Talk in Tongues, we hardly knew ye

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Garrett Zeile and McCoy Kirgo of Talk in Tongues at Echo Park Rising last August (Photo by Monique Hernandez)
Garrett Zeile and McCoy Kirgo of Talk in Tongues at Echo Park Rising last August (Photo by Monique Hernandez)

Last May, on the heels of some nice buzz and touts like “your new favorite psych-rock band,” young Los Angeles quartet Talk in Tongues released their debut album, “Alone With a Friend” to generally positive reviews. It ended up at No. 15 on LA Weekly’s best L.A. albums of 2015.  It was No. 14 on Buzz Bands LA’s.

By late in the year, though, the band —McCoy Kirgo, Garrett Zeile, Waylon Rector and Bryan DeLeon — had decided to pack it in, victims of indie-band fatigue and unable to go on, Kirgo says, “under a veil of bad energy.” They canceled a short December tour and went silent on social media.

“I feel like Talk in Tongues went through in a short period what some bands go through in a 10-year period,” Kirgo says. “We got to the point where we didn’t want to be in a van with no air conditioning driving through 106-degree weather. When you can’t afford to eat, it doesn’t make you want to tour or make music, and Garrett and I got to the point where we couldn’t fake being excited.”

The decision disappointed Neil Schield, the VP for Creative at Fairfax Recordings, who signed the band to the L.A.-based label. “I was extremely upset about it,” he says. “It took a lot of hard work on their part and our part to get them to the point they were at. … We were looking forward to bigger gigs and festivals.”

Absent touring and a lot of promo, of course, sales of the album have been barely a blip.

Kirgo, who this week released the first song from SweeTTooth, his new project with Mac Hill, took the large perspective: “Bands make records all the time and they’re really good and then they disappear.”

Sometimes too soon.

||| Stream: “Alone With a Friend”