Terror From the 'Chronicle' Classifieds!

Thomas Turner: I was at my dad's neighbor's house. He's an old music fan from Chicago. I told him I was tired of playing alone and wanted to hook up with people to play with sometimes. He said: "Man, just open up the Chronicle and look in there! There's always people looking for weird stuff." So one of the numbers I called was our friend Andrew [Hamra], and he was in the band Aaron was in [Waking Helix]. I started playing with them, and it went different ways, but Aaron and I stuck together. If I hadn't gone over to my dad's neighbor's house, I wouldn't have gotten the Chronicle. I went over and saw him the other day – hadn't seen him in seven or eight years. I wondered if he remembered me or knew I took his advice and opened up the Chronicle. He was all: "Hey man, all right! I've been following you, reading all about you!" It was pretty neat!

Austin Chronicle: Is the Chronicle seen as snobby about musicians?

Aaron Behrens: Only to Ghostland Observatory!

Turner: [Grinning] Yes.

AC: But what do you care? Your fans love you! They vote you all over the music polls, you sell out, festivals love you .... You're a "people's band," not critics' darlings.

Turner: We are the people's champ.

Behrens: What the Chronicle doesn't realize is you made this! It's your fault! Beat yourselves up! [laughs] It's crazy how it worked. I didn't think much of it at the time, but hearing it now, our whole story is crazy. It's never been planned out. It's organically grown. It moves the way it moves, and I trust the energy that makes it that. It brought us to this point. I feed off that energy!