Aimee Mann Is ‘Freaked Out’ at Reuniting Til Tuesday for L.A. Festival

Speaking of “Voices Carry,” the band Til Tuesday has really been keeping it down now for the last 35 years… as in, they haven’t done a show since breaking up as the ’80s gave way to the ’90s. Was the prospect of a reunion a hell-freezes-over situation for singer-songwriter Aimee Mann? Apparently not: whatever obstacles there may have been before, the original group will be performing together for the first time in three and a half decades this weekend, at the behest of Goldenvoice, at the promoter’s annual Cruel World festival in Pasadena.

Mann tells Variety she is personally pleased to reconvene with bandmates Robert Holmes (guitar), Joey Pesce (keyboards) and Michael Hausman (drums). (The latter is someone she has stayed in constant contact with: Hausman gave up performing to become her longtime manager.) In a phone conversation before the band did its most serious rehearsals for this possibly one-time-only gig, she discussed what she was finding most unnerving about reviving the group’s 1980s catalog, which was spread across just three albums (1985’s “Voices Carry,” 1986’s “Welcome Home” and 1988’s “Everything’s Different Now”). As she revisits her own focals from the group’s earliest material, she says, “I do not understand how that person did it. It’s kind of like you’re trying to sing karaoke and going, ‘Oh, how does this work?’”

There’s a possibility there could be further Til Tuesday shows if this one comes off and the demand is there, she allows. But the band hardly represents her greatest glory, as she went on to a solo career that has seen her blossom into one of the most cherished and accomplished singer-songwriters in the rock world. She’ll be revisiting a somewhat more recent part of her catalogue, the 2002 solo album “Lost in Space,” with a commemorative tour next month. In the meantime, here’s our conversation with her about Saturday’s gig.

There would have been good reason to suspect that a Til Tuesday reunion would never happen, if it hadn’t happened by now. What caused you to want to do something that you had not until now, when surely there’d been some demand for it?

I think there may have been interest. Really, Michael Hausman, who is my manager, but also the drummer for Til Tuesday, said, “We got an offer for this festival…” And I possibly will live to regret the following train of thought, but there’s part of me that feels like: Huh — that would be an interesting challenge, to see how the band sounds and if we could do it. There’s something that’s always appealing to me about having a goal that you have to practice for, if that makes sense. It’s a little bit like a puzzle to solve. Like, I wonder how we could pull that off, or if we could pull that off… There was a lot of curiosity.

And by the way, everybody’s great. Like, everybody just developed into a sweet, nice person. And not that they weren’t before, but it’s nice when people don’t calcify into their worst selves. I hope that I could say the same thing about myself.

Is there some rust to get out, or does it feel familiar, despite the time elapsesd?

To be honest, there could still be kind of a question mark… I have been practicing for it, but Michael has not played drums in, like, 35 years or something! We all got together, just for a preliminary “Let’s pick some songs” and then “Oh, well, here’s what we need to work on.” The keyboard player has been playing music, but I think he’s been playing music on guitar, so I think a big challenge is how to recreate all those keyboard sounds. And for Michael it’s just physically getting into shape enough to comfortably play a set. I still play bass off and on, so the bass playing’s not really a problem. I play slap bass on one song in the set, so I did have to practice that.

But the biggest hurdle for me has been that, especially in the early songs, I sing completely differently. And it’s been really hard for me to figure out how to sing that stuff, because I feel like that style was born out of playing in rock clubs and not really hearing what I was doing and just trying to sing as loud and high as possible. And I don’t know how to do that now. So I actually took a couple of voice lessons to see: How do professionals deal with this — like, higher notes that they can’t really hit? I mean, I’ve obviously lowered every key, just because over the years I’ve found it’s just more comfortable to sit in lower keys anyway. That’s kind of the journey I’m on. So we will see what happens.

So you had one sort of get-together practice session, but not really the full-on rehearsals you’ll have to do.

Yeah, we’ll get together the week before and do full production rehearsals. Because at festivals, you never get a soundcheck, so we want to have our monitors in place and we want to have the cues for the front of house in place. I think we’re gonna do a little show at SIR (the rehearsal space in Hollywood) and just invite some friends, just to play in front of people, because it is weird to have your very first show in 35 years or however long it’s been be in front of a big, giant festival crowd. I’m a big believer in how you get a lot of rehearsal muscle out of playing in front of people and being kind of nervous. I don’t want to just walk out on stage in the festival for that… I don’t need to be freaked out more than I already am.

Is it easy or challenging to come up with a setlist? Because, of those albums, every fan has their favorite. Probably the most people bought the first one, because it had the hit, but then fans really of yours really seem partial to the second or third album.

It’s hard for me to know what people would really want to hear. We’ve juggled some stuff around, but I think we have an OK set list. I think my concerns are just like: What are the songs that are harder to sing, and where should I put them in the show? But it’s only a 45-minute set. So that’s actually pretty easy to figure out.

Going back to the reason for not doing it previously in all this time… There are so many tours build around bands from this era. Full-on nostalgia doesn’t seem like the type of thing you’d be inclined toward, artistically, but as far as offers, it seems like there would always be opportunities, if you were the type to pursue them, so…

Honestly, if this had been out of town, I probably wouldn’t have done it; it just adds a layer of difficulty that I probably wouldn’t have done. But if everybody can fly out, and we can rehearse here, and the show is local, that makes a big difference. And I have so many projects going on and so much stuff to do, so it hasn’t really been a priority. But I think playing a shorter set for a festival is a different story than being part of a tour or playing a full show.

Because honestly, there’s not that many Til Tuesday songs that I think are really great songs. Or I’ll put it a different way: There are a handful of songs that I think are really dumb, so it’s nice to have a smaller set where you can curate the ones that you’re proudest of.

That’s a good segue into asking: You probably don’t go back and listen to old albums a lot, so now that they’re back on your mind, what is your perspective on the Til Tuesday  catalog?

I think that my perspective now is… A lot of it was very experimental for me, because I was just messing around trying to write songs and seeing what came out. I don’t think the lyrics are very good. But that’s what happens when you’re just starting out and when you’re young — you do the best you can.

I am impressed with how great the band is. I think that Robert and Joey, the guitar player and keyboard player, are fantastic. And especially with Robert Holmes, the guitar player, I think I honestly did not know enough about music to realize what a great player he was. Meeting back up with him, I mean, he knew every note. And there were keys that I was changing, like, “Maybe we should put it off a half-step,” or “Let’s take it down a step,” just juggling around to try to find a way to sing in a way I don’t sing anymore. And he didn’t blink. He’s a really great musician. And that was just interesting to kind of realize, like, oh, we really did sound (tight)…

To be honest, I was the weakest link. My vocals were super high and kind of weird and sort of punky, and honestly a little bit… I’m surprised we ever got a record deal. But it’s an era where we were right in the wave of a certain sound at a certain time, and I think we did that really well for a while.

It’s interesting that it sounds like you’re saying you have to unlearn some of the lessons you taught yourself about what good singing is. And as you said, you can adjust the keys.

Yeah, I think I’ve just learned to write for my voice in a way that’s comfortable. Back then, I just wrote and was like, “This is the melody… Woo!” Like, “go for it.” I don’t think it ever occurred to me that maybe I could change a key. For me, a song, once I wrote it, that’s the key; those are the chords; they can never be changed. I don’t know if that was just a lack of musicianship or I just didn’t really think about it.

It sounds like the Cruel World festival is the only show you’re doing at present. Would you consider any others, or are you committed to it being a one-and-done sort of thing?

I’m gonna see how this goes. If I feel like I can do a really good job singing, then I would consider others … Because you want to feel like you’re doing a good job. So, some of this is yet to be determined in rehearsal, and maybe I can juggle some stuff around. But I think that in that first record, the singing is so high and I’m like: I do not understand how that person did it. It’s kind of like you’re trying to sing karaoke and going, “Oh, how does this work?” There’s just some songs that are harder than others. I did a lot of really low verses and then really jumping up the octave to the choruses, and I’m really, really regretting those choices now.

Leaping ahead into the summer, you have an actual tour of your own coming up in June, which you’re billing as the “22 1/2 anniversary tour” for “Lost in Space” (her fourth album, released in 2002). You chose to really come in on the nose with that nice, round number for the anniversary…

Yeah, we wanted to do a vinyl reissue. Obviously, we’re just really slow off the mark. But it’s a really nice package, with thorough liner notes and more artwork from Seth, who I just love and is my favorite cartoonist.

And the tour being named for “Lost in Space” means you will be paying special attention to that record?

Oh, I’m gonna play the record. I think there’s a couple of songs I’m changing around (in the setlist) because they literally start on the same chord and the same key, so I’m gonna juggle a couple of things, but more or less in the same order.

What else is keeping you busy?

I’m writing a graphic memoir, which is a project that will take several years, so that’s a thing that’s taking up a lot of time and concentration. And there’s a musical I’m developing based on my record “The Forgotten Arm,” so, a bunch of projects here and there… I’m working on songs for a new record.

The graphic memoir prospect is intriguing. You clearly have a fondness or a flair for that, with some of the cartooning of your own that you were putting on social media for a while.

I should get back on that. In writing the book, I have been doing rough drawings for the whole thing, which is really, really, super time consuming, and I think I just didn’t have enough steam for anything left over. But now we kind of have decided: Let’s just get the script, and we’re not gonna worry about the drawings yet. So I now have a little more bandwidth for cartooning.

A memoir of any sort is ambitious, let alone putting art to all of it.

It’s very hard. It’s also hard just to dig back through your life. It’s not always super fun. But that’s the nature of the memoir.

We look forward to seeing you at Cruel World… and seeing what keys things end up in.

Oh my God, I know. Wish me luck.