Story by Shane Connor
Photo by Courtney Hendricks
A body on the move is always running somehow. The fire of pistons is just another escape, and it’s the same as turning your own head from the past and never looking back. Problem is, you’re bound to get lost when eyes are pointed nothing but straight ahead.
I must have missed a turn somewhere.
I’m in a car west of Eugene roaring out towards Florence, where country roads are peppered with signs warning drivers of crossing deer and livestock. I’d been cruising for six miles in the darkness before I’d realized I’d taken a wrong turn, so after a 180 degree whip around I cursed the moon through the windshield and crossed my fingers. Surely now I was on the right track.
The address was cleanly written on a post-it note on my rear view mirror. After backtracking another five miles, I finally found the road I was looking for. I had passed it after turning off highway 126, and instead of veering left like I should have I took a right like a lost goose in the fog.
So I think: This turkey has found his way.
The green trees whipped past the headlights and night was above the hill before me. Climbing up in second gear, fog overtook the road and I saw it sticking to the asphalt. I took another right and ended up on a private drive, where none of the houses had visible addresses.
Well what the hell.
Then I heard it: music rising up from a stately country house to my right. I pull into the driveway. I park. I walk towards the garage and stare at the door. Like any man lost in the dark I go wherever I can. The door opens to a stairway. Ambient music seeps down.
I went up. Christmas lights hung everywhere. Enough beer was stockpiled to my left to nurse a small infantry. The rug tossed on the floor was reminiscent of an acid-trip I’d never taken. The music rolled on.
I think: There are no artists without critics.
They stop. They see me. Silence, then broken: Oh, hello On the Tundra, I say.
Hello. May we play one more song?
Play on. I like to soak up a scene for a bit.
So they play. And I listen.
On the Tundra, local Eugene band and brainchild of Mark Leahy, is an instrumental cohesion young at heart. Founded in February 2009, the quintet layers keys, guitars, drums and bass into progressive rapture. As I stood and wrote my thoughts down during their last song, I found my pen being pulled to their rhythm like the sailor to the siren. Hypnotic, I thought. Frightful, almost. It ended with a whimper.
We sat down so I could ask the hard questions and become familiar with the band. Miles Patterson (the drummer) sat to my right, Mark Leahey (the guitarist) front and center, Nic Gusset (the other guitarist) off to my far right, Casey Izdepski (the keyboardist) off to my left, and Jesse Soikhonen (softspoken bassman) on a stool. A few things I wanted to cover involved music itself as an art, but the preliminaries were important as well: never forget foreplay as I like to say.
SC: When was your guys’ first show?
OT: April 4th, 2009 at the WOW hall, opening for Maus Haus.
SC: How’d you get that gig?
OT: Maus Haus approached us actually, after they had heard our demo.
SC: A demo made by the band?
OT: Well, Mark made the demos himself. He writes the songs and we play them as our own arrangements.
SC: Collaboration baby, works well. So you have demos up, do you have an album?
OT: Yes, we made our own album early in 2009.
SC: Has On the Tundra gone on tour yet?
OT: Of course. We know the Northwest scene well. We toured California during late August.
SC: To southern California?
OT: Yes.
SC: What venues did you play at in Los Angeles?
OT: The Viper Room.
SC: And in San Francisco?
OT: At Kimos.
SC: Was it hard, touring at first?
OT: You know, a lot goes into putting on a good show. We played a couple gigs where no one even showed up, at dive bars and the like.
SC: So it goes.
OT: But now, especially around the Northwest, we’re able to pick and choose our shows, which is a real liberty at this point.
SC: Not to change the subject quickly, but how would you guys describe your music?
OT: Epic music for whale lovers.
SC: Epic music for whale lovers?
OT: We are instrumental explorers.
SC: Instrumental explorers of epic music for whale lovers?
OT: One or the other. We try to convey a wide range of emotions in our sounds.
SC: I see. Yes, I must admit I’m new to the instrumental, ambient music aside from jazz. Tell me, what do you feel is one of the most important aspects of instrumental music since it lacks a vocal voice?
OT: It’s about keeping the audience’s attention, keeping the music interesting, progression and layering.
SC: Would you say dynamics plays a role?
OT: Sure, of course, but aside from dynamics, the tensions between subtlety and extremes are equally important.
SC: As musicians, what are your guys’ goals in creating music?
OT: We want to reach a wider audience, since we’re not 100% accessible to everyone. You’ve got to find the base, you know. We want to get on a label, get out in the van and tour, distribute and all that jazz.
SC: Ah, doing it all on your own.
OT: Exactly. We want to make vinyl and keep music underground.
SC: Now this is interesting. There is a clash between popular music and independent, underground music in this day and age. What is the role of underground music?
OT: Underground music lets the artist have their say… no hands tied… there is more creativity and expression, artistic integrity, and the music is more respectable. We can also break free from rigid instrumentation.
SC: You guys are trying to break the mold?
OT: Think Dylan at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival. He got up on that stage and played electric, and they booed him. Folk enthusiasts said he had broken the orthodoxy of folk music.
SC: Dylan… you know, I can’t understand half of what the guy sings sometimes.
OT: And that’s the role of the voice as an instrument. We don’t sit down and listen to the lyrics. We prefer to listen to the voice as an instrument, for its own unique sound.
SC: It’s funny since Dylan is commended for his poetic virtues…
OT: We like that attitude of Dylan doing something different. Sometime, just listen to Lay Lady Lay. Don’t listen to the lyrics. Just listen to his voice as an instrument and focus on the melody he’s singing.
SC: I do love that song, and I have trouble hearing what he’s really saying. I suppose that’s part of the appeal.
OT: What’s it called, where you can “hear” colors, or see colors as an effect of sound?
[the band argues until someone shouts synesthesia]
SC: Trippy stuff.
OT: They say Kanye West has it. He makes paintings from music.
SC: Kanye West… synesthesia… let’s see, where has our topic gone?
[I rifle through my notes as the band chats amongst themselves]
SC: Ah! What are, in your guys’ opinion, the best and worse venues in Eugene?
OT: The WOW hall for sure. House shows are great and Black Forest has been getting better and better.
SC: Oh yeah, Black Forest…
OT: Wandering Goat is a great venue as well, but we haven’t played a show there yet. Sam Bond’s and Lucky’s are excellent too.
SC: And the worst?
OT: Sidepocket. Any karaoke bar. Oh yeah, and the Astoria Bar.
SC: Shit, my band played a show at the Astoria Bar. I thought it was alright.
OT: Wait, what’s your band? What do you guys play?
SC: Woah, hold up now! I’m the one interviewing you guys. We play ska music. That’s all there is to be said. As for the Astoria Bar, I thought it was a pretty nice venue. Pool table, good beer, nice stage, and they even have poker in the back.
OT: Yeah, but they had a poker tournament going on the last time we played there and it was kind of intrusive.
SC: The same happened to us when we played… the old geezers shut the doors on us in the middle of our set, you know, to the back rooms so they wouldn’t have to listen. But it is a nice bar.
OT: It’s too far out on 11th. No one ever wants to drive out that far.
SC: True. Let’s see, I only have two more questions for you fine gentlemen. First, what are some of your favorite local bands?
OT: Dust Bunny Monster, Adventure Galley, Sea Bell, Underlings, Dan Jones and the Squids, Starvation Diet, Staggering Depths, Ninth Moon Black, Yob, Samba Ja…
SC: And second, what is the best beer in the world?
[A fiery discussion ensues. No consensus is reached.]
OT: Homemade beer and Oakshire’s espresso stout? Black Butte Porter?
SC: Perfect. They’re all winners.
I packed my notes and left, bidding them goodnight from the stairwell. The music began again as I walked out the door. On the Tundra: instrumental explorers fueled by dark beer. Watch out for them around the West Coast.
On the Tundra came in second at Ethos’ Bandest of the Band event. Learn more about the winner, local band Sea Bell, here.
