LadybiRdS interview

LadybiRdS lead singer Teeter Sperber has been a rock publicist, did A&R at Virgin Records, sold band T-shirts at MerchDirect and runs 31 Corn Lane with her family. You've probably seen 31 Corn Lane totes and wallets at Fancy Tiger in Denver. She took some time to answer some of our questions. Read on

_ I saw Gilmore Girls on the band's MySpace page! What did you think of the finale, (or did you give up on the show before then)?

* Do you love GG too??? I was absolutely OBSESSED with Gilmore Girls for many years, especially with the shows classic case wrong-side-of-the-tracks punk rock bad boy, Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia, OMG. Hottest! Dude! Ever!) I loved all the alt alt alt cultural/ indie rock references that you could find buried within the storyline if you really paid attention.

A few shining examples: Jess sitting on a bench covertly reading Punk Planet, Rory and he planning a date to go see The Distillers, a Slint album being shown in an independent record shop scene, Jess wearing a Dinosaur, Jr. t-shirt, Sonic Youth playing a show in the town square, and continuous mentions of Bowery Ballroom, a seminal NYC rock venue. Dude, GG was like no other show on TV - it was crystal clear that the writers knew what was up!

That said, it was DEVASTATING to me, like, TOTAL HEARTBREAK HOTEL STYLE when the shows creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino decided to leave for the last season, because she was very obviously the root of all the awesomeness. I tried my super hardest to give the new writing team a chance for Season 7, but it KILLED me to watch the shows swift fall from kick ass-ed-ness. The quippy banter between Rory and Lorelai didn't work anymore, the characters weren't as snarky or funny as they had been at it's peak. I stopped watching, final straw style, around the 6th episode, but would shamefully ask my best bud what was going on and would still secretly read the Television Without Pity message boards. While I did watch the season finale, I didn't cry giant dinosaur tears, which is what I had always imagined I would do at the end of this amazing part of my television life. In closing, I totally hated Logan. Ewh!

_What convinced you to be a part of LadybiRdS?

* I was living in a super small cottage on the Oregon Coast when Tyler asked me to be 1/2 of LadybiRdS. He had been in Gym Class Heroes for awhile and was looking for an outlet for his own magical creations. At the time, I was still very much nursing my musical wounds over the breakup of Ley Royal Scam. That little band had been the most amazing, frustrating, fantastic, humbling experience of my life up until to that point. I had promised myself while living in the little cottage that I was going to break up with music almost entirely, with the exception of listening to Lucinda Williams, our nations saddest, most earnest, drunkest, most desperate lady songwriter. (OMG love her.)

I thought about it for awhile, said no a few times, and then ultimately changed my mind because Ty kept asking and I finally admitted to myself that the part I liked most about my rusty relationship with music was the actual making of it, in the studio, and that's all he was really asking me to do. To lend my voice to a project between friends. Ty was one of my besties from back in our LRS days and it just made sense to grow with him.

_How does working w/ Tyler now compare w/ when you guys were in ley royal scam?

* Neither Ty or myself had much creative input in The Scam, even though we both totally wanted it. I would fight to write my own lyrics and Ty, who, might I mention, is THE BEST GUITAR PLAYER I HAVE EVER KNOWN, would write some of his noodly fantastic licks, but wasn't really able to participate much beyond that. It was certainly a challenge for us both, especially considering we're both opinionated to boot, but, for whatever reason that was the predetermined LRS structure.

For the 'Birds, it couldn't really be a more collaborative, symbiotic relationship. It just works so amazingly well. Ty creates all the instrumentation on this ridiculous keyboard called a FANTOM and he gets to be the boss of all things studio-related. I write all my own lyrics, can totally kick down ideas about how I think vocal patterns should sound, and get to be responsible for absolutely everything beyond the creating of the record; package design, licensing, marketing, choosing radio, video, and press promotions teams. Like everything. It rules because I worked in the music industry for what feels like a bazillion years, so these are the business-y things I like to do.

_How much of the songs did Tyler have written before you jumped in?

* Ty sent me an entire record of instrumental tracks about 3 days before we went into the studio for pre-production. In a neat twist of events, by the time pre-production was over not one of those songs sounded the same. After my arrival it became a completely different record and the cool part is that it happened in a totally organic way. He would sit at his keyboard, I would sit in the beg red armchair across from it, and he would tell me that he was trying to "Teeter-fy" the songs, to get them to sound more like the sonic manifestation of my spazztard personality. Oh man, did he ever do a great job. Little dude is brilliant.

_What are your hopes for the band? Will you do another album? Any plans to tour?

* I have worse performance anxiety than Catpower, so, if all goes my way we'll never ever have to play a live show. It's terribly daunting for me, I still have visions of this lil' 14 year girl up front at one of our LRS shows - she was holding her ears, had her eyes closed and was nodding her head back and forth mouthing the words "No, No, No." I mean, granted, all she really wanted was to see Taking Back Sunday play - and we we're the last thing standing in her way -- but that was the worst feeling evs! I was not meant to be on stage.

Plus, Ty's schedule with Gym Class Heroes is absolutely bananas right now, he's been traveling through Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand - you name it, and he's been there bringing the indie hip-hop to the kids. Neither of us has any idea when his next break will be. Howevs, I know fer sure fer sure that he and I wold both really like to someday make another LadybiRdS record. Ty makes me laugh so much in the studio and also, his girlfriend JoJo makes the best guacamole ever.

_The song "Cooper, Thanks for the Birds" ...what's it about?

* The song itself is about loss, I know I know, par for the course - but! The title is a dedication to one of my best friends on earth, Cooper Sanchez. He's an amazing artist and a fantastic Southern gent. He made every bird image you see attached to this band (with an ink dropper and a piece of plywood, no less!) so we thought it would be nice to secretly thank him through one of our song titles. He didn't even see the title until the saw the finished record.

In other news, before I ever knew him I watched him stomp around in an adult diaper on the Jerry Springer show.

_For "You are the Torro King"...was it always an instrumental or did you consider adding lyrics?

* "You are the Torro King" was always intended to be instrumental. When it was first written it was supposed to be the record intro, but by the time I heard it, it was so long (almost 3 minutes!) that I suggested we make it the outro instead. I think that song is super beautiful and messy and organic and something about the end of it, those noises that sound like they were pulled off a Nuetral Milk Hotel album, makes me really sad.

_anything else about the album or you or the band you want people to know?
* Our one dream is to be on the soundtrack to DeGrassi: The Next Generation. HOLEY COW. That show is amazing!