FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The singer and one guitarist of punk octet TetrisTetris surprised the other six members of their band yesterday that a new record, once mentioned in passing at a recent practice, is now completely written, recorded, mixed, mastered, and available digitally, annoyed and upset sources confirm.
“I brought up maybe writing a new record at rehearsal again yesterday, ‘cause the last one is already almost two years old,” drummer Beth Cameron claimed. “And [singer] Mark [Green] was just like, ‘Oh, right, yeah… that’s done. I thought I sent you it already.’ Like, what?”
Cameron learned with everyone else that Green, along with guitarist Jenna Riston, had met and discussed the overall direction of the band, made the record, and sent it off to distributors through the last three months.
“We find it’s easier to just tell them what to play,” commented Riston. “Why have eight voices chiming in, when we can just make it real quick and send them the tracks to learn? Between scheduling issues and too many cooks in the kitchen, it’s honestly just easier for me to write all the songs myself, record them all, then bring in Mark to sing. This is how we’ve always done it.”
“And it’s extra convenient ‘cause everyone else in the band sucks,” Green added.
Previous band members confirmed Riston has long worked this way, even in the beginning.
“When we first formed TetrisTetris, there were already three records,” original bassist Daphne Lawrence admitted. “Like, Mark came to me and said, ‘Wanna start a band?’ and then quickly shared a Dropbox folder with almost 90 completely finished songs to learn. And at our first practice, he dropped a whole other album on us and was just like, ‘Well, the tour is gonna be in support of our new record, so learn these 16 songs, too.’”
By press time, Riston had already written the next batch of songs and began prep to record the next full-length — to be completed when she finishes teaching the latest addition to the band, another guitarist, the previous 186 songs in the back catalogue.