always watched (“Conan O’Brien,” and “David Letterman,”). It was like ‘How the hell are we here?’ All of the places we got to tour. When we were over in Australia, it was like ‘How did we get over here? They know who we are.’ It was definitely surreal. It was a lot of fun. It was cool that we got to do all that stuff.

Q. You went to Carlton College. What did you major in and what was your plan B?

A. I was a math major. Originally I was going to try my hand at music or going to grad school in math. Luckily, I haven’t had to go to grad school. I don’t know what I was thinking in retrospect. It was an idea at the time.

Photo taken from MySpace.