This holiday season, most young adults are spending their days at home with family, hanging out with friends or just reading Proust while warming in tableau next to a raging fire with one elbow propped on the hearth.
The Young Mothers, however, are hitting the road and taking winter break as an opportunity to do a West Coast tour.
These charming lads recently did their tour kick-off show in Phoenix and are readying themselves, for what will be an unbelievably cold tour, by warming up the audiences of Tucson with a scorching interview.
Below, we ask Zach Toporek about the tour kick-off show and why it’s in Phoenix, the Young Mothers’ winter tour schedule and the upcoming year or two.
AZNB: How’d was your tour kick-off show at The Modified in Phoenix?
ZT: I’m writing this about three hours after the Modified show, and I’m pleased to say that it went very well. It was a good opportunity to say goodbye to the city and our families. It was a little bitter sweet, but there was a great turn out, the perfect vibe, and lots of love and enthusiasm. It was also a good opportunity to promote the welcome back show that will also be at the Modified on Jan. 10, which will be a huge, six-band show.
It’s unusual for a band from Tucson to begin and end their tour in the same venue especially when it is in Phoenix. What made you decide to do this?
ZT: Actually the tour starts and ends in Tucson, we just happened to book a few shows in Phoenix on each end of the tour. It seems a little silly in retrospect, but we had two “Tour Kick Off” shows—one in Tucson and one in Phoenix. I’m from Phoenix originally, so I just looked at it as a nice way to share some time with my family before I left for the tour and later returned to school.
How were Hooves and Jason P. Woodbury?
ZT: Hooves was incredible! I had actually never met them before booking this show, but happened to stumble into the right party at the right time the Friday before this show and caught a great set from them. They’re bruisers and make a really awe-inspiring sound in person. Jason was terrific. I’ve always thought that he’d do well in a solo-acoustic setting, and he didn’t disappoint. He played some oldies-but-goodies but with a new take, and it was really something to watch.
Woodbury wrote your MySpace bio. Where’d you two meet?
ZT: A good friend of mine recommended Hands On Fire to me two or three years ago, and from the first note of “Smell Of My Own Kind” I was hooked. I saw them live a few times after that, but didn’t actually become friends with them until about a year after that. Right around the time I finished recording Arts & Crafts, I wrote Hands On Fire a very geeky letter asking if they’d ever like to perform together, which led to them booking the first Young Mothers concert. Jason and I have been good friends ever since, and the bio that he wrote from Young Mothers knocked me on my ass- the “Star Wars” geek in me loves it.
There must be some blatant upsides to Phoenix? What are they and what have I been missing about that city?
ZT: For me it’s family and old friends. My sister worked at the Modified when I was 13 or 14, and the first local shows that I went to were there. It’s nice to come back and perform there like all those impossibly cool people that I saw there growing up. Maybe it’s not very remarkable of a scene for people without those memories, but it does something for me still.
What are you expecting? This is your first tour.
ZT: I feel like expectations are the precursors of disappointments, so I’m trying not to expect much. I expect to be very cold, so if I’m disappointed on that point I’ll be pretty happy. My best-case scenario includes making a lot of new friends, seeing a few new places, and just having the experience under my belt. Hopefully those are pretty safe and sufficiently modest goals for a first tour.
What happened to the joking ‘Chrismikah’ tour title?
ZT: It was replaced by another joke title. It’s probably pretty dumb to name a tour when it’s really just going to be you and your brother in a car freezing your asses off for a few weeks, so I guess it has to be a joke. It’s now called the “Mustaches Across America” tour, which I almost instantaneous regretted the second it became official. But “Chrismikah” would be a much better and almost politically correct name for the tour than what we decided upon. My regret has returned…
Tell us a little bit about your record Arts and Crafts.
ZT: I’d been recording by myself since I was 14 but hadn’t released anything, so I started feeling like a real idiot. I had a friend around the time that I was recording Arts & Crafts who took an interest in the recording process and ended up producing the disc with me, and if it weren’t for him, there’d be no CD or tour.
The EP is five songs, four of which I wrote from the age of 16-18, the last was written a few months before we put out the CD. It’s a little strange to be pushing material that I wrote in high school, but a decent song’s a decent (song), yeah? The CD itself is available on iTunes and Snocap, but those are very impersonal formats. The hard copies are all hand made in my spare time and feature construction paper cases and really awkward stick figure drawings and such. I had a lot of spare time on my hands when I decided to do handmade CDs, so I have to lay in my very time-consuming bed now that my schedule has become much more busy.
How’s the Young Mother’s Street Team going?
ZT: Qualitatively excellently, quantitatively poorly. Last time that I checked, we had four members, the majority of which are in high school. But these are some of the most dedicated people I’ve ever met and they really helped to make the Tucson kick off show at Congress a huge success.
It’s an interesting time to be hitting the road right before the new year. Aren’t you going to be exhausted when school starts again?
ZT: The way that I see it, I’m already exhausted, so why not? As excited as I am to head out on my first tour, I’m going to be very relieved when it is over with and we can start focusing on a full-length album. That should be much less stressful and will make the next tour (same time next year, possible the “Chrismikah” tour?) a bit more important and focused.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
ZT: My New Year’s resolution is to survive the Northwest winter as a citizen of one of the hottest cities in the nation.
What’s going to be the break-out musical phenomenon of 2009?
ZT: I’m no fortuneteller…mash ups of Fraggle Rock and Lily Allen? Rivers Cuomo breaking off from Weezer officially and pursuing a career in solo a cappella dance songs? Those are my best guesses.
Where will Young Mothers be at the end of the decade? What’s on the horizon?
ZT: I don’t know, but that’s kind of exciting. My goals for Young Mothers are to make music using old pop forms but in interesting new ways and to be able to provide for myself and eventually a family. So by the end of the decade, hopefully a few steps closer to that.
Where do the Young Mothers plan on being musically, spiritually and physically?
ZT: Physically, in Tucson, the feel is just too right to leave any time soon. Spiritually, in a state of constant expansion and learning. As far as musically goes, the game plan is to write and record our first full-length album between this tour and the next and then to repeat this tour for the next two years to push the album. We’ll see how that goes.
Is there anything you’d like to say to all the cities you’re about to visit?
ZT: Please be warm and kind. We come in peace, will be with you only briefly, and hope to make as many friends and fans as we can whilst within your borders.
The Young Mothers’ next show in Tucson, after the tour, will be at The Hut on Jan. 12. After that you’ll have to wait until February to see them so check them out. Good luck Mothers!
