THEY MIGHT BE DIGITAL: An Interview With John Linnell
Since leaving Electra you've been  doing things on your own and through e-music. As I understand it, this is largely by your own choice.
It was a mutual decision to split with Electra.  We've been asking them for a long time to let  us  go and pursue another record deal.
II was interested in how you came to be working with e-music and how that's working out for you?
Our relationship with e-music is that we are being given very generous terms for this deal. Under this contract we are able to use this material in any other format aside from MP-3.  In other words, we could put it out as a CD on our own if we wanted to.  They are currently supporting the tour that we're on, which is a six week tour of the United States. We're very happy with e-music's end of the bargain and we hope that they like the thing that we gave them.
Frankly, I don't know if they are planning on making any money with this thing. They are in the start up phase of their company where they are trying to establish the legitimacy of the MP-3 and of their record company. They are probably looking at something further down the road.  They are trying to position themselves to be one of the important electronic music outlets in ten  or fifteen years.  Presumably, everything points to that becoming an important thing  and maybe taking over the way records are sold.  I think they are smart. They are doing this the right way.  I don't think that they are making money off of us right now.
As far as you can tell, are people getting them music?  Is there any way of telling if you're doing well?
I don't know what constitutes doing well. It's obviously a very restricted audience. Even within the people who have the proper equipment and software to enjoy their MP-3 collection, there is still this question of whether this format that has become popular because most of the music was free will  be willing to pay money for it.  People seem to have this idea about electronic stuff that it's so ethereal that they shouldn't have to pay for it. Right now, I understand that right now e-music is discounting our MP-3.  They are really trying to get people accustomed to the idea  of buying music over the Internet.  I don't think people are ready for it yet. People are not throwing away their CD players.
It's probably a safe bet that eventually  thing will change pretty radically and people will be buying music some other way that they are right now. But it's not really clear how or who is going to be doing the selling. Everything seems to be in flux right now.
I wanted to move on to some of the  things you're doing with the web.  I got the electronic press release about  TMBG Radio.  It was pretty cool.  What are you going to be doing with this web cast?
It's a very open ended format at the moment. We just thought it would be nice to start this up and put our own programming on it.  In some ways, it's very much in the spirit of Dial A Song. It's something that people can check out in the same sense that MP-3 is a very speculative thing. Listening to the radio on the Internet has a future, it doesn't have a past. It remains to be seen how that's going to develop.  We can put anything we want on here and people all over the world can listen. It's another example of a nice thing that isn't particularly expensive that could develop into something really interesting for us.
You also have Dial A Song on the web now.
For about 15 years, Dial A Song was only available as a local call to Brooklyn. Now it's available on the Internet and it's not expensive to people who live in Japan!
I wanted to touch on some of the things you're doing with the media. You did Dr. Evil for Austin Powers and you've done music for Malcolm in the Middle and Brave New World. How did that come about?
It was absolutely the opportune time for us to get involved in doing more work of this type in our studios.  In other words, we knew that we wanted to do this and we had a very fortunate series of breaks. We started  getting approached by a very diverse group of people from NPR, from ABC  TV, from Disney and from Nickelodeon and Fox. Maybe because we were receptive to this kind of work, it just started pouring in. We really have a  lot to do now. It's very good timing for us because we are really getting ready to real in the touring.  We have been on the road for at least half of the year for the past twelve years.  We really want to do less touring and more creative work at home.  This couldn't have come at a better time for us, especially for me because I just had a son and I really need to be home more than I have been.
Speaking of children, let me ask about this children's record I've heard you're doing?
Coincidentally, we have gotten a deal with Rounder Records to do a children's record.  It will be coming out next year. We have about half the material written already.  It will be a really interesting project in that I think a lot of people think that what we do is already appropriate for children.   This maybe will define more specifically the difference between what TMBG and TMBG children's music is.
We feel like this is a great opportunity to do something where we are not talking down to kids, not dumbing it down in some way.  Having been kids ourselves, we remember what kinds of  things we liked at that age.  There is no reason to hold back on the creativity. I think we can make everything be very full color and interesting think we've come up with a lot of stuff that fits that bill already.
It will be interesting to see if what we do will be embraced by kids.  I'm already aware that TMBG music is among the most popular music for adults who play their kids rock records from their adult collections. Part of the reason is that parents feel that what we do is safe for kids, as opposed to the Marilyn Manson records  or Prodigy records.. I don't think that's the only attraction. I think we have something that a child can recognize as interesting in what we do.
How about the State Songs CD?
I'm really excited about having finished up this project.  They are all songs that have the names of the states, they're not strictly about the states.  They have the form of real state songs, although none of them ever will be.  Some of them may be too clearly inappropriate and some might be seen a clearly negative. That's the idea of the record.  They are alternative state anthems.
What about the rumors that you're forming a record label with Joe Niccolo?
We've recorded a bunch of new songs with Joe Niccolo and we're waiting to hear if he is going to cook us up a record deal. I think he is  trying to cook up a relationship himself with a major label, then he'll be free to produce and have bands he likes be distributed by some major. We've recorded some great material at his studio and we're just waiting to see what will happen  with it.