Entertainment
THE INSIDER: TY SEGALL
find out what makes this cali rocker tick.
We listen to Ty Segall in the summer, when his hazy guitar riffs and low-fi jams seem perfectly appropriate in the smoggy heat of the season. We listen to Ty Segall in the winter, when his gritty pop-rock tracks like "Caesar" are the soundtrack to gray days and mounting slush. Here's what we're getting at: it's hard to find a time when we don't want to tune out to Segall's specialty sound. And lucky for us, the California musician continues to churn out new albums--meaning, there's always a fresh song to become obsessed with. We talked with Segall before he hit the road on his winter tour.
You grew up in Southern Cali but moved up North- why'd you ditch the sun?
It was mainly for school; I went to college in San Francisco. But when you grow up on the beach and the sun and all that, of course you're going to find some problems with it. San Francisco just seemed like the right place to be.
Did you know you wanted to play music professionally?
I've always loved music but never thought I'd be able to play and live off it. I was was lucky enough to be able to put out a bunch of records...by the third, I knew it was going pretty well and I've never looked back.
How is Melted different than your other albums?
It's a little less punk... a little cleaner?
What's your favorite song off the record?
I really like "Finger" the best. I think that one is the most different song I've done up until that point. The others are more typical garage rock.
You've been releasing songs pretty consistently since you started- how do you stay inspired?
It's just about trying new stuff a lot and having mentality of being accepting of different sounds. I'm not worried about having to maintain a sound; it's nice to try something different. My only kind of goal for myself is to never to make the same record twice.
How do you do that?
What happens is you write songs and then realize that you've already written that type of song once, so you try to branch out a little more the next time. Then you do it for the next song, and the next song, and then they're all a little different.
You're about to take off on tour. What do you always take with you?
I'm actually a really light packer. I don't have a computer anymore, so I just pack clothes, basically. And a book.
