Q&A with Toddlers

Triangle band Toddlers released its 19 EP last month. The quartet’s brooding, expansive pop is highlighted by band leader Nathan Toben’s signature croon.

Diversions staff writer Chris Powers caught up with Toben to discuss the EP, as well as the band’s forthcoming full-length record and what it was like working with renowned producer Mitch Easter.

Diversions: What was the writing and recording process like for the 19 EP?

Nathan Toben: We did it over the course of five weeks. Individually, three of the four of us had some songs just sort of hanging in the wings that we hadn’t done anything with yet.

We decided to bring them all together to fill out an EP, initially for the folks who supported funding our LP, to give to them as a thank you.

Then it turned out to be something we were pretty proud of so we decided to do an official release of it as an EP.

Dive: You recorded your first full-length record with prominent local producer Mitch Easter last fall. What was it like working in a proper studio with an acclaimed producer?

NT: He is extremely well-educated and experienced in that respect. So we were kind of expecting him to be very hands-on, which he was, but in sort of the opposite way we thought, which was that he just showed us exactly how he likes to work, which was pretty much put a microphone on it and do whatever is most natural.

So we found ourselves taking a few days to really get used the fact that it really was just us doing whatever was most natural for us.

Instead of tracking all drums and bass and building up each song equally, we decided to do one song at a time to let us build each song up to a near finished point and then move on to the next one.

Mitch’s involvement was crucial in the sense that he facilitated an environment that allowed us to work at a fast and productive pace, to not feel the pressure of time frame or anything like that.

When we would come to disagreements or hard decisions, he would kind of gently guide us to a resolution of those conflicts. But pretty much he’s like a teacher who sort of teaches you how to teach yourself.

Dive: Do you prefer working in a studio setting as opposed to the home recording techniques used to record the EP?

NT: I’d say that there are benefits to both. I’d say that we are very self-critical, and each song goes through sort of a rigorous revising process before it gets to a point where we feel like it’s a completed product.

And having a time frame limitation has actually turned out to be a helpful tool in us coming to those conclusions, that finalization, faster.

So having that limitation with the EP was actually sort of indirectly inspiring. But for the LP, it allowed us to entertain the sort of more off-the-wall suggestions that band members were throwing out there.

So on the LP, we have really interesting disruptions in the songs that probably wouldn’t have been able to be entertained if we had less time.