PropertyOfZack spoke with Tanner from O’Brother a few weeks ago for a brief interview. Tanner and I discussed the band’s recent support tour with Thrice, their new album, signing with Triple Crown, and future touring. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in O’Brother?
I am Tanner, and I play guitar and sing in O’Brother.

You’re nearly finished with Thrice’s headlining tour with La Dispute and Moving Mountains. How as the tour been?
The dates have been pretty awesome. Every single band on this tour is not only a good band, but they’re great people too. We have the best time hanging out with everyone every night and just being able to watch these bands. I think it’s one of the coolest lineups we’ve ever been a part of. These dates for everyone on the tour have been really great.

Have you been playing many new songs in your set list?
We’ve mostly been playing new songs. We’ve been interchanging one or two old songs, but we’re playing mostly new material.
POZ: Have Thrice’s fans been pretty open to the songs?
Tanner: We did eight shows with them last year and they went really well. I think it’s only gotten better. I think we just fit that crowd. They’ve always been really supportive of us.

O’Brother has continued to do big tours over the past year, whether it be with Manchester or with Thrice. Have you just noticed a steady increase in actual fans as well from all of this touring?
Yeah, definitely. Each night we have more and more people come out to these big tours that we’re opening on. People have been telling us that they’re there specifically for us, and that’s amazing.

Garden Window was recorded over the past year, but fans were expecting it a long time ago. Was there a reason for the delay?
It was kind of just a timing thing. It was out of everyone’s control. We were in negotiations with Triple Crown for a really long time. It took a while to get the album finalized and to get our agreement with Triple Crown finalized and to set up the record. Everything turned out great, it just took way longer then we anticipated it to. We had already waited so long that we just figured waiting a little longer wouldn’t hurt.

Was there a reason the release wasn’t straight through Favorite Gentlemen?
We’re still very involved with Favorite Gentlemen. I think we just wanted to try something different. We wanted to grow more. We were never contractually obligated to Favorite Gentlemen, it was just always a thing where they helped us out. When it came time to look for a label for the next few years, we really liked Triple Crown. We’re still heavily involved with Favorite Gentlemen.

Is there a reason the initial release of the album won’t feature a physical option?
It’s been the cursed record release. The vinyl manufacturing plant is backed up. We didn’t want it to get overlooked, so we’re pushing the vinyl and the CD release back to January 10^th.

Fans have been surprised by how hard some of the new songs are. Should we expect that throughout the release?
Not at all, actually. Some people expected it to be a heavy record all the way through. There are heavy song, but also many quieter songs. It’s pretty eclectic and all over the place.

We’ve spoken in the past about how you worked with Manchester on this in terms of production. Are you happy with how that turned out?
I think the songs came out really well. They added an approach that we wouldn’t have done on our own. I’m definitely happy with the way everything turned out.

What should we expect for future touring?
We’re laying low after this tour. We’ll be playing two shows with Brand New after The Stuffing, and that’s about it until the end of the year. Our bassist is getting married in February, but in the middle of February we’ll start touring. We’ll probably be touring for a very long time. We’ve talked about doing a string of headlining or co-headlining dates.

You guys have jumped between really big and really small tours with this Manchester and Thrice tour and then that smaller tour over the summer. Do you hope to keep doing that?
Definitely. It’s great to play different shows. They have a totally different vibe. Sometimes it’s equally as good to play third on a small tour or first on a big tour. It gives us great opportunities to gain fans.