Toro y Moi is the lo-fi project of Chaz Bundick. Back in 2009 Toro y Moi released a 7” comprised of an A side: Blessa and B side: 109. Each song represents a full-length album Carpark intends to release in 2010, his first full-length album Causers of This featuring Blessa was just released yesterday. Toro y Moi toured this fall with Islands, played the Brooklyn Bowl and recently shared a bill with Washed Out, Neon Indian and Tickley Feather. On Feb 4 he starts a massive tour that spans all the way to April 24th and includes dates at SXSW as well as a show here at Monkey House in Winooski on March 28th. For a visual and musical example check out the video below, followed by a few clips from an interview with Toro y Moi I did back in the fall.
Ginevra Shay – So, do you live in…Columbia South Carolina? Is that what you said? Is that where you’re living now?
Toro y Moi – Yeah I live there now, too. Uhm, pretty small town. Not much going on, except the university.
GS – Nice. So, tell me a little bit about the name of your music project and how it came about.
TYM – Uhm, Well toro and moi is, uhm when it first started didn’t have much of a deep connection, and I made it up when I was a kid, when I was like 15. I don’t know what I was thinking then so. It’s just kind of random, but there’s the coincidence in there that it’s a double ethnicity name and I’m half Pilipino and half Black so they kind of, I don’t know, it kind of represents me as two things. I like that. Never thought of it though. Yeah it just means the bull in me. Toro is Spanish for bull and moi is French for me.
GS – What instruments did you start off playing?
TYM – Uhhhh, when I was like 8, I started playing piano. I was forced and I really didn’t want to! I mean, my mom offered it. She’s like, “Hey, you want to take piano?” and I was like, “Ok, I’ll give it a try.” And then I haaaated it. Then I was stilled forced to take piano lessons and forced to practice. I guess, I don’t know… (pause) That’s pretty uhm, standard in Asian households. I mean, like, you have to do an extra curricular activity. Uhm, so I did that and I hated it. So I quit that. Then my mom was like, “Well you have to do something.” So, I picked up guitar when I was in 4th grade and I loved it. I quit practice though, my mom made me take lessons for a year and I hated it – but I still kept playing afterwards. Uhm, so, piano and guitar first then I sort of taught myself drums and bass. Pretty similar to guitar. That’s all you need.
GS – What instruments do you use now to make music?
TYM – I use all of those. Uhm, The piano, drums, guitar, bass, and uh samples. Sampling other songs and stuff.
GS – What inspires you to make music?
TYM – Uhhhhhm, I don’t know. I usually want to make a song whenever, I don’t feel right or I feel like something isn’t right. The majority of the songs I make are pretty negative content wise and lyric wise. I don’t know. I think that’s for me…(pause) I mean, because nothing’s ever perfect. So, I feel like if I ever made a happy song its not 100% accurate of how I’m feeling (laughs). I mean, things are going well and stuff, but you know there’s problems – girls, or family, or life decisions.
GS – I used the song 109 for the mix. Could you tell me about that?
TYM – Yeah. That song, well I call it 109 because its from History 109. I took this class in school called History 109 which is the study of Latin American History and I failed it the first time! I really needed that class to graduate, like literally to graduate I just needed my cultural history. And so, I tried literally my hardest. I went to the tutor sessions, did all the extra credit, did everything. I was trying to be the TA and teachers pet and the professor still failed me. In my mind I felt like, failing a student who tried that hard is just not fair. Especially when she knows that it’s just a requirement. I majored in graphic design, not fucking history. Just because I didn’t you know, understand who invaded who first…(laughs)
GS – Yeah.
TYM – Yeah. I pretty much like all of my songs to be true. I mean, I even name-drop the people, like Mr. Jackson. That’s my TA.
GS – (laughs)
TYM – So the first thing I say, I’m addressing the song to him. The funny thing is, when I retook the class, the next teacher who was way cooler, and a younger kind of teacher or professor was already a fan of my music. (laughs) So one night he was drunk at this bar, Colombia is really small, he was drunk at this bar and we were all hanging out, and he was like,
“That song, 109, is that about History 109?”
“Yeah”
“It’s not about me is it?”
“No, no, no, no! Its about Ramon, it’s about Ramon Jackson!”
“Ohhh, fuck him!”
(laughter)
And it was just so funny to hear a professor say, “Fuck him” about a TA but he was just joking though.
GS – (laughs) That’s awesome. So, uhm, let’s see…I also heard “Supposed to Do.” Is that one of your earlier songs? It seems like it was and that there’s been this huge shift.
TYM – Uhh, yeah that was like, (sigh) I was like really getting into, trying to get into, some garagey rock type stuff. I never really finished that sort of phase. The second album for 2010 is going to be more like guitar based like that. That’s uhm, that was just, I don’t know, just about how you’re supposed to just go with things. It’s about having a shitty job and not having a girlfriend and you’re supposed to just go with that.
(laughter)
TYM – You know, things aren’t going to be perfect. So just keep going on. That’s about as vague as I usually get is when I have songs that are so universal like that. A lot of the songs are pretty personal who ever is listening knows what I’m talking about, I feel bad playing those songs in front of my friends. (laughs)
GS – Do you listen to music frequently? If so, what do you listen to?
TYM – Ahhh, that’s funny. Yesterday I drove from New York to North Carolina in complete silence. Just ‘cause uhm, I wanted to sort of meditate. But this morning I was downloading some really good like, funky stuff from the 70’s. These sound tracks. They had some really good bongo rolls and drum break sound stuff. Whenever I listen to music I listen for stuff that I could possibly sample. But that’s not the main intention of finding it. I really like Arthur Russell a lot. He’s such a huge influence of my song writing right now. I’ve been into this jazz artist recently called JJ Johnson, he’s this trombonist from the 40’s. Really good stuff. I really like it because it reminds me of New York, kind of like really dirty. Pretty much reminds me of the movie Taxi Driver. Which is why I love it. It just sounds so depressing that I can hear Robert DeNiro talking over it.
Thanks for reading, pick up the album, it’s amazing and come check out Toro y Moi at The Monkey on March 28th.
