Will Anderson’s second album as Hotline TNT, Cartwheel, is his first for Third Man and a big step up sonically — a widescreen mix of melodic punk, shoegaze and heartland rock that’s as influenced by The Replacements as it is My Bloody Valentine. You can listen to the whole thing below.
For more on Cartwheel, Will has given us a track-by-track breakdown of the album. Will shares lots of great stories surrounding these songs — also while giving a play-by-play travelogue of an international flight — and it’s a great read while listening to the album. Do that below.
Will Anderson’s track-by-track breakdown of Hotline TNT’s Cartwheel
PROTOCOL
Hello Brooklyn Vegan readers I’m writing you from the airplane on the way to London to meet up with the Third Man team where we will be discussing various things and playing some shows… the airline is asking me to pay €30 to use Wi-Fi (that’s gonna be an absolute freaking no-go), my phone is out of storage so I will be going over the songs by simply humming them mentally, just trying to remember the songs by heart. Ok Protocol I know this song doesn’t have the title of the album in the lyrics but I still think it’s the title track for Cartwheel, the statement song and maybe my favorite Hotline TNT tune so far. I have a vivid memory of Ian Teeple (who produced a lot of the record) messing around with his synth while the outro to this song was playing and at some point he hit on that melody and I told him to keep playing it over and over, because it ties everything together in a cool way. But yeah lyrically I don’t think this song is very hard to decipher, it’s about admitting fault in hopes of moving the relationship forward.
I THOUGHT YOU’D CHANGE
Lots of cool parts in this track, everyone I’ve had play guitar on this song – and there’s been a lot – loves playing the goo goo dolls riff before the chorus kicks in, and I’m pretty sure I had to beg our mixer Alex to turn it up way past what he felt was appropriate. We met in the middle after it nearly turned into a fist fight and we all learned a valuable lesson. I think I’ve explained the lyrics elsewhere so I won’t bore you with that old story again plus I want people to use their imagination. I’m outside? Texting you? Get in the car!!!
BEAUTY FILTER
Someone the other day asked me what the keyboard sound is during the intro for beauty filter… it’s simple, guys: just turn up the distortion. I’m not a studio wizard, there’s no smoke and mirrors I’m just messing around in GarageBand until it sounds cool… that goes for the whole record. I wrote this one in the deep Covid lockdown but we gave it a facelift for our Third Man debut. I think this is a great name for a song and if I recall correctly, wrote the song only because I came up with the name first. “I should make a song called beauty filter” and then BAM. I made it happen. I guess that’s just my twisted sense of humor.
HISTORY CHANNEL
Listen to those leads! You’ve never heard TNT do it like this before… this was a dark horse for a single but we decided to save it for the true fans – this was also written in the same 2020 sessions as beauty filter and had a demo tape version released. The vocal harmonies turned out cool but they’re quite difficult to do at shows especially if you’re not good at singing
I KNOW YOU
The steward just woke me up (I was taking a very short break from writing this) to ask me to close my window at my earliest convenience… ???? It’s my window seat and I think I should get to keep it open if I want to… of course I wimped out and sheepishly closed it and gave him a Kevin James smile/shrug combo… but anyway this is the first ballad on the album and also the first obvious instance of the 12 string guitar. Pretty cool. We were trying to get some of that tone from the early my bloody valentine ep’s with the 12 string guitar and that jangly chorus, I dunno if it comes through, obviously we put our own twist on it
SON IN LAW
I’m at the airport in Lisbon now and there are a lot of people yelling at me. My AirPods are dead because I used them up playing the new Mario Bros Wonder game on the plane so I still have to rawdog this piece. Augie and I are sitting at a random gate waiting for our connection to be announced. A Kit Kat is now being considered. This song is badass I think it’s one of the best riffs on the record, definitely sent this one out as a voice memo to a few friends when I came up with it and they all agreed that it rocked. Only problem is that I couldn’t figure out what to do with the vocals. Luckily Shawn from Cryogeyser was hanging around in Joshua Tree and walked around singing their ideas for the chorus and eventually I used one of them and I think it turned out great. Thank you Shawn maybe we should release the voice memo version on a mixtape??
OUT OF TOWN
This one was written at the last moment in a different setting than the rest of the album. This guy Drew and I had been talking about working together forever and the inspiration struck to bang one more song out so we linked up at the Pfizer Building to see what I could come up with. Allegra from Momma also happened to be in the neighborhood – she didn’t make a special trip over to the studio, she was around for something else (an appointment she had) so she SWUNG in and she is the one singing all the harmonies on the verses – just one of those little behind-the-scenes moments of magic that you wouldn’t know about if you didn’t read this article.
MAXINE
This and the previous song are about the same person but written at very different points in the relationship. Believe it or not this song is about running duos in an online video game with your crush – I won’t mention which game because it’s best to leave it open to interpretation but we did play video games together in a very sweet time during our courtship.
THAT WAS MY LIFE
This came from a different project called Weeping Limbs which was actually my avatar’s name in a short lived venture into Dungeons and Dragons. Augie who plays bass and is currently sitting next to me in front of the vending machines (high traffic, inconveniencing everyone around us because our legs are fully stretched out and watching TikTok at full volume) had started a little dungeon synth imprint called Crumbling Keep and I took a stab at my own little creepish keyboard project. There is a tape floating around which is a split release of Weeping Limbs and Blinding Tome… good luck finding one, I think we only sold them at the Julia’s War fest we tabled together. Anyway one of the songs from that tape became the synth bed that is the bulk of this interlude. I won’t be providing details on the field recording voices.
SPOT ME 100
Speaking of Julia’s War, I got written permission from Douglas to utilize the breakbeat element in the back half of this song. I thought it would be cool. He signed off on it, I felt like it was tagabow territory and didn’t want to shamelessly jock his swag. But as with everything else, I tried to put it thru the Hotline filter and make it our own. You be the judge? This song is about a love triangle that I witnessed playing out right before my eyes and it got a LITTLE weird. Kinda different writing as an observer and not a participant but it was a worthy writing exercise and I think it turned out ok lyrically.
BMX
This is the first song in the band’s discography that has a guitar riff written by someone besides me. Our previous guitarist Jack penned the intro lick and I took over from there. Right before writing this section I bought a bag of goldfish crackers at an airport “newsstand” for $19 so I’ll let you figure out where my mood and hunger level is at while I’m reminiscing on this one. Similar themes and topics as my usual fare, don’t think you all need me to beat a dead horse, I’m reflecting on love lost and how things went so wrong and realizing that I am often the problem… but maybe THIS time it’ll be different?
STUMP
Stump came about rather quickly, written in the 11th hour in one of my sessions with Ian, right there in the studio. He encouraged me to lean heavily on the 12 string and I think that’s the star of this show, I like how this one acts as an epilogue to the first 11 songs, it’s not epic or some grand statement, just a pretty pop gem that closes things off for good on the Cartwheel LP. This song is about my love for my chosen family and there are some direct metaphors that I don’t want to explain here, kinda on a IYKYK tip but yeah. Ok shoot Augie just went to the bathroom and a lady just sat down in his seat and I did absolutely nothing to stop it. Kinda concerned what his reaction will be upon his return. Different set of cultural standards over here when it comes to saving seats, I think…
—
Hotline TNT are on a UK tour starting this weeked at Brighton’s Mutations Festival and ending with Pitchfork Festival London. They’ll be on tour in North America opening for Quicksand this fall, then opening for Wednesday in early 2024. All dates are below.
HOTLINE TNT – 2023/2024 TOUR DATES
Sat. Nov. 4 – Brighton, UK @ Mutations Festival
Sun. Nov. 5 – Bristol, UK @ The Lanes
Mon. Nov. 6 – Glasgow, UK @ Hug & Pint %
Tue. Nov. 7 – Manchester, UK @ YES Basement %
Wed. Nov. 8 – Newcastle, UK @ Bobiks
Thu. Nov. 9 – Sheffield, UK @ Delicious Clam
Fri. Nov. 10 – London, UK @ George Tavern
Sat. Nov. 11 – London, UK @ Pitchfork Festival London
Fri. Nov. 24 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre #
Sat. Nov. 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall #
Mon. Nov. 27 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall #
Tue. Nov. 28 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre #
Wed. Nov. 29 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos #
Fri. Dec. 1 – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club #
Sat. Dec. 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent #
Fri. Jan. 19 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre @
Sat. Jan. 20 – Winston-Salem, NC @ SECCA @
Sun. Jan. 21 – Boone, NC @ Lily’s Snack Bar @
Mon. Jan. 22 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry @
Tue. Jan. 23 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club @
Sat. Jan. 27 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Music Hall @
Sun. Jan. 28 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop @
Tue. Jan. 30 – Nashville, TN @ Eastside Bowl @
Thu. Feb. 1 – Oxford, MS @ Proud Larry’s @
Fri. Feb. 2 – Pensacola, FL @ The Handlebar @^
Sat. Feb. 3 – Jacksonville, FL @ Jack Rabbits @^
Sun. Feb. 4 – Orlando, FL @ The Social @^
Tue. Feb. 6 – Miami, FL @ Gramps @^
Thu. Feb. 8 – Savannah, GA @ Lodge of Sorrows @
Fri. Feb. 9 – Athens, GA @ 40 Watt @
Sat. Feb. 10 – Chattanooga, TN @ Cherry Street Tavern @
* w/ Sheer Mag
~ w/ Wiki & PVA
% w/ Snõõper
# w/ Quicksand
@ w/ Wednesday
^ w/ They Hate Change