tmnt.wav
I had a good childhood. My parents both worked hard and ensured I was well cared for and had what I wanted and needed. But sometimes things would happen that stuck with me. Things that would burn into my brain. One of those things was the fighting of my parents.
It could get really bad at times. My dad drank a lot and sometimes things would escalate beyond just yelling. These events are things that my siblings and I have rarely spoken about as we’ve gotten older, but I believe had a pretty significant impact on who we ultimately became.
These childhood experiences were the inspiration for the album “tmnt.wav.” Made up almost entirely out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles material, this album is about a kid who uses video tapes of his favorite TV show to try to drown out the sounds of his parents arguing. The child eventually falls asleep and his dreams are a combination of the two things, the Ninja Turtles and the fighting between his parents.
I pulled from every 80s and 90s TMNT-related thing that I could extract music from. Throughout the album things go from upbeat and fun to dark and full of pain as the sounds of the parents seeps back into focus.
What seems like it will be a pretty silly vaporwave album ends up being something that is one of the most personal things that I’ve made. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out all these years later.