The video for “To Me” was directed by John Francis Daly. You can/should get the Dayplayer EP in its entirety over at dayplayer.bandcamp.com.

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For more information on Dayplayer, visit myspace.com/dayplayer.

Playing under the moniker “Gorgomon,” Dayplayer will perform two original songs, both of which will be available for you to call your own after the episode airs.

The season finale of Bones will air on Fox on Thursday, May 14th. Check your local listings for details.

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For more information on Dayplayer, visit myspace.com/dayplayer.

In their first real MySpace update since they helped to publicize the release of bassist Tien‘s amazingly fantastic Patience Finds EP, Dayplayer assure us all that “this is just the tip of the iceberg” and hint that we should all “be on the lookout as [they] start to kick things up again.”

It’s all very mysterious and exciting.

I’m crossing my fingers that the kicking up of things results in tour dates or an EP of some sort–but I could probably subsist on the mere promise of things to come for at least two more months. But, still… I’ve got my eye on you, Dayplayer.

For more information on Dayplayer and to listen to “Hollywood Couple,” visit myspace.com/dayplayer.
You also need Tien’s Patience Finds EP. You can find that here.

The most difficult part of writing this is coming to terms with the fact that not everyone who reads this sentence will listen to Tien‘s music. And– I’m not going to lie– that sucks. Because you’re only cheating yourself. And worse, there will come a time a few months or years from now when someone will hand you the Patience Finds EP and say, “Here. Listen to this. It’s great.” And you will reply, “Thank you. Wow. I’ve never heard of this guy.” And that’s just not right. It would sound much cooler if your response were instead something like, “Dude, I bought this CD for you for Christmas last year. I already know how awesome he is.”

Though Tien has been playing with his band, Dayplayer, for the past three years, music has been part of his life since his youth, and the Patience Finds EP (see what he did there?) is his first real endeavor as a solo artist. Next up: a world tour. Kind of.

Audioholic Media: You’ve called the Patience Finds EP your “life’s work”…

Tien: Kinda. To be a songwriter, you have to pick up all these random skills and random observations and life experiences, and I feel like it just kind of sums it up neatly to just say it’s my life’s work so far, you know? So hopefully it doesn’t take another twenty years to come out with the next work, but I felt like you could pretty much listen to it and kind of figure out what type of person I am.

AM: How long have you been working on the seven tracks that make up the EP?

Tien: Let’s see… I started writing songs probably right around the time we formed Dayplayer, which was October ’05. It was kind the end of my sophomore year in college, I guess, that I started writing songs.

AM: Is writing ever a collaborative effort for you?

Tien: The songs on the EP I mostly wrote alone. A lot of the times when I was starting out, and I didn’t really know how to play a guitar, I would consult Peter [Potyondy, of Dayplayer].

AM: What was the recording process like for the Patience Finds EP?

Tien: I bought an mbox and a microphone and pretty much just sat in my dorm room and just cranked it out. I was actually living in this, like, really weird loft apartment, and there wasn’t really any enclosed space at all. So my roommates got to hear me making all these strange sounds in my room, like, playing the violin [parts] over and over again.

Luke [Hall, of Dayplayer] helped out for a couple [songs], too. He’s actually a music history major. He works at a studio, and he has a little home recording thing, so he did “Sara Jane” and “29: Immutable”.

AM: I’d read that you worked with Luke and Peter from Dayplayer, as well as Liana Weston. Did having them with you while you were recording generate a different vibe for the album?

Tien: Peter and I have played a lot together. He’s kinda my musical companion of sorts. The night before my EP release, I was like, “Man, Peter, the guitar thing that you do on ‘Quicksand’ when we play it together, I really need that.” He recorded it in his room and then sent it to me over the Internet, and I just put it on there. It sounded amazing, I thought. So I put that on there.

Luke is just, you know, we’re buddies, and he knows what he’s doing. A lot of the time, I’ll just try to perfect things to the point of exhaustion. But with him in there we’ll just do really simple songs and we’ll just crank ‘em out. He’ll put some magic on it. For “29: Immutable” he just threw his own vocals on there and I was like, “Wow, this is great.”

Liana and I worked on the vocals together for a show, so we wrote the ["Patience Finds"] harmonies together. But Luke and Peter, I trusted ‘em, so I just said, “Do what you do and it’ll probably make it on there.”

AM: The content and lyrics of the album come across as really insightful and aware. Is that something you set out to accomplish when you’re writing?

Tien: That’s my goal. I have this little vision board thing. Have you ever heard about The Secret?

AM: Yes.

Tien: It’s just this, like, thing. My friend was like, “Oh, you should make a vision board.” I was like, “Okay, that sounds like a good plan.” So I put in the middle of it that I want to make inspiring and insightful music that’ll get to people, that people will want to listen to.

I go over the lyrics over and over and over again. Melody comes naturally, but writing is much more of a cerebral thing. I just write a whole lot then just try to condense it and try to phrase it in a way that’s a little interesting for people. Put some imagery in there, try not to be too general, try not to be too specific, and try not to be too literal or too figurative.

AM: After being so hands-on with this project, is there any trepidation in regard to taking your work to a producer in the future?

Tien: Not really. I still feel like I have a lot of work to do to get the point to where I would want to do that. But if someone wanted to work with me right now, I’d be like, “Yeah. You know? Why not?” Just working with the other guys and stuff, I’m pretty comfortable in what I can do, and I kind of know a lot of the things that I can’t do, and I need a lot of help with that stuff. You know, recording you can only go so far. I wouldn’t be able to record a whole band, I don’t think, and make it sound passable.

AM: On the EP, you play both the violin and the guitar, and you also play the bass for Dayplayer. Do you play any other instruments?

Tien: I can mess around on piano, and I played saxophone when I was in middle school. I pretty much play whatever I can get my hands on. My mom was actually a zither player. She went to school in Vietnam to play the zither. I have one of her zithers. It’s a 17-string traditional Vietnamese instrument, and I’m probably going to pick that up soon.
I don’t know. Those things just kind of make sense to me.

AM: Is that how you got into music, playing the saxophone when you were younger?

Tien: Yeah, well, my parents made me play the violin when I was a kid, which I didn’t enjoy at the time. But I played it for six years. I was just always the kid that was making as annoying noises as possible to kind of piss off my sister, and kind of express myself about whatever was going on at the time– which was probably just being tortured by my sister. Just screaming and yelling and basically just trying to make it sound good so I could still do it and be socially acceptable.

AM: How did you come to be involved with Dayplayer?

Tien: John [Daley] and I met through a mutual friend. All of us had been kind of experimenting with writing songs and stuff, and I had a party at my house, and John was there. We were just hanging out, it was late at night and everyone was drunk, the party was over, and I just started playing songs. Two months later he calls me when I was getting off a plane– I’d just gone to Vietnam for the first time– and he was like, “Let’s start a band,” and I was like, “Okay.” We found Peter through Facebook, and we just started playing songs together.

Most of the songs you hear by Dayplayer are written by John– at least the concept of it and the lyrics. He asked me to sing on “Peak”, and he was like, “Hey, I think this is gonna work out.” So we set out to look for a guitarist and Peter brought his friend, Luke. We just started practicing and our first show, I think, was at the Vietnamese Culture Night at USC.

Speaking of USC, you’re a member of the USC Trojan Men.

(See: “Rock Your Body”. Go, Tien, Go.)

Tien: You gotta get the album. We were in the studio all semester this semester. In addition to my EP, I was also in and out of the studio with the Trojan Men recording a full-length. It’s really cool. It’s a really good album.

AM: Was that your first experience with recording in a studio?

Tien: Yeah, yeah. That was my first experience going into a studio because Dayplayer hasn’t gone into the studio at all.

AM: How long have you been with the Trojan Men?

Tien: I think this was my third semester, and I took a semester off. So for about two years. It’s really fun. I’ve learned more about how to sing from doing that than anything else, really.

AM: That was the next thing I wanted to ask, actually. Have you been able to take anything from that and implement it into the music you make?

Tien: Yeah, definitely. I recorded “First Impression” shortly after joining the group. It’s kinda more vocally interesting, as far as the arrangement, than any of the other ones. We did a lot of gigs and stuff, so it’s just a lot of singing, and when you’re singing that much you just kinda get a feel for what you can do and then learn how to blend with people, too.

AM: You’re taking part in Semester At Sea so what affect will that have on your music schedule?

Tien: The schedule is probably gonna be nonexistent. But I guess this is my first world tour. I’m bringing my guitar and my recording equipment. You know how people on YouTube have these projects, like, “I’m gonna write a song a week for a whole year!” or whatever… something like that– I’ve been kinda hesitant to commit to anything– but it’d be cool if I could write a new song at every port. But I’ll be doing a lot of exploring and stuff, and I’ll definitely be writing it all down and I’ll use it eventually.

AM: Do you plan to make music your primary focus, or is it more of a hobby for you right now?

Tien: No, definitely it is my primary focus, and I can’t imagine there ever being anything else. But, you know, things change sometimes. You get different responsibilities. I can’t imagine anything making me happier.

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The Patience Finds EP is currently available on tien-music.com as well as iTunes.
Visit Tien’s MySpace at myspace.com/tienmusic.