Once part of the millennial indie rock boom, TV on the Radio is back on the road

Boston Globe

14-05-2025

That time is now. After having carved a swath through ten years of the post-9/11 musical landscape with a quintet of dense, fiery art-rock records that litter best-of-the-year and best-of-the-decade album polls, TV on the Radio has returned to the fray, hitting the road on a tour that brings them to Roadrunner on July 30. Given that the band had plenty to say about the Republican in the White House when it first appeared on the scene in 2001, the decision to regroup might seem like it was inspired by its thoughts about the current occupant. But Bunton suggests that the timing simply seemed right for the band to resume operations.
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'It seems temporally appropriate for whatever reason, but I can't say that was the impetus. I don't think any of us have that much of an inflated sense of self-worth, [of] being like 'The world needs us now!,'' Bunton says. Instead, he sees TV on the Radio as paying inspiration forward, just as he was inspired by other artists. 'I'm a firm believer in [our] music and its authenticity and its sincerity, and I think it adds something to the global conversation.'
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Despite the protestations, it seems in some regards as though TV on the Radio's work isn't done, that the heady swirl of agitation that the band explored so well speaks as much if not more to the Trump era as the Bush era. In fact, it can be overwhelming to revisit the band's albums — all thick guitar churns, unsoothing electronic enhancement and the unrelenting (if charismatic) intensity of Tunde Adebimpe's vocals — at length in the current day, when a constant buzz of agitation seems to exist perpetually as foreground noise. Taking in the entirety of the band's catalogue is enough to mess with someone's head.
Bunton doesn't see that discomfort as a bad thing. 'Sometimes being challenged or being asked difficult questions is great. Sometimes it's just annoying. I can't tell you, and we could definitely be both,' he says with a laugh. At the heart of it, he sees the post-9/11 world as being rife with internal conflicts and contradictions, many of which are still being reckoned with. 'I would feel remiss if I didn't include those conflicts and that contradiction into music. It is accurate to the mirror that I see, so I'm not surprised that it feels agitated.'
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It's always uncertain whether music with such a level of unease baked in will find its audience — 'It's like being seen,' offers Bunton, 'that's what 'misery loves company' is' — but TV on the Radio pulled it off. Possibly too well.
'Once you have that level of success, I've realized it just doesn't belong to us anymore,' says Bunton. 'I remember I saw myself on a poster on the subway, and I was like, 'Oh, you're a commodity now. You're like a potato chip.''
It may have helped that TV on the Radio didn't have to navigate the wilds of acclaim and success alone as it headed out of Brooklyn into the larger world two decades ago. It was one of a wave of buzzed-about New York City bands making their names at the time; Bunton — who began as TV on the Radio's drummer, stepped in for bassist Gerard Smith after his death of lung cancer in 2011 and currently plays guitar on stage — talks about living in the same loft as members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Metric and Liars, with the Secret Machines as their neighbors as they rehearsed next door to
'This stuff only happens in retrospect, but we never saw it as a scene. We never saw it as a global takeover,' Bunton says. 'I didn't feel like any of those bands were trying to sound like anything but themselves. I think that was part of the ethos of the neighborhood, for sure.'
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And as TV on the Radio returns to active duty more than a decade after its last album, there's the matter of the most obvious, most boring question hanging in the air. Bunton insists that he must give the most boring answer and remain mum on whether new music is forthcoming.
'I have to have no comment on that question,' he says. 'For now, we're really happy doing what we're doing. We're really happy we made this decision. It's been a great joy to everyone. We kind of suspected it might be, and when it actually started happening, started playing shows, it just felt very, very right. I hope people come out. I'm very proud of what we're doing right now.'
TV ON THE RADIO
At Roadrunner on Wednesday, July 30. 8 p.m.
Marc Hirsh can be reached at [e-mail] or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social