Tanner York loves music, and you should too!

When listening to Tanner York’s album, Welcome to the Shower, his passion is clear. 

I first came across York while walking down the esplanade in early October, before it got cold. I had noticed Welcome to the Shower while surfing Bandcamp and filed it into my absurdly long “Listen now I'm not kidding” playlist. I shuffled the playlist and was wandering with no particular destination when “Cut Out” entered its way into my earwaves. With that one track, I was hooked. 

The album is a stunning, exciting take on pop and the state of independent music today. York, inspired by early Elephant 6 recordings, put the heavy equipment away and recorded the album himself on cassette. Through this format, Welcome to the Shower is an infectious, eclectic album that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since that day on the trail.

I called York, a senior music technology major at UNC Asheville, to talk about his love for music and his musical process.

[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

Rina: I feel like all of my favorite bands lately are from Asheville. What’s it like living there and contributing to that scene?

Tanner: It's like a real kind of bloom happening. I mean, maybe the giant one came and went but there's still a thriving musical community here of people supporting each other, and just a lot of venues letting anyone go up and try anything. And we get a lot of great touring bands here as well, and then a lot of these local bands get to open for the touring bands and that's how you kind of meet people here at these venues. It's a really great space, I really cherish it. 


R: Are there any groups from North Carolina or Asheville, or just the art pop genre that you've been looking up to? 


T: Well, ever since I got here, this band, they're not really similar to the music I make, but this band Dish is really incredible. They're kind of like, like slow-core, but mixed with like, I don't know how to describe it. They're very dynamic, so they're very quiet and very heavy. They're really great, extremely talented musicians. The band Tombstone Poetry, it's a lot of my friends, that's also a really great band, kind of alt country.

R: I'm from Texas, so that's like my main thing.

T: Yeah, [alt-country has] been a bit of a blind spot for me, for forever, but I've only recently with help of some friends, been getting into, you know, Jason Molina and people like that. 

R: As a college student with—I mean, I'm not sure exactly, but—not the most professional equipment and setup and everything, what was it like making the album? Was it hard to execute your vision, or do you feel like it all just kind of fell into place? 

T: It was almost instrumental in how the album ended up sounding and with that vibe. Thankfully, I'm really into a lot of music that was made on shitty equipment. Like Guided by Voices and early Elephant 6 recordings and things like that. I was just really inspired by them, so I wanted to use this kind of a cassette format. I had pro tools on my computer, and I have a good amount of plugins and software and things like that that I have from the past, but I don't know, I just wanted to kind of get into that warm, timeless sound that I resonated with a lot of the time. I mean, that's the kind of stuff I geek out about, because as much as I love songwriting, I love the producing side of things almost as much.

R: Yeah, I feel like timeless is a really great way to describe it. It definitely has that warm feeling. 


T: I always like listening to bands like XTC. They have an album of demos with all these incredible songs and some of the songs were just even more beautiful in that cassette format where it wasn't as fully polished and it just felt so organic and they didn't spend that much time thinking things over, maybe over-thinking things and overproducing. And that was really inspiring to me. 


R: After I found it on Bandcamp, I think I listened to one song and then I put the whole album in my crazy long ‘listen playlist’ and then I just kind of shuffle it when I go for a walk or something. It really stood out to me, honestly. I've been really anxious lately, feeling like I'm never going to hear every song, or like, see every piece of media. I was wondering, how do you discover new music and is that separate to you from finding inspiration? 

T: Definitely the internet is instrumental for me in discovering new music. When I was in high school, I was on rate your music and stuff like that. Just clicking on genre names, I found some of my favorite albums of all time. I'm extremely evangelical about the music that I like. I really punish people with it, and I play it all the time whenever people are around me.
It's because I want them to see how fucking sick this music is. But yeah, it's mostly just like talking to people and asking ‘what have you been listening to.’ 


R: What have you been getting into lately? 

T: I've been a big Prefab Sprout fan for a while. I'm a really giant fan. And, I'm getting into all their albums now, which is really rewarding. I was kind of mainly a Steve McQueen head. But, for newer artists, Good Flying Birds are incredible. They're incredible, incredible pop, kind of also tape-y vibes. 

R: With the vocal pitching on Welcome to the Shower—obviously, I'm in Boston, so I've never seen you live—how does that work in live shows? 

T: Sometimes I teach the band the songs in a lower register, just because it's really difficult to sing. But there are a few songs, like “Girlfriend,” that we perform at normal pitch, because it's not too pitched up, and I have a sort of high voice, so I can attempt to hit those notes. It sounds really nice when it's up high and jangly and stuff. 

R: Who's in the band right now? 


T: I'm looking for it to kind of be like a rotating cast of characters, just because that's how a lot of my favorite solo artists operate. But the current version of the band is my friend Jacob Pribilski on guitar, Will Elliott on drums, and Leslie Buddy on bass. I definitely kind of want to move in that direction for whatever I'm doing. But I definitely want to be able to make music that I can't necessarily perform myself, cause I have some big ideas.

R: Cool. And then you said a little about your future plans. Do you have any new ideas or big things coming? 


T: Yeah I've definitely been stowed away in my room recording anything I can for another album. I'm just trying to get back into that grind again. Focus more on just writing, producing, and collaborating, maybe. I haven't done so yet, but I definitely want to collaborate with some other musicians. I might reach out to some people I've met over the internet and just send files back and forth.
But just me being me, I do tend to be kind of a control freak, so I will probably mostly work on everything myself, but I don't know how to play clarinet, so maybe if I want a clarinet, I can reach out to someone.

R: I know you said you don't want to do as much touring or live shows, but if you ever come to Boston…

T: I'm looking to get a tour or something together for next year. It's just that I worry about playing too much in Asheville and kind of oversaturating it. I've been playing so much in Asheville and it can become less special to see once everyone's seen you do the exact same set list over and over again. So, I'm trying to slow down in that department, but I'm pretty much open to taking offers from anywhere outside of that show just to kind of widen the scope. 

Tanner York’s debut album, Welcome to the Shower, is available on streaming platforms—except Spotify!—and as he said, he’s looking to hit the road next year. If you're looking for a DIY artist who has an exciting new take on pop music, York is a must listen.