Columbus Alive: Good Times, Bad Times - Times New Viking bandmates recount the ups and downs of navigating national acclaim

The members of Times New Viking sat down with Joel Oliphint of the Columbus Alive in 2016 to revisit the ups and down of the band. Here is some of that:

At the top of a hill, amid the dorms of Czech Technical University, sits Klub 007 Strahov, a basement venue in Prague that has hosted rock, punk and hardcore shows since 1969. In 2010, Adam Elliott, Beth Murphy and Jared Phillips found themselves at 007, playing a gig with their band, Times New Viking. The venue is half a world away from Café Bourbon Street, which served as the band’s humble North Campus home base before and after the trio’s first show there in January 2004. 

And yet, even on the other side of the globe, the club didn’t feel too removed. It was a small space, and only about 30 people came to the show. “It felt like Bourbon Street, except we were in the Czech Republic,” Elliott said. “Afterward we did shots of absinthe in this 400-year-old bar that had taxidermied birds. I remember Jared and I looked at each other, being like, ‘This shitty little band got us here.’” 

Short, fuzz-coated, in-the-red pop songs recorded onto cassettes in the basement of North Campus rentals took Times New Viking to stages in Prague, Sweden, Munich and London. The three friends shared the stage with some of their favorite bands - underground legends like Yo La Tengo, Wire and the Clean - and eventually signed to not one but two of the most respected, storied labels in independent rock: Matador and Merge records. The highs were high.