Just like Jethro Tull is not the name of the guy who plays the flute (shame on those people, that’s Ian Anderson), Ivan & Alyosha is not the name of a duo. It’s a Seattle band named for a literary reference. The band is a four piece rock/folk ensemble with an eagerly anticipated full length debut called All the Times We Had due out on February 26.
[Photo by Kyle Dean Reinford]
After two well received EPs, the band experienced a bit of a tumultuous process on their way to finishing the proper full length which involved a few location and production changes. In the end, the old “If you want something done right” mantra proved true, and the end result was worth the wait. In anticipation of a big year, we spoke with Tim Wilson to learn more about the group and discuss the upcoming record.
Hidden Track: To get us rolling, I was hoping to get a little background. For starters, please tell us how you and Ryan [Carbary] met and how you started the band?
Tin Wilson: Ryan and I met through some old bandmates of mine. This is probably eight or nine years ago. I was playing in another band and Ryan was a young dude, probably just a few years out of high school and he was at audio engineering school in Vancouver, B.C. and he came home. He actually grew up in town just east of where I was born up in Snohomish, a more rural area north of Seattle. So, we kind of had this mutual friend and an old bandmate of mine. Ryan came to birthday party of mine and I had been writing more pop, whereas the band I was in was more experimental, Led Zeppelin, and they were huge into M83 and some more electronic stuff, New Order. I wasn’t super into all that stuff, I was just kind of more into popular music in general. So I had been writing these songs and Ryan came up to me and said, “Hey, I heard your songs. We should record those sometime.”
And that was pretty much it. We started hanging out and we eventually started making music together. Long story short, he actually married a very good childhood friend of mine and my brother Pete’s. So, he certainly fit right in, so we kind of went from there.
HT: In terms of the album, I wanted to get some perspective in terms of how you approached it, where you worked on it, for how long and who you worked with.
