Menu Magazine

MENU meets: Steriogram

MENU caught up with Tyson and Tim from Steriogram before they touch down for the New Years event Detonate. These guys are living in the US and doing some huge things over there!

MENU: Steriogram, which NZer hasn’t heard of you guys, seriously?! How did the band come together?

Tim: We were all friends from a young age. Tyson and Tim have been mates since they were 12 and Brad and Jake grew up together. We all played music in different bands at school and around the place. Brad was in a band called Spindle Fish which broke up and Tyson and Tim tried to recruit Brad for their band Lankiss, which on the first practice with Brad the other members left leaving the three guys together to start Steriogram. Brad bought his long time friend Jake in to play bass and Steriogram started. Initially it was a four piece until Tyson’s white boy rap skills were discovered and he moved from drums to being the front man. Steriogram then enlisted the youngest member of the band “JBO” who was then 17.

MENU: There’s five of you involved now, which part do you each play?

Tyson: Vocals

Tim: Guitar

Brad: Guitar / Vocals

Jake: Bass

Jbo: Drums

MENU: Now you’re originally from NZ but you’re now living in the US, how is it all going over there?

Tyson: The US is great, a lot more shows over this way and Americans are crazy! They are really easy to get pumped up for shows and they love rock n roll!!

MENU: You shot to worldwide fame in with the smash hit ‘Walkie Talkie Man’. Tell us about the idea and execution behind the imaginative video clip-

Tyson: Michelle Gondry the famous French director approached us with the idea of doing the entire clip in wool. He said the song reminded him of a punk band that he was once in and in the band they all would wear cardigans, from there he came up with doing the whole clip in wool. Literally everything in the clip was knitted. It took Michelle and his team 3 months to pull the clip together, even his own mother did some knitting for us. Luckily it was only a three day shoot for us but we sweated like pigs for those three days!

MENU: That same song was picked up by Apple to advertise the iPod, how did that came about and how has it affected the band?

Tim: The iPod ad was huge for us and it really help give the song massive profile around the world. It came about by us being checky New Zealanders. We managed to get Steve Jobs (the head of Apple) fax number through a friend of ours, back in the old days of fax we sent him a little note telling him who we were and that we just signed a deal to Capitol Records in the US from a video we made on iMovie. The note just said thank you. Two weeks later the phone rang and it was Steve himself saying thanks for the note and that he would keep an eye on us and help us out if he could. He then started mentioned it in his key note speeches which led to it being on the iPod ad.

MENU: You’ve also had some nominations for the MTV music awards, tell us about that-

Tyson: Yes we were nominated for five MTV awards with Walkie Talkie Man. Unfortunately we didn’t win any of them but we did get to go to the awards and rinse them of as much free stuff as we could! Tim and Jared probably ended up with the best score and both took home watches worth 5k which have 99 diamonds around the out side. We also got to attend all the celebs parties and found ourselves hanging out with gangersta rappers at Missy Elliots party and P Diddies party! We had a ball!

MENU: Your latest album ‘Taping the Radio’ was released this year, how has it been received?

Tyson: It has been recieved really well, our Latest single ‘Moving On’ has done well and the video is getting extensive play! Check it out on Youtube.

MENU: Are you still performing regularly in the states?

Tim: Not as much as we used to, we are all doing different things now, Tyson has a hair product called Fat Boy which he is doing out of NY, (check it out online Fatboyhair.com) Tim is Managing artists in New Zealand, Brad is in a couple of bands and starting his own label, Jake is in New York making pies and looking at opening a bar and Jbo is in New Zealand with his first kid and taking over the world of car parts. So we are all doing different stuff and then come together for a few months every year to play shows and write songs. Keeping the dream alive!

MENU: And back to NZ, the whole country is excited to see you return and is awaiting your performance at the huge New Years festival Detonate which is being held in Taranaki. What can we expect from your performance?

Tyson: Well we are all very excited to play as it’s been a while for us, so we will be having a party on stage and want to make it a party for the audience. Word has it that we’ll have a lot of fire works to play with

MENU: Who are you most looking forward to seeing at Detonate?

Tyson: The Autozam boys and The Rabble

MENU: How long will you be back in NZ for?

Tim: We are back for a few weeks as we are releasing our movie in New Zealand so come check it out, you can see the trailer on our Myspace! myspace.com/ steriogram

MENU: A huge feature of the Detonate Festival is the massive explosions (one of which will be exploding a car!) and fireworks. What’s your thoughts on all this?

Tim: We love it as we are all pyro’s deep down. On our first trip to the US we found a fire works outlet and sent almost $1000 filling up a road case full of fire works to take on tour! This led us to putting on our own displays over free ways and almost getting arrested by the cops on countless ocassions.

Catch Tyson & Tim this New Years at Detonate Festival in Taranki, it’s set to be MASSIVE!