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“I have no sensibility for what makes a radio hit,” says Seth Tiven, leader of Boston-based Dumptruck. “Whatever I think is probably the worst song on the record ends up as the big push track on radio. It’s just a really warped sense of taste that I have.”
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TRUCKIN’!
“I have no sensibility for what makes a radio hit,” says Seth Tiven, leader of Boston-based Dumptruck. “Whatever I think is probably the worst song on the record ends up as the big push track on radio. It’s just a really warped sense of taste that I have.”
Warped or not, Tiven does have an undeniable knack for crafting catchy yet enigmatic guitar pop tunes—like “Going Nowhere” from Dumptruck’s latest album, For The Country, which is popping up all over college radio and alternative AOR playlists. Yet that’s what amazes him: “I really like it, but I think it’s one of the weaker songs on the record,” Tiven says, bemused.
"It was the same situation with ‘Back Where I Belong’ (the alluringly ominous single from Country’s predecessor, Positively Dumptruck)—I thought it was a weird song, really obtuse for radio. I was totally wrong.” “Back” made quite a hearty showing on the airwaves, in fact, and MTV was all over the video. In any case, says Seth, “My job is not to pick hits—my job is to write songs and play them.”