Aided by Omaha’s premier producer, Tilly and the Wall grow up just enough on their third album.

With her incandescent hair, sleeve of tattoos, DayGlo apparel and a performance style that alternates between coordinated dance moves and stage diving, Tilly and the Wall frontwoman Kianna Alarid comes off as a modern day Josie leading her own band of indie-rock Pussycats. Although in her case, there’s more ink and better tunes.
Alarid helped co-found the band, which takes its name from a children’s book by Leo Lionni, in 2001. In the seven years since their inception, Tilly and the Wall have released three full-length albums along with numerous EPs and 7-inches filled with high-energy indie-pop nuggets with names like “Rainbows in the Dark” and  “You and I Misbehaving.”

Watch the music videos for “Rainbows in the Dark” and “You and I Misbehaving.”

Throw in a preponderance of sugary hooks and gang-chant vocals, and the whole thing comes across as a bit larger—and brighter—than life. And without a doubt, Tilly and the Wall wouldn’t have it any other way.

Watch our video interview with the members of Tilly and the Wall, and get to know them a little better.

Teaming Up
Before the Omaha scene catapulted to the top of the indie rock world at the beginning of the decade, Alarid, fellow singer Neely Jenkins and tap dancer Jamie Pressnall had all played together in various groups around the city. The band’s keyboardist Nick White and guitarist Derek Pressnall—Jamie’s husband—had also played together in their pre-Omaha days the Atlanta-based band, Dead Bird. “We started hanging out, because we all write songs,” Jamie says. “That’s how we started becoming friends.”
Before long, they decided to try writing a song for fun, even if they were missing a few of the parts that most band consider essential.
“I was playing guitar, and we didn’t have a drummer at the time,” says Jamie, a tap dancer whose fancy footwork replaced the missing percussion. “There was kind of one of those magical moments on the first song we did
with taps. I guess we just never looked back.”
Before long, the quintet had written six songs and started playing small gatherings and shows around Omaha. According to Jenkins, the group’s friends, who included some of Omaha’s best-known musicians, eventually convinced Tilly’s members that it “might be fun to take it another step up.”
However, Omaha is a town known for its abrasive music about wartime protest and despair, and the band’s upbeat approach didn’t always mix well with the city’s dominant sound. Their outsider status became clear when the Saddle Creek label, home to many of the city’s notable bands, including Bright Eyes, The Faint and Cursive, made it clear they weren’t interested in bringing them into their ranks.
Instead, the group joined Saddle Creek co-founder and Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst’s Team Love label, which he had started in order to sign bands that didn’t necessarily fit the Saddle Creek mold.
“In Omaha, there are a lot of people that have been there and have been through it. So I think that they were generous to help us,” Alarid says. “If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Tillyesque
While one Bright Eyes member helped the group get its start on the national stage, it was another Bright mind that helped the group craft its more elaborate and mature (but not too mature) album to date.
Their recently released third album (although officially self-titled, the album is widely referred to as “O”) was produced by Mike Mogis, co-founder of Bright Eyes and the de-facto house producer for all of Omaha’s major acts. Mogis, whose recordings have ranged from the orchestral to the raw, had played on Tilly’s previous releases but hadn’t previously produced a full album for the band.
 At Morgis’s urging, band members began experimenting with different sounds, percussion techniques and instrumentation. In one instance, their first use of a tack piano—an upright piano with tacks attached to each key—resulted in the ragtime feel of songs like “Alligator Skin” and “Poor Man’s Ice Cream.”

Listen the songs “Alligator Skin” and “Poor Man’s Ice Cream.”

But these musical explorations weren’t limited to the studio. “For this record, we had a stomp troop, which was ten people, and we wrote parts and had rehearsals and recorded everybody in a gym,” Jamie says. “That was really cool, something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, but this was the record, really, where it all really came together and really worked with the songs.”
Not only did the group evolve during these sonic growing pains, it also strayed from its usual positive, good-times vibe into darker territory. The album features the angry “Pot Kettle Black,” a rough take down of a backstabbing friend. “That one is just about frustration in general; girls are catty, and so am I. So it’s kind of fun—poking fun at myself and at girls in general,” Alarid says. “It’s a more constructive way of getting out your frustrations.”

Watch the music video for the song “Pot Kettle Black.”

Though Alarid denies that the band was purposely trying to make a more mature album this time around, she admits that many of her fans have told her that it does feel more grown-up.
“It’s a natural progression,” she says. “We never really aim for anything; it just sort of comes out. And that’s how it’s always been with us.”