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(from Immolate Yourself out now on BPitch Control)

Telefon Tel Aviv’s third full-length album Immolate Yourself was released this past January just after the death of founding member Charles Cooper. Joshua Eustis is now touring the U.S and Telefon Tel Aviv continues to live and even thrive. This interview by Britt Witt.

How do you feel when people talk during your show?
Joshua Eustis: I don’t really care—I mean, people are going to talk during your show no matter what. If they’re talking it means they’re not listening, but I don’t have much of an opinion about it. It’s funny because the beginning of our set is quiet and there’s always a handful of people going ‘Shh! Shh!’ You know—shushing the crowd.
Your music keeps me mellow and introspective. How do you feel when you actually perform?
Joshua Eustis: The live show is a little more rock than it comes off on the record—I mean, it’s still pretty stoney and mellow but the theme… The stuff that we’re playing now is almost entirely off the new record so it’s pretty dark. It’s a little bit mopey and depressing and I’m kind of a mopey guy anyway, so maybe that comes over in the live show. It’s hard to tell.
You’re a mopey guy? Is that why the new album is called Immolate Yourself?
Joshua Eustis: No, the title of the album was an inside joke between me and Charlie, honestly. It was like a black metal title. We were thinking back about all those metal bands with all those long names with complicated words or whatever. They have ridiculous song titles and the music is awesome. He had written a song without a title and it was about burning alive, basically, so I was like, ‘Ha ha, dude, you should call it Immolate Yourself—metal style!’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, okay—cool!’ He called my bluff. The record as a whole is pretty dark. It’s our darkest record yet—it’s just a reflection of our lives in a way. Very much actually.
Does playing all this dark music keep you feeling down?
Joshua Eustis: This year has been so shitty. I mean, for once for some strange reason, I’m not really depressed anymore. I’m just hopeful, you know? It’s been so bad that I’m hoping things are going to get better. I’m mellow but my attitude is pretty upbeat.
You need to be like that!
Joshua Eustis: Life’s too short to be pissed off and sad all the time.
Does playing now make you feel better—more hopeful?
Joshua Eustis: No, not the actual playing. But after the show people will come up and say, ‘Thank you for coming here—it’s been so long! We haven’t seen you play ever!’ ‘It’s been a million years—we really appreciate it and we’re glad to see you seeing this record through to the end in the form of playing it live!’ I really appreciate that—it validates the struggle.
And it validates what you’re doing, too.
Joshua Eustis: Yeah—if your music can make even one person’s life better then that’s the whole point, you know? That’s what we’re doing. Music is supposed to make people happy or help them through a difficult part of their life or make them remember something awesome or—I don’t know, any of those things! And if you’ve accomplished that for one person then you’ve succeeded.
Do you consider yourself an emotional person?
Joshua Eustis: Totally—too much.
That pours into your music?
Joshua Eustis: Of course—my heart’s on my sleeve.
You have a pretty good sense of humor.
Joshua Eustis: Humor has kinda been the whole thing. The music is so fucking serious and such a bummer that the humor in our lives is kind of necessary, you know?
I would say so—you don’t act like your music.
Joshua Eustis: Not really.
Are you working on any other projects right now?
Joshua Eustis: I’m in the middle of making a record with this group from Brooklyn called the Depreciation Guild. They’re in another band that’s really big called the Pains of Being Pure At Heart and this is another project that they’re doing. It’s really good—they’re super cool dudes and they’re awesome to work with. So I’m helping them make their record.
So is it you and them on one record?
Joshua Eustis: No, no—this is more like my day job. It’s like kind of engineering and mixing and producing other bands. They came to me like, ‘Can you produce our record?’ I said, ‘Well, I can fuckin’ try, you know?’ I feel like a dipshit if I call myself a producer. I mean, there are really only two producers in the world—one of them is Dre and the other one is Flood.
Do you read a lot?
Joshua Eustis: My favorite author right now is this guy Jesse Ball. I think he lives in Chicago or he lived in Chicago for some time—he’s this really surreal guy. His books are amazing. I couldn’t begin to describe it to you, but they’re mind-blowing. He wrote a book called The Disastrous Tale of Vera And Linus. It totally changed my life.
How so?
Joshua Eustis: It is the coolest thing I’ve ever read. I don’t know how to say it any other way—it was one of the most original things I’ve ever read. It’s creepy, surreal, metaphysical, dark, beautiful, sad… It is everything that I love all piled into one place.
Do you really wish that you had a tanpura drone following you everywhere you went?
Joshua Eustis: Yeah, that would be great. Fredo [Nogueira] got me a little shruti box for my birthday, which is a little tanpura drone box. I love it. It’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s funny because I had answered that in an interview and he didn’t know I had said that and then he ended up getting me this tanpura drone box for my birthday. It was super cosmic. It was very meta. Like this happy happy coincidence.
Why do you like the tanpura drone—to be mellow and relaxed?
Joshua Eustis: Yeah—I’m kind of a mellow dude, so it’s good. I don’t like that being all harsh all the time thing.

TELEFON TEL AVIV WITH THE RACE ON FRI., SEPT. 25, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 8:30 PM / $8-$12 / 21+. CLUBSPACELAND.COM. TELEFON TEL AVIV’S IMMOLATE YOURSELF IS OUT NOW ON BPITCH CONTROL. VISIT TELEFON TEL AVIV AT TELEFONTELAVIV.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/TELEFONTELAVIV.