Tyler Bussey (Thank You Thank You) Helps Lindsay Reamer Prep for Tour

Tyler Bussey is a musician and songwriter based in Philadelphia, who performs as Thank You Thank You; Lindsay Reamer is also a musician and songwriter based in Philadelphia. Tyler contributed guitars and banjo to Lindsay’s forthcoming record, Natural Science — out August 16 via Dear Life Records — and just last week released his own Thank You Thank You single, “Watching the Cyclones.” To celebrate, the collaborators got on the phone to catch up about it all.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music

Tyler Bussey: What’s up, homie? 

Lindsay Reamer: [Laughs.] Hello. How’s it going?

Tyler: Good. Are you excited about the album coming out finally? 

Lindsay: Yes, I am very excited about the album coming out. I think the oldest song is from late 2019 or early 2020, so it feels like a long time coming. It’s great to get it finally out into the world and released from my mind. 

Tyler: Totally. When did you actually start recording it? The beginning of 2023?

Lindsay: I think it was late 2022, like the fall time, that we had our first session. And then we really got into the meat of it throughout 2023. So, late 2022.

Tyler: Word. People always say, “You have your whole life to write your first record” — but you didn’t really start writing the songs that turned into this record until relatively recently, like five years ago.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Tyler: I feel like things fell into place pretty quickly for you, in terms of wanting to make a full band record. Would you agree?

Lindsay: Yeah. It didn’t feel quickly when it was happening, but now in hindsight, I think it was a normal-to-fast amount of time. Because I had never really made my own music before, and when I started it was very much quarantine pandemic times; I had just recently moved to Philly, and I didn’t really know anybody to be in a band with, so I went through this whole phase where I thought I was a solo electronic musician or something, because I didn’t have any other option. But then when I started to going to shows again and seeing full bands, it felt like more of the direction that I wanted to go. 

Tyler: Right. It wasn’t like, all of a sudden music was something you were interested in doing. In a more peripheral way, music was a part of your life before. Can you tell me more about that? I know you were doing background dancing and things like that. 

Lindsay: Right, right. So, both of my parents went to music school — that’s where they met — so they were always very musical people. My grandma is a voice teacher, and she was always in her church choir, and she did theater as well. So music was always a part of my family, and singing especially. I took voice lessons from my grandma when I was in middle school. Actually, the photo on the back of the LP is of her in the ‘70s and one of her productions that she was in. 

Tyler: That’s so sweet. I haven’t seen that yet. 

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s really funny. The costumes are amazing, and it’s in front of this whole painted set. And the guy has kind of a Lord Farquaad wig on.

Tyler: You don’t know what the production was?

Lindsay: It’s a Gilbert and Sullivan opera called Princess Ida. Very obscure.

Tyler: Interesting. Now, did you ever do any creative writing or poetry type stuff? Was that something that you were interested in before writing songs?

Lindsay: Yes. When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be a writer or some sort of journalist. I was always writing. I even wrote a really weird historical fiction book about the Revolutionary War when I was probably 10 or 11 years old called Blueberry Hill. 

Tyler: That’s so sick.

Lindsay: [Laughs.] It was some sort of historical romance. So I was definitely always writing and being weird in my room.

Tyler: Why was it called Blueberry Hill? I know that’s an old jazz tune or something.

Lindsay: Yeah, I actually recently found out about that connection, but I definitely didn’t know that when I was, like, 10. I think it was called that because — this is so crazy — I think the story was an American girl falls in love with a British soldier, so they have this forbidden love going on and they would meet on this hill that had a blueberry bush in the night, clandestinely.

Tyler: I feel like that’s a trope in a lot of folk songs — a girl who loves a soldier so much that she crossdresses as a soldier to get into the army to spend more time with him. I love that. That’s a song that could never be written now. [Laughs.] 

Lindsay: Definitely not. What about you? Were you always musical growing up?

Tyler: No. I don’t know if I was just a little shit or rebellious about anything that my parents wanted me to do, but I took piano lessons, and in elementary school we had to pick an instrument, and I was so undisciplined about it. I’d goof off playing the saxophone or something. I didn’t really want to get good at it or care. It wasn’t until 11 or 12 that I was like, “Actually, I like music a lot. I want to play.” But I required a lot of guidance. And I didn’t come from a musical family — I wasn’t getting music from my parents or grandparents or relatives or anything. It was way more finding it through record stores, going to the mall, the internet in its nascent stages. I think I got Napster when I was 11 and I just went to town.

Lindsay: Awesome.

Tyler: It’s interesting to me that you wanted to be a journalist, because I see that a lot in your lyric writing. There’s straight up moments of eavesdropping in the songs.

Lindsay: Yeah, I’m a big eavesdropper. It’s one of my vices. When you hear some juicy stuff going on, it’s hard not to just tune into that channel and listen up. 

Tyler: Yeah, but I think that it’s maybe one of your superpowers as a songwriter — you’ve found ways to utilize that material. You overhear something interesting, but then you use it in a song really well. That’s something I feel like I noticed really quickly about your songs. I don’t want to make a blanket statement, but there’s a lot of temptation in art in general to be very self-involved, and your songs aren’t really like that.

Lindsay: Thank you. They feel very self-involved to me. 

Tyler: How so?

Lindsay: Because I feel like they’re all about me. I guess there is this [element] of seeing myself in these external things, but it feels like it always comes back to this internal reflection. But it’s hard not to feel self-involved when you’re writing songs about your feelings.

Tyler: Yeah. I guess I mean that there’s a certain amount of that that’s to be expected, but you are still interested in other people and how they feel. 

Lindsay: Yes. 

Tyler: And I think that maybe there’s a tendency in a lot of uninteresting songwriting to be completely lacking empathy or compassion for others, or even curiosity about others. I love in the first single, “Figs and Peaches,” how you’ve made these connections between, like, the transatlantic porcelain trade and Pangaea and continental drift. And then the last verse, the thing about the power plant, and the temperature of the surrounding ecosystem rising so it’s now attracting tropical fish — none of that seems like a diary entry, you know what I mean?

Lindsay: [Laughs.] That’s true. Yeah, I think that song definitely takes the biggest lens on everything. I feel like I’m trying to see the whole world at once through these little natural phenomena.

Tyler: I also felt like that song did something that — maybe this is a reach, but Bob Dylan talked about trying to write about time in a really nonlinear, everything’s-happening-all-at-the-same-time way on Blood on the Tracks. Songs will flip back-and-forth between the present and the 13th century, and all of a sudden, you’re like, Where are we? Why are we here? And [“Figs and Peaches”] does the same thing, where you’re kind of in the past and the present all at once. That last verse when you’re talking about waiting for the fruit to fall from the tree, I was like, Are you Eve now? Are we in the Garden of Eden? It felt mythological.

Lindsay: That’s so cool, I love that. I don’t think I was thinking about any biblical stuff with the fruit from the tree. It was kind of like realizing I’ve been kind of in the back seat to my own decisions and wanting to be a little more proactive.

Tyler: Yeah, that makes sense.

Lindsay: But I like that it feels mythological, because that’s a cool word, and that’s a cool association.

Tyler: Totally. There are certain myths or origin stories that are shared across different cultures, and even that idea of wanting to be a little bit more proactive in your life and taking the reins more — that’s also the story of the fall. They wanted to do their own thing, and they paid the price. [Laughs.] 

Lindsay: Yeah. So I’m going on tour soon and a question I have for you — because I see you as a person that has done a lot of touring — what are your tour essentials? What should I be bringing with me?

Tyler: How many days is it again?

Lindsay: It’s not even that long. It’s like a week. 

Tyler: Are you are you traveling solo?

Lindsay: Yeah, I think I’ll be driving solo. I’m going on tour with another band, Terra Cotta, but they’ll be driving themselves because I’m gonna be working remotely during it. So I kind of gotta myself somewhere I can sit for eight hours every day.

Tyler: I just got back from a trip where I only played three shows, and I had to take so many extra days to just work around the clock. I definitely think that the calculus changes when you have a remote job, because your needs are far greater. It’s definitely good to bring a bathing suit, because it’s summer and even if it’s just the promise or the potential for going swimming—

Lindsay: Yes, I want to get in the habit of always having one in my car, because the promise of swimming will always be available to me.

Tyler: I switch into that mode as soon as it’s warm enough. Like, my car now has a towel and a bathing suit in it at all times. Also, different kinds of shoes, if you can swing that, is a good a good move. Water bottle — that’s essential. Car charger. I left my phone charger in Chicago last week, and if I didn’t have my car charger, I would have been fucked. And you’re only doing shorter drives on this tour, right?

Lindsay: Yeah. It’s really no big deal. [Laughs.] 

Tyler: I did one of those a year ago, and it was the first time I’d ever done a completely solo thing. But the drives were never more than four hours max, usually less, and it was so great. And then I got ready to do this trip I just did where I went from Philly to Pittsburgh to Columbus to Chicago and back, and it was rough because those drives are all five hours. I think maybe Pittsburgh to Columbus is a little less. But they were all long drives and I was not prepared for it, in terms of how even that extra hour-and-a-half or two hours can really take a lot more out of you. I also drove through a tornado in Indiana, and it was horrifying.

Lindsay: Woah. Was it very strong? Did you see it? 

Tyler: I didn’t see the tornado, but I saw the sky. Speaking of biblical shit. It was an awesome — and I mean awe-inspiring — powerful weather event in the distance. I was like, That looks bad. And then I drove into it. [Laughs.] 

Lindsay: Awesome. 

Tyler: I looked it up on my phone to see where I was in it, and I was just on the edge of it, so I was like, OK, I’ll be fine. I just gotta keep driving. And about an hour later, I was out of it. This is your first tour, right?

Lindsay: Yeah, first tour ever. I mean, you kind of alluded to this earlier, but I was a backup dancer for this jam band. [Laughs.] I did go on tour with them one time. So I feel like I know what to expect. And with my job that I used to do, traveling, doing research, that was kind of like its own little tour experience as well. So I feel like I’m very comfortable with travel and being with myself in other places.

Tyler: Right. I’m curious how you’re feeling about the social aspect of how this will be different, though. Because you’re going to be at the merch table. 

Lindsay: Right.

Tyler: You’ll be singing and talking to the crowd in between songs. It’s up to you to engage with the audience, and that requires a different level of energy. I’ve done a lot of touring, as you said, but to varying degrees of involvement in terms of how much I had to actually interact with people. And I love interacting with people — I’m very social, and I love being at the merch table and talking after the set. But I’ve never had to do it over and over by myself for that long.

Lindsay: Yeah, I’m curious to see what that will feel like. I’m really confused about if I’m introverted or extroverted or what. I don’t really know. Sometimes it feels like I have a really low social battery, but sometimes I just want to be around a lot of people. Maybe you can’t really categorize yourself that way. But, yeah, I’m curious to see. I’m kind more nervous than excited at this point, because I just don’t know what it’s going to be like. But it’ll be an interesting experiment for sure. 

Tyler: Yeah. When I did my small version of it a year ago for the first time, I was nervous and a little apprehensive about it. And then what I found out really quickly was that the drives and the alone time that were baked in with the travel really did recharge that battery. Or it made it so that I would be so happy to be done driving that I was excited to see people. And that’s very different than being in a van full of other people all day, and then having to go be with other people right away. It was a nice change. 

Lindsay: Something I was thinking about before this was — you’re definitely someone that’s played in a lot of different types of bands and played on a lot of different types of records genre-wise. How do you switch gears? How do you find what works in each situation? 

Tyler: I think that I’ve just gone in that direction circumstantially. When I was in my early 20s, for a few years I had this job playing guitar at a church that was near my hometown. It was interesting because it was a very diverse band, in every respect — men and women, white and Black, different age ranges, different styles of music that everybody was interested in. But everybody else was older than me and really accomplished. Like, our bass player played with T-Pain on SNL. The drummer was with Duncan Sheik in the ‘90s. Some of them had been nominated for Grammys. And I was just a kid who didn’t really know what I was doing. Every week, we had to show up and rehearse for an hour and learn new songs and then play them. And there were other things, too; these sort of pressure cooker situations where you had to adapt quickly or you were collaborating with new people. So at this point, I think that’s just a muscle, something that I’ve developed where it becomes intuitive.

It’s hard to think back on how you got from the point of not knowing what you were doing to knowing what you were doing. It’s like learning a language — one day you’re constantly trying to remember what the word is, and then another day the word just falls out of your mouth. It took a long time to get to that point of versatility, and it only happens because I keep putting myself in situations where I’m like, I have to figure this out and quick.

Lindsay: Do you think you’re motivated by that kind of pressure?

Tyler: Yeah. I think artistically, you want to be challenged and stretched. You don’t want to put yourself through the wringer in a way that you’re going to actually suffer and hurt yourself, but I do think that you learn a lot more by being challenged. Like working on your record — I wouldn’t necessarily come in having rehearsed the song a million times at home. I would just come in with a certain trust in myself that I’ll be OK and that it’s just music, and at the end of the day, if the ideas are good, they’ll be good. And if the ideas aren’t that good, that’s OK too. It’s not being afraid.

Lindsay: Yeah. And then this new song — do you think this fits into a larger project, or is it a one-off? How do you see it existing in the Tyler-verse?

Tyler: It’s funny, because I think that at this point in my life, I really want to do something more like what you are doing now. I’ve never made an album of just my songs. I’ve just done things here or there, usually EPs and things like that. And I think for a long time I was bristling at the idea of [making a full album]. I wanted to be like, “No, there’s other ways to exist as a musician and as a creative person.” I think that has led me to being very collaborative, and working in a lot of different bands and making a lot of different records. I like that variety and diversity of material. But now it’s like, the interesting new thing would be to do a normal thing, like make an album. I don’t really worry too much about any one thing — like this song [“Watching the Cyclones”] is in this one style, but then in a few months, I’m putting out instrumental music that sounds nothing like this song. I think maybe that’s what it is: just being always willing to chase an idea no matter what it is and not really worrying about how it fits, just trusting that it fits. And sometimes even when they seem like they don’t fit, that’s even better, because it seems like it’s a curveball and curveballs are exciting. If you just throw fastballs over and over again, someone’s gonna hit it. They’ll catch on. And I don’t even want to catch on to myself. I want to keep myself guessing.

Lindsay: Yeah. I’m never really thinking about what my thing is going to sound like while I’m making it. I think it’s just what feels good in the moment.

Tyler: Totally. That’s something also that I really like about your music: It’s really good, but you don’t seem precious about it. This album is great, but you reworked songs from the EP, you did a cover, there’s joke-y songs, and then there’s more serious songs. It doesn’t seem like you’re taking yourself too seriously or worrying too much about it being perceived as this capital-A Art thing. A lot of the time, that’s my favorite stuff. I mean, I struggle with it. We all struggle with taking ourselves too seriously sometimes or being precious about what we make. But a lot of the best stuff happens when we let our guards down and we don’t worry about it so much.

Lindsay: Yeah. I think incorporating humor and silliness into my songs is really important to me. That’s something that obviously someone like John Prine is a master at. And when you have those funny moments, it makes the sad moments stand out even more. Just having this spectrum of emotion, I think, is something that I’m after. 

Tyler: Hell yeah. Well, I’m really excited for the album release show.

Lindsay: Yeah, that’ll be great. It’s my third time playing at Johnny Brenda’s. My favorite place to play in Philly. They’re the best.

Tyler: Me too. Well, I’ll see you at rehearsal. [Laughs.] 

(Photo Credit: right, Jess Gagne)