Courtesy of Tally Hall
The Daily touched base with Ross Federman, drummer for Dillo Day performers Tally Hall. He discussed color coordination and Tally Hall’s transition from a college band to signed recording artists.
Daily: When did you finalize coming to Northwestern?
Federman: About a week ago. It was very recently. We were on tour a week ago and we got the “Would you be interested?” call from our manager. It wasn’t for a few more days that it was all confirmed. It’s an awesome lineup. I think we’re just super excited to play with pretty awesome people from two completely different genres. N.E.R.D. is a great hip-hop act and The Decemberists are a really awesome indie rock band. Either one of them would be really great to play with. Some of the music rhythmically has a lot of hip hop influence in it, even though I would say for the most part songwriting-wise or lyrically it’s much closer to your pop rock, indie rock kind of thing. It’s cool to kind of be sandwiched between two totally different acts like that.
Daily: What artists do you think of as your influences?
Federman: It’s tough to say. All five of us contribute to the writing process. We have very diverse backgrounds in music. Some of us were strictly classic rock, others were more in tune with the ’90s alternative scene, the ’90s hip hop scene. There are certain areas though. We like to have vocal harmonies, so in that vein, bands like Queen or the Beach Boys, especially, and the Beatles really put the emphasis on thickening up the sound with harmonics. The songs on our first album were written when we were in college, so there’s definitely a certain Weezer or Ben Folds Five sense of youthfulness.
Daily: So, were you all in school together?
Federman: Yeah. All five of us attended the University of Michigan together. Zubin never graduated and I never graduated. Things had been going really well around Ann Arbor and it was pretty clear that people went on to grad school or figured out what they were going to do after college – the band was going to break up, just by natural force of not being in the same city. We all kind of wanted to see what would happen on a broader scale if we gave ourselves the opportunity.
Daily: We have a couple of student bands at Northwestern, one of which is going to perform on Dillo Day. What advice would you give to students who are at that same juncture, deciding between continuing their education and making it big?
Federman: It’s one of those decisions that’s going to be tough to make. In an ideal world you think you can just stick to your guns and if you know in your heart that it’s true and it’s right, you’ll make it happen. There is a lot of truth in that. Even if we all left making our goal, “Let’s see if we can make it on to a major label. If we can, then we’ll keep going. If we can’t, we’ll go back to school.”
Daily: You each wear different colored ties. Why?
Federman: Originally the main thing behind that was a little bit twofold. We felt it represented us well. It gave a sense of unity in the matching outfits, but there was also the concept of the individuality, in that each color represents a piece of the puzzle. But on a practical level, there are so many college bands on any given college campus. We thought “Okay, well, why don’t we make this kind of the premise?” So even if the name or the music didn’t get out there, there was another thing, the “Oh, yeah. The guys with the shirts and ties.”
Related:Guide to Dillo Day 2009 5/29/09Dillo Day Q&A: Hip hop artist Mike Posner 5/29/09
