TTSSFU

Manchester-based TTSSFU are great. Big melodies with enough dreamy weirdness to keep things interesting. Anyway, I sent some questions to the TTSSFU Bandcamp page, and here are the answers I got back:

Is TTSSFU just you or is there someone else?

TTSSFU is all me , I record everything alone , write everything alone, mix and master everything alone  because I’m a complete control freak ,plus when you're alone you can make all sorts of strange noises and no one bats an eye , I get embarrassed super easily so a studio is kinda my nightmare .

Do you ever play live? If so, what's the line up?

I just officially got a band together , I’ve stolen basically the whole of Diekiedie , paddy Murphy guitar , reuben haycocks bass , matt deacon synth , Dylan jumpy drums , I’ve known these guys for a while now and trust them a-lot its been a bi push for me to get in a practise room and start this for live , paddy was the one who’s really pushed me to do it and I’m glad because its made me very happy , happier than I thought so i'll be doing shows soon.

You’ve released a lot of new music in the past couple of years. How often do you record stuff?

I record stuff every other day , I write pretty much everyday. I hear ideas in my head all day. I just love music so much to be honest it's probably one of the only 5 things I do like , it's annoying not being able to be a slob and just sit recording ideas all day .

Do you record at home or in a studio?

Home , studio NEVER 

Boring gear question: What guitars, amps, pedals do you use?

I use my dads old fender squire that he gifted me for most the recorded work , and pedal wise I actually just use presets on garage band and fuck around with them until its right to me , live I use holy grail pedal and this £20 behringer awesome “ultra metal “ pedal its fantastic everyone should buy one.

Any plans to release a full length album?

Ep coming out soon , that's 7 tracks ? I've also recorded more stuff to come out after that , there's so many songs but I just grew out of them. I literally have 3 albums, maybe 4 of unreleased shit .

How do you decide which songs to put on Bandcamp vs the usual streaming platforms?

Well if projects don’t stick together and something goes wrong (to me ) they just end up nothing , there was a album “Jesus dream “ that rememebr, California basically all the singles on Spotify was leading up to but I got bored and started releasing for the upcoming EP and now I’ve fucked up the schedule so they just end up on band camp or YouTube , I really care about all the songs so it sucks ass but oh well .

Any reason why there aren’t any physical releases of your music?

Laziness? I guess , I’ve been making to make some cds , I did in fact make a physical cd for Alex g when I met him , he’s the only person currently to have a physical TTSSFU EP and the one he has is Jesus dream which I was on about above ahahahah .

I love the slide guitars on Jed and Yeah Yeah I Do. Any special tricks to getting them to sound so good?

The cheap studio amp preset , with a delay and silver reverb does the trick.

Is that some kind of flanger are you using on the main guitar in Growing Older?

Again it's just one of the presets on garage band for growing older.

At All is one of my favourite songs from the past year. How did you write and record it?  

At all is a pretty ridiculous song , it was about this person I had a crush on for a while and one night we finally got together and i was obsessed with the idea of this thing maybe becoming something then I found out he had another girlfriend lined up so he never cared “at all “ and then I realised I actually didn’t care that much , also I didn’t actually have photos of him on my wall I’m not that weird but it sounded better then saying “I scrolled through your instagram wall” .

Songs like At All and Yeah Yeah I Do have a kind of 60’s melody. Any favourite music from that period? 

I love the beach boys a-lot they are in my top 5 favourite bands , I like the velvet underground a-lot too , and i listen to a lot of French music too , I love the film the dreamers and it has this incredible song on the sound track called “love me , please love me “ by Micheal Polnareff , I’m heavily inspired by stuff like that I love the desperation of it .

Do you use the same keyboard for everything from the organ sound of At All to piano of Remember?

Nope , the organ sound in at all is played on this Casio keyboard my sister to for Christmas when she was like 12 , it was useless for years till I figured out it had the classic Casio sounds and a output ( incredible ) , and the piano on remember is a garage band preset mixed with reverb to make it sound more full and it's a behringer midi keyboard I think it's like £60 or something I bought it thinking it was a synth but I wasn’t disappointed . 

How did you get the nightmare strings sound on Palms?

Again messing with loads of presets they have so many on garageband it's incredible what you can do for free .

Do you ever play some of the most ‘ghostly’ songs like Slips live? If so, how do you do it?

I've been planning on doing slips live when I finally do a show but I doubt it will sound anything like the original track , it is what it is .

How do you ’slow’ your tracks down like with In My Pocket?

I put them in iMovie hahaha just to mess around , sometimes I prefer them slow to the original.

Did you record songs like Little Flea to a click track or did you just go for it?

Just go for it , lack of knowledge on how to record a track without drum structure 

Was it harder to cover Nirvana or Alex Cameron?

Alex Cameron I suppose , I don’t have enough attitude or sex appeal to create what he does on his tracks .

What’s the best place to play in Manchester?

I've played around a lot with my other band Duvet , I think my favourite venue has to be the pink room in yes bar , either that or band on the wall.

Reverb or delay?

Reverb ! But recently I’ve loved a slap delay.

If you had to donate all future millions of your Bandcamp revenues to charity, which charity would you pick? 

Super hard to pick , but I really care about the homeless , because its fucking horrendous thats still going on.

What is the most tedious thing about being a musician - other than doing really long interviews?

Waiting to go on stage if you're the headline act, it's so annoying having to sit and not be able to let loose , you can't really do much , can't drink too much , cant eat too much or you'll feel sick , it's boring but exciting I suppose the adrenaline is there.

Hula Hoops or Quavers?

Quavers : )