Splendid: Yeah, it definitely seems to be more about the mood or the tone than the structure. How would you respond to people who constantly tag your music as mellow and kind of chilled? It seems more emotionally intense than most mellow music, at least lyrically, and a little darker than some people make it out to be.

Pramod Tummala: You know, we've sort of been kind of plagued with that. I mean, everything I've done recently has been kind of laid-back and chilled out, I guess, but yeah, it seems that a lot of the reviews just focus on how it's really mellow and really quiet. I've heard a lot more minimal quiet things out there. I mean, I don't think we sound like Low, which I think is a good example of a band that's really slow and mellow for the most part, so I think a lot of it is... I mean I guess I'm not surprised. People often just give things a cursory listen and don't pay that much attention to what's really going on. I think you have to listen to some things more than once to really get a good handle on them.

Splendid: Definitely. I think if there's a darker subtext, there's always a difference between what you're hearing now versus how you take it in when you listen to it again.

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, yeah

Splendid: So your band Melochrome is on extended hiatus. Do you know when you guys are going to make another record together, or do you just plan to more solo work for now?

Pramod Tummala: We keep talking every once in a while. Darlene, who is in Melochrome -- she's the other singer and plays bass -- she ended up moving to North Carolina, and she does come to visit every once in a while. Melochrome was never really a touring band, and I didn't feel like doing another Melochrome record without her. I just didn't think it'd be the same, so Tom, who is also one of the core people in Melochrome, is really involved with Morning Recordings, and we do talk about doing another record. I think maybe we will, but she would have to involved one way or another. The last Melochrome record, which I think was all of our favorites, was really collaborative, and Darlene was really involved in the writing process, and musically, so it has been tricky. I think we'd want to do it that way again. Although we're thinking that the next time she comes to visit for a week, we'll just try to play and see what happens, and then maybe the next time she comes back we'll record it all -- or maybe we'll record it and she can record her stuff in North Carolina, 'cos digital recording seems to make it a lot easier for people who aren't in the same city.

Splendid: Do you think it would affect the music if you recorded pieces in different places and tried to patch it all together? Would it take away or add anything to it?

Pramod Tummala: I think one thing that we've kind of gotten used to is working within our limitations, especially with Melochrome. We went through drummers for the first couple of records. Tom was originally playing bass guitar and keyboards, and he had a drum kit as well. We just decided to play as a three-piece and write as a three-piece for that last record, and I think that style of playing is very particular. We basically just worked around that and it worked out really well. I mean, we all have similar sensibilities as far as what we like and what we like to work with, and I think when you use your limitations to your advantage, you can do some things that you weren't really expecting. It's kind of newer and fresher in a lot of ways. If we did something sort of piecemeal like that, I think it might be kind of interesting. The more I talk about it now, the more it sounds like something I'd like to do.

Splendid: Do some things work better in the context of being a solo artist rather than within the framework of a band?

Pramod Tummala: I find that really interesting, and it's something I kind of jumped into when I did the Morning Recordings record because when I was doing band stuff, it was pretty collaborative, even if it was something I was doing. I mean, I was playing a lot of the instruments in Melochrome in the studio, but I still had, like, two or three other people in the band around me telling me if they thought something was good or bad or could be done better or differently. So you have that kind of collaborative thing going on, even though I was still maybe playing most of the instruments on a given day. But when I was doing the solo project, it was pretty much just me and Barry, who I was recording with, so I didn't have that kind of feedback and it was kind of interesting. You feel like you're walking in the dark for a little bit at first. It wasn't too hard to do. I think I got used to it. At first it felt weird, not having it there, and I definitely second-guessed myself a couple of times. This particular record is really kind of personal in a lot of ways, and very intimate. I think once I thought about the songs themselves and the mood developing in the studio, I just went with it. I didn't really think about it at a certain point, but at first there was definitely an adjustment to being on my own.

Splendid: Lyrically, the album sounds a little bit more introspective and cathartic. Was it difficult getting those personal ideas out there on your own?

Pramod Tummala: It's kind of a transitional -- I guess that's the word for it. A lot of the songs were actually quite old; I had some solo shows before, even when Melochrome was still kind of happening, and some of those songs were from my solo sets that I had done. Some of them were written in the studio. A lot of them have the same themes, just stuff that was happening in my life around that time. But in that context, it was nice that it was just me and there weren't a lot of people around ­- I mean, it was very personal and it was kind of nice not to have a lot of people listening the whole time.

Splendid: I guess this is sort of a clichéd question, but when you're writing, how do the lyrics and the melody all come together, especially when the arrangements are so lush and complex?

Pramod Tummala: Usually it starts off as a pretty skeletal piece of music, and then melody tends to come after that, depending on whether it's an instrumental or a song with lyrics. If it's the latter, those will probably come next. The nice thing is that it all kind of happens differently. There are some songs that were written in the studio -- all the instruments or a majority of the instruments are kind of laid out, and then I would take it home and maybe add a melody and some lyrics to it afterwards, and then lay the vocals down. So it really varies. Some songs are just guitar or piano and vocals, and then everything else comes after it, so... I kind of like the unpredictability of it. I don't like to get too formulaic about how things happen and I think it works out nicely with this record. It's pretty organic, and every song was composed differently from beginning to end.

Splendid: Were there any songs that surprised you?

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, "Airports" was basically written in the studio and Barry has this instrument called an optigan, which is pretty fun.

Splendid: Yeah I noticed that in the liner notes. What exactly is that?

Pramod Tummala: It's a great instrument. It was made by Mattel, I think, in the seventies, and it's modeled after the mellotron, but instead of using tape, it's like a keyboard that plays optical discs, like plexi 12 inch discs. Each disc has different sounds on it -- some are folk sounds, some are circus sounds or carnival sounds and big band and a whole bunch of stuff, so you stick this record into the keyboard and there's this optical lens that basically shines on the record and (I guess) generates the sound. Then you play the keyboard like you normally would and it gets the sound from the record. It's a really amazing instrument and they're really hard to find. You can find the discs on Ebay pretty regularly, but usually when you find an actual optigan they're really expensive. So with "Airports", basically, I was just messing around on the optigan and played that kind of organ part. Originally I was just going to write maybe just a little instrumental or transition music for in-between songs, and it turned into this three and a half minute thing. We just kind of laid instruments over it, and luckily the thing was in tune at the time, so it worked out really well. That was completely generated in the studio and then I took most of it home and added some vocals to it and then came back and had this guy Max play flugelhorn over it. I think that was it; then we were done. It was pretty fun how that happened.

Splendid: Where did all the lyrical imagery of radar and escalators come from?

Pramod Tummala: I was actually doing a lot of traveling at the time and right before that, I went through a period of time where I had cabin fever in Chicago and I was trying to get out as much as possible, visiting family and friends. I spent a lot of time in different airports and terminals and all that kind of stuff, and it all just came from that experience.

Splendid: Yet the whole aspect of coming and going seems sort of symbolic with the record being a transition between working as a solo artist and going back and forth with a band.

Pramod Tummala: Yeah.

Splendid: There's this... sort of movement on the record. Also, a lot of tracks seem very inspired by soundtracks. I can almost envision characters walking through them. I know that sounds weird, but they seem very moody and atmospheric, and definitely very visual as well.

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, I think I've always been more interested in the song's sound than its structure, which I've never really understood.

Splendid: Have you ever contributed to any soundtracks, or would you be interested?

Pramod Tummala: I would love to. I never have. I was asked to do a soundtrack for a play in Chicago, but I wasn't able to do it because there wasn't enough time for me to actually do it. They actually wanted a live music score to it, but I ended up contributing some instrumentals -- well, the instrumental songs on the Morning Recordings record and then a couple of instrumental versions of "Airports" and one other song. They ended up using those and it worked out ­- I think it was a lot better than having a live score played. I think that's a lot more difficult to direct, but I would love to do a film score or anything like that.

Splendid: Any particular type of film? Have you ever given any thought to that? What would be the ideal?

Pramod Tummala: I don't know. That's a good question. One sort of modern guy whose scores I really love is Jon Brion, who I think did Punch Drunk Love and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I think his stuff is really good, and he works with directors whose work his music really works well with. But I haven't really thought too much. I guess the idea of me ever working with anyone whose movies I really like is too far removed from reality.

Splendid: What are you listening to now? Anything interesting that might be inspiring future work?

Pramod Tummala: I've been picking through things lately. I've been making CDs for people that are kind of interesting. You know, there's a couple of songs and artists. There's this guy in The Peddlers who did a version of "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever". I've been listening to a lot of seventies Bollywood greatest hits, which has been great and kind of fun to get back into. I mean, I grew up listening to a lot of it with my family, but I think some of that seventies Bollywood stuff is so amazing. There's just so much genre stealing. There'd be, like, a lot of Latin stuff one minute and then this crazy Blaxploitation horn section. That stuff is pretty interesting I could never sing like that, unfortunately. I've been kind of all over the place. I've been listening to a lot of tropicalia stuff from Brazil, and some hip-hop here and there, and John Cage, so kind of all over the place. I think that it all will... Well, actually, we've been working on stuff for the next record and I think it's going to be a lot different from the first one. It'll be all over the place.

Splendid: In terms of what -- instrumentation? Structure?

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, the instrumentation might be a little different. I actually think it might be more of the same, but I think it's going to be more beat-centered in a lot of ways, because I think only two songs were kind of rehearsed with a band. With Melochrome, we kind of played the songs out and then recorded them live, but everything is just me playing instruments and then whoever played drums would come in and just play over what was already made. A lot of these songs are already going to be kind of worked out. Tom and I, we love to come up with drum beats together. He likes playing things that I couldn't. I come up with beats that aren't really realistic for a person to play. I don't know how to do it 'cos I'm not really a drummer or anything like that.

Splendid: I kind of hear that on "The Lake Part 2". It's one of the -­ not really uptempo songs, but the instrumentation on it was very different. It really changed the pace of the record.

Pramod Tummala: That was completely done in the studio. That drum beat ­- that loop is from an optigan, another optigan record. It was like a Motown breakbeat, and we just sort of looped it over and over again. I have this harmonium, an old Indian instrument, and I played that and lap steel. Then this guy Fred Lonberg-Holm, an amazing musician who plays on amazing records -- many, many people's records in Chicago -- he actually went to India for a while and studied Sarongi, this stringed instrument, and he ended up playing that on the record. There's odd horn sound that creeps in here and there, too.

Splendid: Have you traveled to any specific places that have influenced you? Traveling seems to be a theme on the record. Between the lyrics and the instrumentation, like the Indian harmonium, have there been any international places in particular?

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, I've been to India a lot. Like, in the last four or five years I've been their three times, which to me is a lot. I hadn't gone in a really long time, like since I was fifteen. From 1999 to this year, I've gone like four times, so that's been really great, 'cos I think that seeing it as an adult, seeing the country from an adult point of view for me has been a lot more illuminating since I was a kid. I didn't appreciate what I was seeing and hearing at the time, so I think that's been a huge influence. I think seeing a lot of America that I hadn't really gone to before has been good, as well, and then I went to England and France last year. I did a lot of traveling when I was younger and I just didn't appreciate it. I think with anyone you appreciate it more when you're older and it's bound to influence other things that you do, and your perspective, and all that stuff.

Splendid: Also, getting back to the title Music for Places -- anything specific in mind with that, or was it just another blanket term?

Pramod Tummala: It kind of was. I think Barry (Phipps) actually came up with it, or something similar. I think he called it "Songs for a Place". The title is kind a homage to Brian Eno, 'cos we have that song "Airports" and he had a record Music for Airports. Also, I thought I'd get a little bit more vague.

Splendid: Is the vagueness intentional, so the listener can project his or her own meaning on to it without getting bogged down in too many specifics?

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, I think so. I almost prefer not knowing what people are writing about or what a song is about to actually knowing what it's about, 'cos then the mystery is gone. Like, I heard a song, I forget who it was. It was this beautiful song, and then I found out ­- it was at a show, and they said, "Oh, this is about John Denver dying in a plane crash"

Splendid: Really?

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that, but at the same time I never would have thought it was about something so specific, and it kind of changed -- you know, that kind of thing can change how you take it in when you know too much about how it was created.

Splendid: It loses some of the individualistic feeling, I guess.

Pramod Tummala: Yeah, I think a lot of people like to listen to music because they can relate to it, and if you know it's about something you can't relate to, then it makes it harder to connect with.

Splendid: Another thing I wanted to ask you -- there are quite a few reviews that compare your voice to Elliott Smith's. Do you have any gripes with that? I mean, I really don't hear it.

Pramod Tummala: I don't have any gripes. I could maybe see it on one song.

Splendid: Maybe vaguely.

Pramod Tummala: I definitely don't think that it sounds like Elliott Smith as much as... Well, I've read a couple of reviews that mention it, and I think a lot of it is just the nature of the beast, like they want to have something to compare it to. It makes the job of writing a review a lot easier, I think. But I don't think it sounds that much like Elliott Smith. I've even asked people -- I'm like, "Do you think that?" And they're like "I've never really thought about it before." So yeah, it's not really a gripe, but I think that people might listen to it expecting it to sound like Elliott Smith and probably be disappointed.

Splendid: I think it's definitely a lot harder to writer a review without any reference points to other artists, but I also think that it doesn't let the music stand on its own as much as it should.

Pramod Tummala: I definitely understand the need to compare something to something that's already out there. It does make it a lot easier. That's one thing I like about Splendid -- you post the little sound clips with reviews so you can actually hear it if you want. I think it's good for the reviewer 'cos maybe it gives them a little bit more freedom to not have to compare it, since the person looking at the review can just listen to it themselves.