For well over a decade, Hotline TNT mastermind Will Anderson has been a staple of the American underground rock community, but his band’s 2023 album, Cartwheel, sprung the group to a new level of visibility. Released by Third Man Records, the acclaimed full-length showcases the eternal power of big hooks and even bigger guitars. We had Anderson make a mix for us and talk about the band’s trajectory, basketball, and a whole lot more. Give it a listen, and read our interview below.

Can you tell us about the mix?

This is really just a smorgasboard of the Hotline TNT arc; I don't think this band will ever fully skirt the "bedroom project" allegations, despite the on-stage product being an assault on the senses, three guitar attack, whatever. I believe you can hear the throughline of a guy messing around with GarageBand with every song on this mix, even though the fidelity of individual tracks goes up and down over the five years I've been releasing music through the Hotline TNT name. 

 

What stands out to you as the most inspiring development in the Hotline TNT story?

Agreeing to a contract with a booking agent I think is the one moment when the dominos started falling in a new direction. I kinda knew it at the time too! It wasn't immediate, but when we said "yes" to having someone else handle the concert experience of this band, everything else followed in due time. It was about a decade of being a complete control freak about where we played, who was allowed in (hopefully everybody), what kind of groups we played with, etc. I never imagined this band would ever leave the DIY world, and I wouldn't have felt bad if we stayed in that world forever, but I think we waited until the exact right moment, when we had enough of a following to command larger rooms—that's when we brought our agent Gabe Sunshine into the team, the moment when it just didn't make sense to negotiate every single term and condition by ourselves. He's been amazing and has kept the fire burning for the band long past the point when I had moments of weakness and wanted to wrap it up. I've seen a lot of musicians try to angle and scheme and play the music industry game to bring in "the booking agent" or "the manager" way before the music had connected with people and I've never seen that play out the way they thought it might.  

How do you like to discover new music online?

Online it really is just Instagram stories for me. With the exception of a few trusted tastemakers that I will listen to whatever they post, usually it takes a mass of IG stories all gassing up the same thing before I'll be like, "Alright fine, what's this ML Buch thing everyone seems to be talking about.” I'm not ashamed to say that I think music discovery was cooler before social media, and I got swept away a bit more when I was younger and was getting turned on to records by things like record store clerks and music journalism. I have a bit of hope that some of the silos will disintegrate in the next few years and there will once again be some pillars of music gatekeepers. I dunno what that's going to look like, but something will emerge I bet. The days of saying, "I want to hear something brand new that I'm going to like, let me check xyz blog" are seemingly over, and so are the days of "I want to hear something brand new that I'm going to like, let me pick up the new Rolling Stone magazine (or even Maximum RnR).” Some people celebrate the end of these corporate institutions and I get that, but also ... We are losing a lot of centralized criticism and writing, which is a loss if you ask me.  

Whose jersey are you wearing in the mix cover?

This is a Chris Webber jersey that was given to me on a tour of the West Coast a few years ago. I have no strong opinions about the Kings, in fact growing up I thought of them as a computer generated team, for whatever reason I never seemed to witness them on live TV whenever my dad had basketball on. It was pretty much Timberwolves + Kobe/Shaq + Chicago Bulls. But Chris Webber is cool, I miss his takes as a commentator, to be honest I'd take his aura over the lionized Charles Barkley 10 times out of 10.

Speaking of basketball, can you tell us a bit about Association Update, your basketball fanzine? What are you going to do with it now that the season's over?

I haven't been able to put out a new issue in a few months and I am hemorrhaging my paying subscribers like crazy, which peaked at about 150 people who I was mailing the fanzine to every single month. It's a shame! But I love putting out the paper and putting it together. Some weird life circumstances have gotten in the way, I had ideas about doing a postcard version while I was on a eight-week tour with the band, but that idea got killed by a viral infection I sustained about seven days into that tour, which put me on my back for two months. Sucked! On top of that my apartment got destroyed by a subletter while I was on the tour and I'm STILL in the process of putting the pieces back together, and that just interrupted my creative flow and headspace for doing the zine, not to mention the physical space I need to put everything together. Having said all that, the offseason is kinda my favorite time to make the zine, especially considering the Finals this year were a total dud. Now the drama begins and I'll be happy to talk about that and bring in my own personal flavor once I get moved into my new apartment in about a week. 

What are your plans for the summer?

Moving to a new place, hanging with my beautiful/smart/talented girlfriend Jill as much as possible, recording a new TNT album, putting together a reissue, playing in some new Euro territories in August, and mostly just trying to sit in front of my air conditioner all day every day. My dad and I are going to northern Minnesota for a few days to get away from it all and that should be awesome.  

Anything or anyone in particular you'd like to plug?

I heard the new MJ Lenderman album the other day and it's great. I listened to a Canadian band called Knitting the other day that I thought was pretty cool. Our good friends Tagabow are continuing their incredible run of being the best band in the genre and I think they have a new album in the works that is going to be fantastic. One of my close friends and former bandmates Augie has an awesome new band called Canaries down in Richmond Virginia, he sent me their new recordings and I'm excited for them to emerge into the public DIY rock music community.