Dylan Mattheisen (Tiny Moving Parts)

As the energetic singer and spellbinding guitarist of Tiny Moving Parts, Dylan Mattheisen — along with his cousins/bandmates William and Matthew Chevalier — has toured the world over, built an impressive fan base that's grown with each of the band's seven full-lengths, and helped put his hometown of Benson, Minnesota, on the map. Before Mattheisen and company were bringing the small western Minnesota town to outward consciousness among fans of math-y Midwest emo, he and his future rhythm section were working at their family-owned grocery store, learning covers of Blink-182 and Sum 41 songs and holding no expectations of where they'd wind up.

Last week, before the band was to start a nationwide tour in belated support of last year's "breathe," My First Band host Tyler Maas joined Mattheisen in the band's van outside X-Ray Arcade, where the frontman talked about growing up in Benson, his early artistic attempts in ill-fated projects with numerals in their names, when things really started to click for Tiny Moving Parts and much more. Note: about 10 minutes of the interview cut off due to a recording mishap, but Mattheisen was kind enough to re-record before the show. Also, Tiny Moving Parts was forced to postpone its tour as a coronavirus/COVID-19 precautionary measure, so if you have some cash to spare, support them and buy their stuff!

My First Band is sponsored by Mystery Room Mastering. The show is edited by Jared Blohm. You can listen to My First Band on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever else you get podcasts. Music used in this show comes courtesy of Devils Teeth ("The Junction Street Eight Tigers") and Tiny Moving Parts ("The Midwest Sky").