Altered Zones

[Photo by Weird Magic/Erez Avissar]

By Jenn Pelly

MP3: Greatest Hits: "Aleister Crowley Nightmare"

MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"

When I met up with the Brooklyn-via-LA mutant-funk duo Greatest Hits at Bushwick's Swallow Café last Tuesday, they were pretty easy to pick out of the crowd of laptop zoners. Zak Mering appeared in white jeans and enormous gas station sunglasses that made it difficult to tell what he actually looked like, his Ramones hairdo topped with a Sea World trucker hat. Tyler Thacker, who drums for Outer Limits Recordings sometimes and works as a portrait painter, donned black from head to toe, and knuckle tattoos: Masonic symbols from back when he was “into secret societies.”

Thacker and Mering’s threads were pretty fitting for a pair who have been churning out weirdo '80s synth-pop with hints of Italo-disco and cosmic funk since September 2010-- plus kitschy, tongue-in-cheek videos for songs like "Danse Pop," one of AZ’s best of last year, and the semi-controversial "L Train Girl." The tracks have put Greatest Hits all over the map, with 7 inches on labels like Brooklyn’s Olde English Spelling Bee and Tokyo’s Sixteen Tambourines, in addition to a forthcoming EP and LP for Maman Records of Paris, which they’ll call home starting June 15th. Neither Zak nor Tyler has previously visited Europe, and they liken the opportunity-- which includes a DJ residency at Le Motel and tour dates in places like London and Stockholm-- to a “fairytale.” Read on for Greatest Hits' origins, the story behind their name, and how anti-egoism has helped define what they do.

AZ: How did Greatest Hits start?

Tyler: We're from Los Angeles, but New York is where we became more of a band. In Los Angeles, the project was kind of anti-band. We started it as a platform for friends to anonymously submit material-- like stuff they thought was dead-- and for our own material. We'd "Frankenstein" it-- patch it together, polish it. We were both really into collage, Dadaism, Fluxus, and it was a way we could fight the stereotypes that we felt were inevitable when you start to play music. We didn't want it to be about ego or personality-- just music, and the archival mindset.

We got an offer from Olde English Spelling Bee, and it seemed like a great escape for Zak and me. Zak had already moved out to New York, and we were making music by sharing stuff through the Internet. When I moved out [last year], we decided to embrace the stereotype of "personalities." It was an opportunity to play into this stereotype of the band formula. We started writing music that was song-oriented to wrangle interest, and did a lot of video work.

AZ: Zak, I read online that you come from a musical family. How has that impacted what you do?

Zak: My musical family has always been an inspiration. My father had a punk/new wave band in Los Angeles from '78-'81, Sumner. He released an LP on Asylum/Elektra that didn't yield the results he envisioned, due to the music industry [becoming more corporate] in LA. The album ended up bumming my dad out; he broke up the band in search of something more. He has always played in evangelical, charismatic churches, being a lead guitarist in many of the worship sessions that we attended.  My mother is also a singer-songwriter and performs with my father. She released her first full-length album recently; it has a Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Linda Ronstadt vibe. Growing up, my parents played music everyday. It definitely affected the way I take in [and create] music very positively.

My brother Ean has also released a pop album, of the bubblegum hip-hop/pop genre, a few years ago. My sister Natalie has a project, Weyes Blood; she released her first-full length LP with Not Not Fun Records, The Outside Room, to a great reception. It is a distinct sound that is very enchanting, and her voice is an acutely unique instrument in the context of her perfectly executed harmonies. My sister and I are also working on an LP of songs in which I produce songs she wrote, as a collaboration. She is my favorite artist and a huge inspiration for my songwriting.

AZ: Tyler, you're also a visual artist. What kind of work do you do?

Tyler: I've subsidized most of my outside creative and personal ventures through commissioned portraiture, mostly of families. I've also ghost painted over 4,000 works of large scale in 8 years. I built a career largely based on celebrity portraiture and abstractions for commercial spaces. Through this, I've been able to navigate my artistic trajectory without having to use galleries or record labels. Not until the past year did I collaborate with labels to "formally" release recordings. I still have no desire to work with galleries regarding my fine artwork. My painting style is similar in only one way to my recording and production style: in its effort to capture a type of archaeology with realism and clarity. Otherwise, they are entirely separate in my head.

AZ: How did you two meet in LA originally?

Tyler: There was a very specific way, that is illegal… [Laughs]

Zak: I met Tyler through going to shows. His band would always play with my roommate's band.

Tyler: I was in Totally Rad. Essentially, I met Zak through friends. Then I would visit him once a week. Almost every time I saw Zak, he gave me a new record. After six months, I had eight or nine records. And I was like, wow, these aren't repeating songs; this person's really an expressionist. These were old records under Zak's old moniker.

Zak: In 2008, I did a record a month. I was always recording, and I went by Insted. I didn't have the Raw Thrills moniker until I moved to New York. We used to live in Highland Park. I lived there for six months.

Tyler: And I lived there for four years. It's where Ariel Pink lives, and a bunch of other great bands. Everyone sort of migrated out there.

AZ: And when exactly did you start Greatest Hits?

Tyler: About three years ago. Before Greatest Hits, it was Half Nelson Three Times Removed, our first project.

Zak: It was a Sparks cover project.

Tyler: They're one of our biggest influences. Before Sparks were Sparks, they were called Half Nelson. We instantly bonded over this record Zak found of [Sparks] demos from '68 or '69.

Zak: Very quirky…

Tyler: But psychedelic. We covered their demo record. After that, we started thinking: if we were to work together, how could we get across the artistic ideals we hold most dear? The main way was through pastiche, though treating it like archaeology. So many people in our Los Angeles scene were manic recorders, bedroom cats. It was a way to give that a platform stripped of ego.

[Photo by Jenn Pelly]

AZ: What other artists in LA did you feel associated with before relocating?

Zak: I think the whole point of Ariel's style is-- “outsiders.” And so, we are outsiders, and we're from LA. We're not necessarily in the same “scene” as them. That scene's brand new.

Tyler: I think we are definitely part of the same LA scene as Ariel Pink, in a peripheral sense. The thing about that scene is, it's made up of vagabonds and homeless artists and all sorts of crazy people. Communication is limited. It's magical. There are bursts of connection in the distance, and it's all a bunch of freaks. There are lots of bands in on that, but it’s not really a scene.

AZ: But you still felt drawn to come to New York. Why?

Zak: I was in LA for seven or eight years, making music every day. Nothing really came of it besides meeting Tyler. Then I moved here, due to a bad break-up or something, and I got really into Prince and a different side of pop music. It was more sensual.

Tyler: It's amazing how New York carries a lineage of soulful, sexual, Black music that, before I moved out here, I didn't really pay attention to-- like roots funk, cosmic funk, disco, techno, jazz, hip-hop-- all of which has become a serious point of interest for us. When we started, everything was so patched, a kind of industrial aesthetic. We decided to focus on something upbeat and palatable, sexual, danceable. That was experimental for us.

AZ: You wrote a song called "L Train Girl." Are there any other ways in which you feel indebted to New York, musically?

Zak: The No Wave scene was awesome. We're really into that

Tyler: I think music is so much more [engaged] in New York than it is in California, where it's very insular. In New York, people are immersed in a city, bombarded by other culture and other people all the time. You can really trace where contemporary culture is at by the types of music being made by people living there. And granted, we've kind of come and exploited that a little bit, like in "L Train Girl" [Laughs].

AZ: In September, Altered Zones posted "Danse Pop," your debut single. When did you shift in the direction of more structured songwriting?

Tyler: There's a lot of self-mythology we like to spread. We're definitely much more into fantasy. [Mythology] is what survives. The [structured] songs we're doing still have elements of pastiche, but they're more cleverly hidden. When I came to New York, and we started working and living together, we started analyzing structures and synth tones. The next record we're working on is heavily infused with everything we've learned over the past year about palatable dance music. I never listened to techno and trance growing up; that was the enemy. The people I knew that were into it were escapists, but I was a confrontationist.

Greatest Hits: "Fun Girls"

AZ: It’s incredible how the Internet has been such a vital education tool for musicians.

Tyler: It's also destroyed the financial institution of music and film, which is amazing, because in times of adversity come opportunity. There's an open doorway for some amazing artwork.

AZ: For a band that’s depended on the Internet to distribute its music, the name "Greatest Hits" is highly un-Googleable.

Tyler: The blog scene in New York has really warmly embraced us. It's encouraged us to keep other people in mind-- to bring people into the way we see the world, through our music. With the name-- we wanted to be cryptic. We didn't want to be found, and we didn't want an ego.

Zak: At first we wanted to be anonymous.

Tyler: It was also a play on words. When you think of Greatest Hits, you think of the end of someone's career. It felt like an apex for us as artis; it was the death of my former self. When I came to New York, I felt like a ghost. But as we've embraced [people who are into Greatest Hits], it's brought more life into our music. I'm really excited to make a record that's about connection, and living your life-- while still hiding elements of a lifestyle we've lived, that is very removed from society. It's a great name. I couldn't believe it wasn't taken.

AZ: Your music has a really strong party vibe to it. Why is that important to you?

Zak: We've always made music that's appealed to a bedroom audience. I think it is a task to see if you can take it to that next level, where your song might be good enough to be DJed at a party. I've been trying that with my own music, a rap project I have going on the side-- trying to see if I can create that feeling where people are like, "Is he serious? Not too sure.”

Tyler: It's also-- survival. You can only spend so much time in your own head. It's important to figure out how to be a part of society. I don't want to be a martyr to any type of scene or lifestyle.

AZ: Have you guys collaborated with other artists on OESB?

Tyler: For a while our house was sort of like a halfway home for artists on OESB. [laughs]

Zak: James Ferraro, Zac Davis, Sam [Mehran]. It was wild.

Tyler: All our homies were in and out. It was a total circus, man. A total mad house. When Ariel was in town he came and stayed with us. There were artist charades.

Zak: We all worked on music; it was pretty sick. Everyone's collaborated in some way.

AZ: Can you tell me a bit about your upcoming LP?

Tyler: We’ll be finishing the record from a laptop while traveling around Europe; it will be arranged and largely engineered through headphones. We're going out on a limb by thrusting ourselves into a situation where we have no bedroom to return to. I think that will heavily inform making a social record. We won't have access to all the synthesizers we usually do; we had to finalize a library of all the best VSTs and nebulators we could and learn how to route everything through a MIDI controller. It's amazing how good plug-ins have gotten. Hopefully the final stages will be engineered at a studio when we find one in Paris. Zak and I aren't alone in the types of sacrifices we make to maintain a certain kind of creative freedom. I think Zak would agree that despite what we have felt we needed to sacrifice, the last frontier of freedom, especially in an age of information, can only exist in the imagination.

Freak Funk Boy 7" is out now on Sixteen Tambourines, and Girl Crazy EP drops any day now on Maman Records. Info on Greatest Hits' NYC going away blow-out this Friday here