INTERVIEW: Taylor Nelson & Alaine Dickman of Wiping out Thousands

Local MFR favorite electro-awesome duo Wiping out Thousands celebrate the release of their debut album, This Came First (available now for free download) tonight in the 7th Street Entry!

Taylor Nelson and Alaine Dickman are possibly the raddest pair in the city. MFR sat down with them and had an extensive get-to-know-you chat (seriously, three hours long, there may be a part two…) ahead of the show tonight. We talked about a lot of things; iTunes libraries, their high school years, the adorable Boxer puppy Marko, Starcraft, and how Metro Transit leaves Alaine at her stop every few weeks. Obviously we couldn’t include all of it, but check out some of the great highlights below!

Don’t forget, MFR & Plumspotter are hosting a meet up at The Depot before the show. Taylor and Alaine will stop by, and so should you!

What is the most played artist/song on your iPhone right now?

Taylor: She [Alaine] will put a ton of music on there and plug it into her computer less frequently and I have mine set pretty much every night so when I get home from work and I’ll hit auto-fill; so it will just add 2GB of music so that I am always listening to something different.

Alaine: As for an artist? The most of it is (…counts..) 12 Radiohead albums? B-sides, remixes, etc. I have a couple guilty pleasures on here…

MFR: Tell us your guilty pleasures.

Taylor: If you want most played artists recently it’s Sloslylove. He’s the one that’s opening the show. He doesn’t play a lot of shows but he has quite a few albums. If you know Washed Out, it’s like that sound, the Portland electro sound. I’m really excited that he is playing the show.

Alaine: My guilty pleasure right now, is Ingrid Michaelson. I listen to a lot of bands where there are guys singing so it’s kind of my girl jam.

Taylor: Is Bruce Hornsby a guilty pleasure? Of all the songs of his on my phone the only one here is “Mandolin Rain.” And I probably wouldn’t skip it if it came on on shuffle.

What was the last thing you purchased/downloaded musically?

Taylor: The last thing I downloaded was…so, I’ve become addicted to Bandcamp. This is a timely thing to say because of the blog post from the Lower Dens. I read the article and she makes a really good point about having everything you want all the time. But, jumping off of that, I purposely go on to Bandcamp and if I find an album that is free I’ll download it, I won’t listen to it, but I’ll put it into iTunes so that randomly, some time in the future, I’ll come across it and go “I’ve never heard this before.” I know what’s in my library right now, so if I add stuff that I don’t know, don’t even know of the name, when it comes on later I’m going to really love it or really hate it. I think that is kind of neat.

Last one I consciously went out and purchased was…locally, the new P.O.S. album. Which is awesome. The other album that I got was Talking Heads.

Alaine: One of the last things that I purchased was a Sublime album.

Which local release of 2012 can you not live without?

Taylor: It sucks to use P.O.S. as an example because it’s obviously the biggest release this year from an individual artist…

Alaine: After seeing the show…

Taylor: I’ve never really ever been to a rap show. I’ve seen a lot of them on TV, I’ve watched a lot of them online, and one of the issues I’ve always had with hip hop shows is that there is 30 people running around screaming into a microphone. I want to hear that person rap live, and they usually don’t rap the same live as they do on the album, they are usually shouting a bit more. So, when we went and saw P.O.S. I was afraid of that happening. But it was just him! And when someone was featured on a song they just came out and did it.

Alaine: It was done very tastefully.

Taylor: It was amazing. His production is unique, it reminds me a lot of Marijuana Deathsquads (that mixtape they did is awesome). I would say it’s a tie between those two. One of the reasons our local hip hop scene is so awesome is because of that; unique production, all the rappers are very articulate and have something to say. We got to the show in time to see Mike Mictlan which was awesome too. It’s different than anywhere else. I’m just going to say P.O.S. Having gone to the show, that’s the reason why.

Alaine: I don’t think I’ve listened through Aby Wolf’s (A. Wolf & Her Claws) stuff in full, but there are a couple songs there that get stuck in my head.

Taylor: Very catchy songs.

Growing up did you have a ‘song’ with another person (i.e., best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend)?

Alaine: In middle school (laughs), “Paranoid Android,” the second track on OK Computer [Radiohead], my friend Haley and I listened to that song forever. We used to freak out; I was pretty weird in middle school. Another friend of mine, we would listen to The Who’s “Pinball Wizard.” That we would listen to on repeat.

Taylor: You’re such a hippie.

Alaine: Her dad had a record player and we would go down to the basement and listen to that over and over again.

Taylor: I had a friend in high school that would DJ weddings and school events. I would always go along and help him. “Around The World” by Daft Punk has a special place. We used to take his speakers and plug them in my car and put them in the back and show up to school in the morning with giant speakers blasting Daft Punk.

What type of bands were you in in high school?

Taylor: The band was called Kids Eat Free. Me and my friend who is in The New Monarchs (Sean Hogan) were in this band in high school. We did a lot of Coldplay covers, and a lot of Grandaddy covers too. We had our own songs but it was like a… clash of…stuff. A lot of the bands in my high school were like kids playing 70s, long hair, Zeppelin t-shirts.

Alaine: When I was in high school the bands were covering Dashboard Confessional. I was in band, not in a band. I was always trying to not be a weird band kid.

What did you parents listen to when you were growing up?

Taylor: I grew up in California; right outside Sacramento. The company that my dad worked for did a lot of work in the bay area. A lot of the bay area bands of the 70s and the 80s was what he listened to. Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, George Benson.

Alaine: The Gap Band and Quincy Jones. Frank Sinatra. The Guess Who; our old Saturn had a tape deck and we had a tape of The Guess Who. Every time we were in the car together we listened to The Guess Who.

Taylor: My dad took me to a concert to watch The Guess Who open for the Doobie Brothers. I saw those two bands at the Target Center when I was like…14 years old.

Alaine: Carole King, or Rickie Lee Jones. My dad loves Norah Jones; he’s kind of obsessed with her.

Is there a song you absolutely don’t want to hear? Least favorite?

Taylor: There is a song that you [Alaine] listen to…

Alaine: The Decemberists song? Taylor hates The Decemberists. Well, can’t stand his voice.

Taylor: That’s an unfair choice, there is clearly much worse out there. Actually, anything that Bruno Mars does. He is talented, we watched that SNL episode and he made me think of a young Little Richard; that’s what I thought. But he writes that ‘girl you’re amazing’ song and it just…urg. I wouldn’t say it’s a specific song but any artist that you can look through and see a bunch of suits behind telling them what to do… I wish that didn’t happen.

Alaine: Gangnam style?

Taylor: I love that song.

MFR and Plumspotter are hosting a meet up before at The Depot before the show. The purpose of Plumspotter is to pick your top five up-and-coming bands and gain points as bands start trending. If Wiping out Thousands had to choose their top five Plumspotter picks, what would they be?

1. Observer Drift - his album is awesome.
2. Marijuana Deathsquads - the current incarnation of it
3. Sloslylove - he has videos on YouTube that have 30,000 views, he needs to play more shows.
4. James Blake
5. Grimes
Honorable honorable mention:
Tanlines
Races
The Dead Weather

Could both of you use the other’s initials to choose three words that describe each other?

Taylor: [Alaine’s initials are ALD] Abstract lyrics, damnit!

I am so happy that she is a lyricist and does it the right way. The first thing she ever sent me when we were exchanging ideas was a Garageband file called “Monster In The Closet.” It was a multi-track of her making noises, no words. I was like, “this is cool, but not really what I was expecting..” so when we went to the studio and wrote lyrics for Reaction Machine it was awesome.

Alaine: [Taylor’s initials are TAN] Tastefully, asymmetrically, nude.

Nude because there is nothing that you [Taylor] hide behind. And asymmetrically because it’s not the same as everything else; a little different. And, you’re tasteful.

Catch Wiping out Thousands tonight in the Entry as they celebrate the release of This Came First.

Interview by Laura Yurich
Radio K & Vita.mn present Wiping out Thousands
w/Laliberte & Sloslylove
8pm // 18+ // $7 door
7th Street Entry

Posted 6 months ago