TV on the Radio performs during the final day of Riot Fest at Sports Authority Field at Mile High on September 19, 2014 in Denver, Colorado. Riot Fest wrapped up its second year in Colorado on Sunday at Sports Authority Field. (Photo by Seth McConnell/The Denver Post)
hasn’t always had the best of luck in Colorado. In 2008, as the band was en route to play a set at Monolith Music Festival at Red Rocks their bus broke down. They were stranded. But, thanks to a series of rented vans, the group made it to the festival just in time.
“We white-knuckled it,” said TV on the Radio multi-instrumentalist Kyp Malone. “We drove as fast as possible and got to the venue with like 20 minutes before we were supposed to get on stage.”
Then, in 2014 TV on the Radio’s set during Riot Fest Denver was drenched with a late afternoon shower.
The good news is rain and broken vehicles haven’t deterred the band from stopping in the state — in fact, they’re playing two shows in Colorado this year, a sold out show at the Ogden Theatre on March 26, followed by a show with Alt-J at Red Rocks on July 27.
The Ogden show marks a chance for TV on the Radio to return to more intimate club shows after touring heavily on the festival circuit, and the Red Rocks show is another chance to play one of the band’s favorite venues.
“Playing club shows is such a more intimate thing. Itap a different vibe and playing Red Rocks feels like a privilege to me. I love being out there,” Malone said.
These two Colorado shows are part of the band’s tour supporting the latest album “Seeds.” On this fifth studio album, TV on the Radio takes a more accessible approach to the complex art-rock that has defined their more than decade-long career. A relaxed and nearly hopeful 12 tracks, “Seeds” gives few hints into the band member’s personal lives in the last five years.
Just nine days after the release of “Nine Types of Light,” TV on the Radio multi-instrumentalist Gerard Smith died of lung cancer. Instead of letting the tragic loss of their friend and bandmate define their next album, “Seeds” is an album to capture a mood — one that Malone is reluctant to define. He’d rather listeners take their own experience from the work.
“I don’t think itap a record about the loss of our friend,” Malone said. “The writing was in the studio, so it was more about the moment. These things are realities and loss of friends and loved ones are real things and they have a deep impact on many other things that I’ve experienced in my life. A record of remembrance is probably a future work and we’ll see what the future holds. The record is about the moment for me.”
During the time between “Nine Types of Light” and “Seeds,” TV on the Radio had other crucial changes in its career. In 2013 the band parted ways with its label Interscope, which it had been with since 2006. The members started working on other projects, moved from New York to L.A. and at points even considered bringing TV on the Radio to an end.
“These relationships, itap a marriage, but marriage has the potential for divorce and itap there for a reason. Nothing is forever and if something has become toxic and unhealthy, then staying in it from nostalgia or false hope would be foolishness,” Malone said. “There are hard times and I’m sure they’ll come again where we feel like we’ve done what we needed to do. At some point I think bands start erasing their positive cultural imprint by sticking around for too long. But for me, there’s still life in it. There are still new directions to be explored. It doesn’t feel like the last record to me.”
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