Miniature Tigers news

When Charlie Brand (vocals, guitar) was writing the new  Miniature Tigers album - in stores now - he looked to the sum of his musical influences for inspiration. “I wanted to make something like Weezer’s Blue Album—not exactly the album, but the feeling of listening to that album at age whatever. Something with that feeling that could connect with people.”

That’s how the band had started, after all: When he and founding member Rick Schaier (keys) connected over Myspace in the mid-’00s through their love of the same bands. After a few albums, they brought on Algernon Quashie (guitar) and Brandon Lee (bass) to complete the band.

The resulting effort, Cruel Runnings, is something halfway between nostalgia and the ecstatic now, an album that yearns for the recent past while staring open-hearted at what the present dares to bring.

Songs about swimming pools remembered on sticky summer nights, lovers meeting at discotheques, streets where you used to live. Let’s just try to be as much of us as possible, Brand decided during the recording process.

In that, Miniature Tigers have written a record that’s eminently relatable, passionate but not without a healthy sense of perspective. Recorded in Jamaica with producer Chris Zane (The Walkmen, Passion Pit) the album sounds as freeing as the process felt.

“There was just a different energy there, a different energy in such a relaxing environment,” he says. “Everything came very naturally.” That’s fitting of a record where Brand wanted to capture the way a relationship—and through that, life—really felt. “Not necessarily something that was good and got bad,” he says, “but the ups and downs of it.”

Cruel Runnings Track listing

1. Swimming Pool Blues
2. Used To Be The Sh*t
3. Oblivious
4. Dream Girl
5. Sadistic Kisses
6. Better Apart
7. I Can't Stop
8. Give It Up To Guru
9. Selfish Girl
10. Frazier Ave

Tour Dates

7.10 - New York, NY - Westway*
7.11 - Burlington, VT - Signal Kitchen*
7.12 - Montreal, QC - La Vitriola*
7.13 - Toronto, ON - Hard Luck Bar*
7.14 - Buffalo, NY - The Waiting Room*
7.16 - Hamden, CT - The Space*
7.17 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall*
7.18 - Akron, OH - Musica*
7.19 - Grand Rapids, MI - The Stache*
7.20 - Chicago, IL - Subterranean*
7.22 - Madison, WI - The Frequency*
7.23 - Minneapolis, MN - The Nether Bar*
7.24 - Lawrence, KS - Jackpot Music Hall*
7.25 - Omaha, NE - Slowdown Jr*
7.26 - Denver, CO - Underground Music Showcase*
7.27 - Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court*
7.29 - Seattle, WA - The Vera Project*
7.30 - Portland, OR - Holocene*
7.31 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop*
8.01 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echo*
8.02 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar*
8.03 - Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom*
8.05 - San Antonio, TX - The Korova*
8.06 - Austin, TX - Stubbs Jr*
8.07 - Houston, TX - Fitzgeralds*
8.08 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jack's*
8.09 - Atlanta, GA - Purgatory*
8.10 - Orlando, FL - The Social*
8.12 - Ybor City, FL - Crowbar*
8.13 - Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle*
8.14 - Baltimore, MD - Metro Gallery*
8.15 - Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer*
8.16 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl*
8.17 - Allston, MA - Brighton Music Hall*
8.23 - 08.24 - Monterey, CA - First City Music Festival
9.25 - 09.27 - Cincinnati, OH - Mid-Point Music Festival
10.03 - 10.05 - Austin, TX - Austin City Limits
10.10 - 10.12 - Austin, TX - Austin City Limits
*w/ The Griswolds