Originally from the greater-DC area, multi-instrumentalists and childhood friends I’m Turning Into have spent the last few years establishing themselves in the Bushwick DIY scene and recording. Their debut full length, Parcels of Marbles was released in July on cassette and digital download. BushwickBK recently sat down with Edd Chittenden, Jhon Grewell, and Steve Tarkington to discuss Brooklyn’s scene, recording, and cassettes.

When did you start playing music together?

Jhon Grewell: In middle school, me and Edd had a band, but then Steve was in this rival band. But we were still friends.

Steve Tarkington: We also had a joke band called Bitch Ho. Which was usually [Jhon] on some sort of pans or drums, Edd on guitar, and me just making up lyrics. That was kind of a band.

Edd Chittenden: But sometime in high school we all kind of made a plan to start a band. And I got a house in Norfolk a year or two after high school. Steve moved down then Jhon moved down. And then we moved up here. We lived in Norfolk for five years. It didn’t really get very serious until like the last year. As far as the band goes.

ST: It was difficult as far as — we had this concept and idea that we all wanted to play all of the instruments, play all different types of music, and all write the songs, which is what we do now, but it took a really long time to get any kind of real traction. Speaking for myself, I couldn’t really play the drums at all at this point. I was like 19 or 20 or something. But we were very persistent and eventually over time things started to tighten up. We struggled to find the right format.  We all had different interests. I think with the difficulties, just being young, it took a while to for things to progress nicely.

What prompted your move to Brooklyn?

ET: There also wasn’t a whole lot going on in Norfolk as far as a music scene. There’s a couple places to go.

JG: We played probably two shows up here before we moved up here. For me, just seeing the city and playing shows was just like, “okay, this is so much better.” They were crappy shows, too, at like Trash Bar and Lit Lounge.

ST: But all of our friends came out to see us, and we played pretty well, I thought, and it was really fun. That first show at Trash Bar or whatever. It was inspiring.

JG: Once we got up here, also, the first year or so we were up here, we didn’t really know the scene that well, and we were playing weird places. We played a lot of places in Manhattan, and everywhere there sucks, basically.

EC: We played everywhere once, to figure out where you don’t want to play. You start seeing bands that you like, meet people. The first show I went to here was an eye opener. It was like second day I moved here or something. And it was at Silent Barn. It was the Beets opening, Woods, Crystal Stilts, and Vivian Girls. It was awesome. It was packed. It blew my mind.

What was your recording process for Parcels of Marbles?

JG: We started recording in January of last year. We finally stopped recording two months, maybe three months before we actually put the album out.

ST: Edd was really into looking into gear. He did a lot of research into good recording equipment at an affordable level. So we have pretty nice equipment in the space, and that is to our advantage. It’s just like a little dark stone basement of an apartment building.

JG: It’s got good sound in there. It’s a partially built out loft space, there’s just all sorts of weird angles and shit. And just lots of exposed beams, exposed framework.

EC: That whole album was a learning experience. We’re picking up new techniques as we go along, trying new things out. I guess as nice of equipment as we have, we kind of throw a bunch of effects on there and dirty it up.

ST: It kind of smooths things out a little bit despite making it little more lo-fi sounding. All the recording techniques that we used changed a lot over time because we were learning, and because different people were working on different aspects and songs and different facets of the album. So just a few simple treatments helped bind the album.

EC: There were parts in the songs that were never intended, that we didn’t think we were going to record. A lot of pedals. We’re total pedal geeks. Everything on the album is guitars. There are a lot of sounds, but there are no synths or keyboards or anything like that. We’d re-amplify recorded guitar sequences through the amp and pedals and totally tweak the sounds.

JG: We were trying to make it sound tape-y to begin with, and that was before we were even sure we were going to put it out on tape. We’d always talked about that. But digital recordings, shit just sounds a lot harsher and crisper, and you have to battle with that to get something that’s gonna sound warm still.

Why did you decide to release the album on cassette?

EC: We’d like a record, but that wasn’t possible. So we went with the tape.

JG: We put out a CD before that, for the EP, that was all handmade CDs. People liked the artwork, but I feel like nobody ever listened to the actual CD. They would just put it on their computer.

ST: I kind of feel like you can put the CD on your computer and then throw it away. But if it’s a cassette, it’s like, “How can I throw this away, it’s really weird.” It shouldn’t be here, but it’s brand new.

JG: It gives everyone the fun experience of flipping sides.

EC: It provides the same sort of listening experience as the record. You have to be there with it. You can’t be traveling with it, unless you have a Walkman, which is cool too. But then you only have that, you can’t shuffle.

Where did you have the tapes made?

ST: I found a bunch of different websites that made CDs and duplications. And I just found one that looked really reputable, and they had really cool looking shells.  And we also wanted to go with high biased cassettes. A lot of people have cheap, low biased cassettes. You can have that if it’s novelty or something, but for the actual weird audiophile, they’re going to appreciate the chrome cassettes.

EC: I did the design and layout and artwork. For our artwork, we just took pictures of marbles. Somewhere along the line we picked the name, I think Steve picked this. It’s usually a joke, how we come up with anything. It’s kind of lazy.

ST: A lot of times it’s me, just because I talk a lot, and say a lot of stupid, funny — or not funny — jokes. But Parcels of Marbles just had an interesting ring, and it was kind of nonsensical.

JG: It’s hard for us to all find something, like a name, that we all actually like, so whatever nobody’s bothered by, basically is what we go with.

EC: Usually the first thing we all laugh at.