Metroplex band Titanmoon is ready to do more than rock
Move over, Bono: DFW's Titanmoon is ready to rock and save the world.
Preston Jones
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What prompts a little-known indie rock band from North Texas to travel halfway around the world on its own dime?
The same thing that gets Bono out of bed in the morning: helping the less fortunate.
Through its manager and a few friends, Titanmoon - a quartet, formed in 2002, splitting its time between Dallas and Fort Worth - became aware of the crisis facing Pakistan's educational infrastructure. A critical lack of funding and low public awareness has resulted in gaps in the public system that can be supplemented with privately funded classrooms. But like so much of the war-torn country, both types of institutions badly need financial support so the next generation of Pakistanis isn't left behind.
"We'd heard about the public-school problem in Pakistan," says Titanmoon frontman Tyler Casey. "We've got these opportunities over there to play for...the wealthy crowd in Pakistan. Our goal is to raise some interest in the crowd to help fund these private schools...We want to encourage them to help their own countrymen."
In an effort to put pressure on Pakistan's upper class, Titanmoon arranged to perform in Karachi, Pakistan, where the band will meet and dine with the city's progressive mayor, Mustafa Kamal. Casey also outlines an ambitious itinerary that includes stops in Fort Worth's sister city, Nagaoka, Japan; Yokosuka Naval Base; and Dubai, where the band will play some shows. It's a heady agenda that few area artists can match, blending diplomacy and Titanmoon's brand of atmospheric rock music.
"We always wanted to travel and do some things that meant more than playing music," Casey says.
The philanthropic bent has proven creatively rewarding as well, yielding a title for Titanmoon's forthcoming album - We All See Stars - and numerous projects tied to the record, including recruiting Fort Worth schoolchildren to create art inspired by the title, which may be used for a music video. After the whirlwind October jaunt, Titanmoon will regroup and head south to Argentina and Mexico, where the four-piece will perform with rapper Claudio Yarto, who teamed with the band on a song for its next album.
However unorthodox the methods, Titanmoon is clearly invigorated by the pancultural stimulus.
Working with producers Joe Burton, an ex-bandmate, at his Weatherford studio The Mezzanine Floor, and Marco Street at Dallas' Trolley House, Casey says the new material is "bigger and brighter" than 2008's moody, compelling Film Black. The band provided a sneak peek with Need to Let Go, a synth-stippled anthem that rides an irresistible melody into an arena-ready chorus.
"We tried to mix Enrique Iglesias with Kanye West and Sigur Ros - mixing all that and seeing what kinds of sounds come out," Casey says. "It's going to be eclectic and, hopefully, happy."
Titanmoon will preview a few tracks from the album at its Lola's Saloon Stockyards show Saturday. It's the band's last before leaving the country.
And while Titanmoon's passport-scorching excursions likely won't catapult the quartet into the rock-star stratosphere, Casey remains hopeful. At the very least, he has his Bono-worthy quotes ready to go.
"Everyone in the world is in a different country, but if you look up, we're under the same sky," he says. "We're all the same at some point, so we're hoping to carry that message along with us on tour."