Tarah Who Interview

1. What inspired the name of the band and what are your influences?

TGC:  It was actually sort of an accident. It was when I first started playing with musicians. (I started as a singer/songwriter and I was going by my legal first name). At the time, another half French/half Vietnamese artist came out. One of her songs got picked up in a movie that made it big so ultimately she also blew up.She never used her face so no one really knew what she looked like and everyone thought that I was her when trying to book shows for the band. That is when I thought we needed a new band name. I sent an email with a bunch of ideas but the subject of that email was Tarah WHo??? Out of all of the ideas I suggested (I hate finding band names) they all replied.. the subject of that email! We had a bunch of gigs lined up and I just wanted it to be checked off my list so I said cool! we can change it later. Turns out… We got more and more shows and there was never a good time to change the name! this was back in 2009 or10 something around that time!

The bands I like are the Distillers, Pantera, Tool, RATM, Motörhead, The Kills, L7 etc.. I am sure that I have been influenced by their sounds but Tarah Who? has different influences. We especially are not trying to sound like anyone in particular. We focus on making sure that the message and the emotions of the song are properly transcribed. If you happen to hear a bit of this or a bit of that, it was not meant to be. A lot of people have the impression that I have listened to a lot of Nirvana, outside of the songs we constantly hear on the radio, I actually have never listened to them. Which kind of ruins it for me now because I definitely don’t want to be influenced! 😉

JS : Players like Lemmy, Geddy, Les and PNut!!! All different styles of bass have influenced me and one example is growing up I listened to 311 non stop and learned every bass line I could possible. Their music is a collaboration of various styles. I am grateful being exposed to so many styles in one band at a young age!

2. How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to

explore when you start off?

TGC: The lyrics come really naturally. It is a burst of emotions, usually anger or sadness. I get lost in my thoughts, and it all feels like a big flash. I like to use a pen and a paper and feel my wrist get really tight, because I try to write as fast as my thought process. I spill it out as the inspiration comes and when it is over I put the pen down,  put the date, time and location and I let it sit for a while. Depending on how I feel I could come back to it the next day or a few weeks later, with a guitar and add music to it. I don’t change anything because I don’t want to change the first emotions I felt. It lasts only a few minutes, it is very intense, i don’t know when it will come but if I am alone and at my place I am usually in tears. If I am in the transportations, then I try to keep my tears in! ha! I don’t push it. If I lose the inspiration, I trust that it will come back some other time, but I can’t be given a subject to write about. I need to feel eery word and moment of the experience I am writing about. No particular theme.. but I can’t write happy… 🙂

3. Why do you write the sort of music that you do?

TGC: It is actually more like a therapy than songwriting. I am a big fan of Rock. I play the drums and bass in other projects. Rock is all I know and want to play. I don’t think about it, I just feel it. I have tried playing drums or bass in pop projects or singer songwriter music .. I was just too bored. I am not saying that the music was boring I was just not feeling it. It was not fun (to me) , there was not spark, no sweat 🙂 . I play what brings me joy. It is the whole point of playing music. For me it is Rock.

4. How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them

into that live setting?

TGC: It depends on the other bands or the venue. If it is a punk venue, we, for sure are going to play loud, fast, and hardly give you a breather. If it is a slower type of event, I will bring out the first songs I ever wrote when my worries and sorrows were a little less tortured. 😉

Coralie and Joey learn the songs as they are from the recording, but I like to change things a little bit so that not only every show is different, but also in order for Coralie and Joey to have their moment. They are both excellent musicians and people should know about it!

It is also more fun for us, to play each show differently and to add more or less. We feel the crowd and we improvise a lot. We feel the temperature of the room and if we need to move things around, we do.

5. What are your plans for the future?

TGC: I am working on the demo of the next ep so that we can plan our new tours soon but also we have the music video of ‘Hurt’ coming out shortly.

The biggest event this year, outside of our European tour in September is the release of our docu-series about being an independent band today, and women in Rock.

Stay tuned for all of the updates @tarahwho