Tele Finally Get Their Live Sound On Record

WINNIPEG — Tele, chosen as one of Chart magazine's breakout bands of 2007, unveiled their debut full-length to a packed West End Cultural Centre on Thursday night.

After four years of building a reputation for having one of the most ethereal and epic stage shows in the city, the quartet — Matt Worobec, Brendan Berg, Zack Antel and Derek Allard — have finally harnessed their big noise on record.

"We'll finally have music for people to take with them," says Worobec. "It'll be nice to have something to tour on. I've always viewed recorded music as a way to tour."

Still, the band didn't do badly without a record. Solely on the heat of their live show and a few demo versions of songs like "Lullaby" and "Choose," Tele were able to snag radio rotation on major stations in Winnipeg and Toronto, land music festival and industry showcases, earn the attention of label bigwigs and build an extensive following.

The band also caught the ear of Grammy Award-winning producer David Bottrill (Muse, Silverchair) last winter. Though Bottrill wasn't able to work the board for the new album as anticipated, most of the demos that Tele worked on with the producer were usable after some remixing and remastering. For that, the band enlisted Tom Baker (Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins).

The group wanted to make sure that the record emulated their live sound as much as possible.

"That was something that was on our minds," says Antel. "We felt that everything we had recorded before didn't really represent us live."

"We've spent four years playing live — that's how people know us," adds Berg. "We wanted to make sure it had that."

You can see Tele at these shows:

Sept. 21 Toronto, ON @ El Mocambo
Sept. 22 Kitchener, ON @ The Gig
Nov. 24 Winnipeg, MB @ The Zoo