I interviewed Jeremy Dawson (keyboardist/bassist) and Sisely Treasure (vocalist) of Los Angeles' Shiny Toy Guns after they performed in Seattle at Deck the Hall Ball 2008. It was kind of a chaotic yet fun evening for me and Shiny Toy Guns were a major highlight – I really love their sound and their show was just super. They’re heading to SXSW this year and fingers crossed they’ll add some dates around this appearance!

Q: I saw a youtube clip of the appearance you made on Yo Gabba Gabba – that was adorable.

Jeremy Dawson: Let me tell you how that started. We’ve always toured with Chad’s daughter [Ally] – she’s four now. She took her first steps going 70 mph. There were some guys who had a beta kids show that was unsigned and they had a demo called Yo Gabba Gabba. They already had the White Stripes and the Fame on board. They approached us in LA and told us how they had a kids’ show. We popped the dvd in and Ally was mesmerized. It’s a kids’ show that’s psychedelic. It’s like a modern parent’s kids’ show. What we didn’t know was that it was a Halloween show – well, we did know because they asked us to make a song but we didn’t know it was a costume thing. We were given a choice, so I was King Arthur the Knight and Chad was a banana. They painted his face yellow. They played it again this year – ratings-wise it was actually a big deal. Unfortunately they had to cut our name down to the Shinys because the word gun for a four-year-old . . . some parents get weird.


Jeremy Dawson

Q: What kind of toys did you have as children?

Sisely Treasure: A Sit ‘n Spin. There was another thing that you sit on and it had wheels – you could move it back and forth. . . going down hills in that one! I guess I’m some sort of weird motion-adrenaline junkie.


Sisely Treasure

JD: There was all these extra bricks and I was fascinated with the school bus. When I was in first and second grade I thought school buses were the coolest things in the world. So I would take these bricks and look at the holes in the bricks like they were windows of a bus, and draw the names of schools in the sand. There was a creek behind my house and I would build schools out of the sand and make bus routes. That’s what I played with all day. I would not ask for toys. My friends would come over and ask I would ask if they’d play with my bricks and they would say no. I was really into emulating an environment instead of buying a plastic replication.

ST: I really liked playing in the rain, in the garden with big plants – very Californian. It reminded me of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I always wanted to live in the rain forest, which is another story.
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Watch Jeremy & Sisely in the video for Ricochet! and check out more of my photos from Deck the Hall Ball 2008.