Tilly and the Wall taps into a young, sunny sound
The first thing you need to know about Tilly and the Wall is that yes, these five perfectly disheveled hipsters from Omaha are as adorable as their press photos imply. The second is that they don't use a regular drummer; instead they have a tap dancer who sets the rhythm on a wooden platform or sometimes by banging together old suitcases. Third, the band's name, kind of like Belle & Sebastian's homage to a French children's TV show, comes from a children's book -- Leo Lionni's "Tillie and the Wall," about a curious little mouse -- which, of course, is out of print.
And finally, it's refreshing to learn that Tilly and the Wall isn't nearly as pretentious as these facts might suggest. The band, which will open for Rilo Kiley on Tuesday at the Somerville Theatre, makes joyful, hand-clapping music that hovers somewhere between indie rock and sunny '60s folk, a sort of Free Design for a new millennium. Go to www.boston.com/ae/music to hear clips of "Wild Like Children." Tilly's five members were friends in Nebraska before they started the band last year. Neely Jenkins and Kianna Alarid share vocal and "various percussion" duties, while Jamie Williams tap-dances, Derek Pressnall plays guitar and sings, and Nick White is on piano and keyboards. Forget guessing their ages.
"You think we're between 18 and 21?" asks Jenkins on her cellphone. "That's so sweet of you, but we're not. Kianna is 26, Nick 22, Derek 24, Jamie 28, and I'm . . . 30," she says reluctantly.
Some of the confusion about their ages stems from the songwriting. Jenkins says the songs are often written collectively, with one member proposing an idea and then developing it with the whole group. They sing about everything wonderful and challenging about growing up, such as teenage indifference ("A caravan of kids, some big old mess, on an old wooden deck, oh, we're bored to death," they sing in "Nights of the Living Dead") and young love ("You fell down the stairs into my arms and swiftly ran the other way").
Tilly's music can be so sun-kissed and bouncy, you sometimes get the feeling that its members are the kind of people who write letters on Lisa Frank's rainbow-colored stationery and use Hello Kitty stickers to seal the envelopes. There's something endlessly cute about calling your fans "sweeties" and "honeys" on your website, as Tilly does.
And there's no doubting they're children of the '80s: The twee "Let it Rain" opens with a reference to Madonna's "Into the Groove," and "Shake it Out" alludes to the "Hokey Pokey." At their best, Tilly's songs are folksy singalongs or the roller-skate jams its members might have loved as kids. Jenkins says they're always surprised by who comes to their shows.
"You'd expect for it to be mostly kids, right? But we get people who are adults, along with the kids and people our own age," she says, adding that Williams's tap-dancing tends to be a draw for the live shows. "We try to give her a break so that she's not tap-dancing through every single song. That would be horrible if she were out of breath all the time."
That such a young band already has an acclaimed debut album, "Wild Like Children," is in part due to Conor Oberst, the wunderkind musician behind Bright Eyes and other emo-rock groups. Jenkins is Oberst's neighbor in Omaha, and she and Williams were in a band with Oberst called Park Ave. "Wild Like Children," which came out on Oberst's label Team Love, was coproduced by Oberst and Steve Pederson.
Williams's tap-dancing may be the gimmick that gets all the ink, but there's a variety of things to behold. For starters, there's the sturdy singing. Alarid's and Jenkins's harmonies are so forthright and earnest, they practically sound like they're in church. Vocals aren't restricted to the women, though. Pressnall's solos can pack a faux-punk snarl, and much of "Wild Like Children" gives the impression that everyone is crowded around the mike, shaking tambourines and ringing bells.
David Bazan, who performs as the one-man band Pedro the Lion, took Tilly on the road in August, and he was amazed by its ability to charm the crowds. "We played these unconventional venues in some little towns, and when Tilly started, everyone would be like, `What the [expletive] is this?' Then after 40 seconds, they'd totally be into it. Night after night they won over perfect strangers."
Bazan says Tilly's sound is more distinct than one might expect. "It's really tough to do anything original, but they're brilliant at that without sounding contrived," Bazan says. He acknowledges that on paper the band may seem as canned as a fabricated boy band.
"It's not orchestrated or anything, but the hook is definitely there. You've got these five beautiful people up on stage making really sincere, really good music."
