New York City's Tchotchke is back and more Tchotchke than ever. The group have recently released Playin' Dumb, their second album, and follow-up to their self-titled debut that dropped in 2022. Eva Chambers and Anastasia Sanchez had been making music together prior to Tchotchke's conception, but it wasn't until the duo had relocated to New York in 2020 and recruited Emily Tooraen that Tchotchke really took flight and became who they are now five years later.

Playin' Dumb is the band's first proper release as a dedicated trio, as some of their debut was recorded prior to the final cementing of the band's lineup. Tchotchke teamed up yet again with their close friends The Lemon Twigs to bring Playin' Dumb to life. The D'Addario brothers have produced and contributed instrumental work for both Tchotchke albums, while Chambers designed the cover arts for the last two The Lemon Twigs records, as well as Playin' Dumb.

I got a chance to sit down with Tchotchke before the new album released and got some insight into the album as well as the band themselves. We talked about Playin' Dumb, girl bands, recording in some sort of vegetable facility, board games and more.

Tchotchke just finished supporting Hunx and His Punx on tour, but you can catch them on Halloween, October 31 at the Knockdown Center in East New York.

Wade Stokan @ The Needle Drop: How long have you guys known each other? Where did Tchotchke come from?

Eva: Well I've been in girl groups since I was a kid. I had a band with my sisters growing up. Having been exposed to The Go-Go's at such a young age, it was never a question about wanting an all girl act. I've been so passionate about that since I can remember. I'm the youngest of my siblings, so they all quit out on me and then I eventually met Anastasia when we were like 14. We played together in a few different high school bands. Anastasia and I stayed together through all those bands, so we've always just worked.

Emily how did you get involved? When did you meet these two?

Emily: We all met in 2019 through a mutual friend who thought I'd really get along with Anastasia. But I'd also been playing in tons of different things before. I worked at a music school for 7 or 8 years. I was also in an electronic band called Drinker for a few years, and then I was in this Red Hot Chili Peppers kind of band. Not that I'm a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan or anything, but it was that style of kinda "California-rock" vibe. I was also in a jazz ensemble at one point. I just kept trying tons of different things. I think in my formative years I was studying music and listening to a ton of different genres, even though rock and blues have been my core since I started playing. But when I finally met these two, it just felt like I was making music I had been wanting to make all this time. It felt like a whole other musical experience.

Eva: Well that's because playing with girls is so much better.

Anastasia: Yeah, you were too busy playing with all these dumb boy bands.

Anastasia, were you in any bands previously? Any bands that didn't feature Eva?

Anastasia: I was in a band that went through so many name changes. It was made through the LA Rock Camp for Girls. I started there back in 2011. It was this day camp where we would form bands and write and rehearse music. It was never too serious because we were all in middle school.

You guys dropped a single that I wanted to talk about, "Now I Love You". I've read that this song was put on the backburner, that it was worked on and then put away. And now it's back. Could you guys maybe expand on that? Where did it come from, why did it go away, and how did it come back?

Anastasia: I was just humming some melodies and I was like "hey Eva, check this song out, let's try to figure it out." We just did a small demo on an iPhone.

Eva: Well it was originally an idea for the first album. I guess we thought it didn't match the vibe, but it felt coherent with the new stuff we were doing, I think.

I think I read somewhere that this song was first demo'd in 2019?

Anastasia: Yeah, that sounds right. It was old, super old.

So then you guys recorded it properly for this record in 2023? 2024?

Eva: Our recording schedule was so sporadic and insane that it really could have been at any point last year.

Emily: I think it was actually the first song that was recorded though. It was definitely last year.

Eva: Yeah, Emily's right. It hardly had any instruments on it. It was just Wurlitzer and bass.

I wanted to ask you guys so desperately about the recording process. This recording for this album happened in a... weird place.

Emily: Yes!

Eva: Both albums!

Okay so you guys are no strangers to this place. I think it's called the...

Emily: The Vegetable Attic.

That's it, The Vegetable Attic. Please tell me, someone from Toronto, Canada who doesn't know anything. Please tell me about this place.

Eva: Honestly, it doesn't really have a name. That's just something we called it, I hate to tell you. Amongst ourselves we used to call it "Electric Chancla" because Anastasia had these lavender chanclas she'd wear when we would rehearse. Y'know, Electric Chancla Studios was our own Electric Lady.

Anastasia: Like a little joke!

Eva: When we were putting credits for the album we always jokingly called the studio The Vegetable Attic because the studio was above a vegetable factory. I'm not too sure what The Lemon Twigs put on their credits, but we thought the place needed a name. We did some asking and they ultimately approved the name, so we got permission to use the name.

So what is this place? Some sort of vegetable packing warehouse?

Anastasia: Yeah.

Emily: Yeah. Lots of action.

Anastasia: There's just all these vehicles everywhere and a ton of commotion.

Eva: Sometimes I'd be walking to the studio and I'd almost get run over by a forklift.

This place sounds insane. Is this a popular studio?

Emily: [Laughs]. No. Not at all.

Anastasia: We're New Yorkers, so we're very scrappy, so whatever we can get our hands on, we'll take.

Eva: There aren't a ton of musicians in the building except for us and our neighbor Paul Millar who actually mixed the album for us. So it's all done in-house at The Vegetable Attic. It was extremely convenient, our studio is there and then sound is right next to our space.

Emily: Plus it had our rehearsal space. We would practice there. The Vegetable Attic serves many purposes.

Was this place picked out of convenience? How did you guys discover this spot?

Anastasia: Originally Paul Millar had this studio space and the tenant next door moved out. So he decided to move to that vacant space and asked if we wanted to take over the old space. It all worked out super well.

Eva: His whole thing is that he can fix anything. The Lemon Twigs obviously have very old fragile equipment, so it was nice for him to be there. Their stuff is breaking constantly too, so it was extremely helpful to have him around.

Emily: It was a very symbiotic relationship. Lots of helping each other in all these weird ways.

Did you guys get to walk home with free carrots or onions?

Anastasia: Oh my god, I wish.

Emily: They never offered me... but I wouldn't say no.

Anastasia: Sometimes there's just a perfectly good cucumber laying on the floor, but I haven't sunk to that level yet.

Eva: It's also a pigeon den, near the awning, so lots of the vegetables are just covered in bird shit.

I can only imagine the sensory overload of this place. Your olfactory senses must be at odds with everything else and I just imagine you're thinking "I gotta get the fuck out of here."

Eva: I was talking about this yesterday! Recording there is kind of nice actually because it's like "I need to get a good take because this place is stinky and I need to get away from that." We're also recording on tape, so you can't really afford to mess up. I think we did our best to work efficiently.

Emily: It really puts you in the moment. We're here to do this, let's do it so we can all just go home.

There's a lot of history between you guys and The Lemon Twigs. How did that whole thing start?

Eva: Well we met all as friends before their first album even came out. We met them through mutual friends.

Anastasia: Ten years ago.

Eva: But we didn't really work with them musically until the first Tchotchke album. But even then we didn't really have a fully thought out concept or band, we just sort of approached them with some songs and then we recorded them. So in a way, this new album feels like our debut, because we actually have all that stuff figured out. We're finally this fully realized thing, as opposed to just some people recording songs with their friends. We also have very similar tastes when it comes to musical influences and I think that just made working together a pretty natural progression.

Have you guys always focused on the 60s vibe and aesthetic?

Eva: It's just always kinda been the influence. I will admit that we've loved girl groups for as long as I can remember, but I think we should have taken more influence from them when we were younger in different bands. Maybe it's because we didn't see them playing instruments and stuff, but we were always against the idea of being a "girl band."

Anastasia: We really didn't like the term "girl band." We rejected that a lot.

Eva: We totally rejected hyper-femininity and wanted to be taken seriously. We wanted to show that we can be just as serious as our male peers.

Anastasia: For the longest time we were just making it clear that we were a "band." But eventually, we realized that there's nothing wrong with us being a girl band. So we kinda thought "why don't we just go back to the formula?"

Eva: The same songs we cover as Tchotchke are the same songs Anastasia and I would sing in the car together as teenagers. I think covering those songs also taught us how to do the talk-style vocals or doing three-part harmonies while playing rock riffs underneath. It's actually very hard to talk and play – singing and playing is easy, but talking and playing is crazy hard.

Emily: It feels really natural to be drawn to that era of music for me. Growing up, my dad would be playing music from his generation – 60s and 70s stuff. He also played in a band and showed me a lot of that era. I think we also just really enjoy the same type of music, we all like the same girl groups. It didn't even feel like a choice we made, it just sorta felt like the natural thing to do. It's just the type of music I've always personally felt attached to. There was nothing intentional about "picking" that era as an influence, it was just a genuine thing for me.

You guys really went the extra mile and decided to implement a full on board game into the physical release of Playin' Dumb. I'd love to learn how that idea came to fruition.

Eva: The album cover has the real full game, but there will be a smaller version of the game that comes with the record itself. There's gonna be a 12x12 card stock insert, and then another card stock insert with some cards and pawns. You can put the whole thing together and play a full game while listening to the album.

Where did the idea for the board game come from?

Eva: The idea first came up when writing the song "The Game". We just wanted to create this colorful, unserious, and welcoming world. But at the same time it felt a little silly to write an entire album around a board game. So we just contained it into one song. But toward the end of writing the album we thought "oh we could actually do this." So we decided to make the board game about the album instead of the other way around. I had to have rib surgery this year, so there was a lot of time laying in bed thinking about what I wanted to do with the board game.

I'm curious about your outside influences. You've made your musical influences clear, but is there anything outside of music that influenced your input on Playin' Dumb? A movie, a book, maybe a life event?

Emily: During the writing process I was visiting Nashville because I met somebody that I had really liked who lived there. So spending time with them was almost a musical influence in itself. Seeing and hearing all these different things I'm not used to. It was an introduction to a new place, and learning about this person's tastes. I feel like it really shaped me in a creative way.

What message do you hope people get out of this album?

Anastasia: I don't want to say "welcome to our universe." Welcome to the Tchotchkeverse.

Emily: I second what Anastasia said, welcome to the Tchotchkeverse. Step into the world that we've created. Hopefully you feel at home in our little universe we created. We're so happy to let people in on it.

Eva: Start a band with your friends.

Playin' Dumb by Tchotchke is out now. You can purchase it here.