Tennis — the beloved Colorado-based dream-pop duo comprised of married couple Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley — is embarking on an indefinite hiatus following their currently ongoing farewell tour which includes a stop at the Mission Ballroom on August 26th. Since their debut 15 years ago, the band’s music has always been ephemeral, their songs these soft, fleeting things that slip through your fingers if you try to hold on to them too tight. They are filled with hope and curiosity, little dreams that float by like gently blown dandelion wishes carried sweetly by a warm breeze.
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As such, Tennis’s music has always felt like freedom, reminding each person that hears it to make the most of their brief time on this mortal plane, to fill their lives with love and inquisitiveness and the courage it takes to keep wishing against all odds. Impermanence begets beauty and once a person recognizes that, they are free to mold each passing second into whatever form they wish so that each breath tastes sweet, each trepidatious step towards uncertainty feels like the most important ever taken. Though Tennis as they’ve been known is coming to an end, they still have one more lesson in reveling in the evanescent to teach with their final Denver show at the Mission Ballroom before their uncertain hiatus.
Ahead of the show, 303 Magazine spoke with Moore and Riley about the hiatus and why now is the time for it, their romance that turned into a musical project that changed their lives, what the future holds for them and much more.
READ: Review — Tennis Proved They’re More Than Just Gentle Tunes at Mission Ballroom
Though they both grew up involved with music, Riley and Moore had incredibly different childhoods. Riley discovered music through his father, a lifelong musician who used music to pay his way through college, played in a professional cover band in the 60’s and immersed his son in music from the day he was born. Riley’s father continues to have a major impact on the band as the keyboard Moore plays when Tennis tours is Riley’s father’s, the same one he used back in the day.
Growing up near Denver, Riley spent a lot of time running around the city streets chasing music, specifically at the Larimer Lounge. Riley said he must have seen “something around 200 shows there” throughout his adolescent years, even spending time as a member of their street team, slapping posters on electrical posts and in the windows of local businesses to promote shows in exchange for free tickets.
Moore’s upbringing was quite a bit more sheltered, describing herself as “the homeschooled daughter of a pastor.” She mentioned that singing in church was what made her happiest in her formative years. Although they themselves were not very musical people, Moore’s parents quickly took notice of their daughter’s love for it and eventually “helped [her] get a piano.” Moore said that because she was homeschooled her school curriculum was “very freewheeling” and that her parents supported any endeavor that allowed their daughter to “better herself.” This allowed Moore to play piano “uninterrupted, as many hours of the day that [she] wanted.”
This also allowed her to eschew traditional homework much of the time in favor of just sitting at the piano for as long as she could. It’s a virtue that Moore carries with her to this day, the idea that engaging in creativity in whatever form, especially as a young person, can be just as edifying or even more so as spending hours trying to memorize a history textbook.
Music carried both Riley and Moore to college, both initially electing to study music at different schools. However, they became disillusioned with the respective programs they were enrolled in and elected to transfer to another school to study philosophy. This was where they first met and began to fall in love. Music was still a very big part of their courtship, with Moore saying, “There were a lot of mixtapes being passed around and we bonded over a shared love of the same music.” But they didn’t ever really explore each other’s musical backgrounds, with “literature and philosophy being very much more in the foreground of [their] lives at this moment.”
It wasn’t until after their marriage a few years later that they really began delving into each other’s love of actually making music. After realizing that they “both had some talent,” they recorded themselves on an old four-track Riley’s father gave to him when he was young. They actually released this early, raw version of the band in it’s entirety this year as Neutral Poetry, intending to pay homage to where they started as they look towards an ending.
Once they had this little demo of sorts recorded, things began to move faster than Moore and Riley ever could have imagined. The idea of overnight success or recognition is somewhat cliché and tends to undermine all the work artists put in behind the scenes that lead up to what appears to be quick success. But the term applies to Tennis. In 2010, they put portions of what would become Neutral Poetry up on MySpace and just a few days later they found themselves on Pitchfork’s “Best New Music” playlist and celebrated by other respected music publications. This came as a particular surprise to Riley, who describes himself as “chronically offline” and chooses to share a phone with Moore still to this day rather than have one of his own. Riley said one day, about a week after they posted the songs and were starting to get an idea of what was beginning to happen around them, “someone from Sony showed up at [his] work with a contract.” He recalls finding this particularly crazy given that they had no contact information online and the people from Sony had tracked him down.
The Sony contract ended up not being what Moore and Riley were looking for but it did give them an inkling of exactly what they had on their hands. They eventually signed with indie label Fat Possum Records, which met their needs and allowed them to get a real foothold in the industry, build a name for themselves and become established through the whirlwind that was happening around them. It also let them slow down a little to work on more music. When this was all happening, Moore said “We had a set that amounted to about 22 minutes. There was no way we could headline a tour.”
Since then, Tennis has released seven albums and an EP, all mostly completely independently as they left Fat Possum after a few years. Their incredibly unique sound is the real reason they have enjoyed the longevity and success that they have. There is an idea put forth by American speculative fiction author Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five: “Unstuck in time.” Their music feels like it drifted into modernity from a different era, potentially originating in the late 60s and picking up pieces of different decades as it made its way to now. It’s deeply ethereal, the kind of music that flows through you like a warm breeze carrying wishes upon it. It overflows with the love that these two talented partners in life have for each other and through that love, the audience feels hope and melancholy and courage and comfort in the fact that though all wishes may not come true, there is no one who can stop you from making them.
The band developed their sound initially by “ripping off music [they] loved endlessly.” It’s a tactic many young artists use, trying to emulate that which they love and capture the same energy. But after a time, the band began drifting into their own lane, taking that which came before, internalizing it but using it more as propulsion into finding their own originality rather than continuing to emulate it exactly. Moore spoke of the idea of being as “truthful as possible” in their music. They began searching for what truly feels authentic to themselves, trusting their instincts to find what feels right and in their own voices. Riley spoke also about being fascinated by recording techniques used in the 50s and 60s, tactics that contribute to their music’s timeless feel. These factors all melded and combined with a literary sense of lyricism to create their wholly unique sound that doesn’t really exist anywhere else and is sure to be emulated by artists in generations to come.
As for the hiatus, there are many factors as to why Tennis is calling it quits for the time being. On a more spiritual or metaphorical sort of level, this year represents a lot of milestones and full-circle moments for the band. They will be hitting 1000 shows played after this farewell tour wraps up. Moore and Riley both spoke about 15 years seeming like a nice round number. But the biggest part of it really amounts to the fact that they are feeling very burnt out, Moore saying that “the industry has squeezed every last drop of energy out of us.” Making music has never been fun or easy for Tennis, both echoing each other’s sentiments of “if you’re having fun making music, you’re doing it wrong.” The fact that they’ve been doing it completely independently for so long as well has worn them down. They also mentioned the fact that they were in their early 20s when Tennis started and they are now getting close to their 40s and all they have focused on for most of their adult life has been Tennis and there’s more they want to do.
Moore and Riley are both such creative people that even though the musical chapter of their lives is coming to what seems like an end, they will never stop making things. Moore is excited to have time to work on writing novels. She said she’s looking forward to the freedom that medium can afford her writing as she’s had to constrain herself to poetic and song structure which began to feel limiting for her as the years rolled on. Riley is planning to work with his hands, hoping to build houses and other things that people can actually use and live in and benefit from. They both mentioned that music will always be in their lives but what exactly that looks like moving forward hasn’t yet been decided. This writer would be remiss if he didn’t mention the light in both of their eyes as they spoke about these future endeavors, their hope and excitement for this next chapter almost as palpable as the love they share between them.
All this being said, the end isn’t here quite yet. Tennis will be playing one last Denver show at the Mission Ballroom on August 26th. As is the case with their final album, Face Down in the Garden, the show is to be less of a sad farewell and more of a shining celebration of all that these past 15 years have held, all the laughter and dancing and joy. It’s sure to be the kind of show that sticks with you in the way your favorite song does, one you carry with you and remember whenever you need reminding that impermanence is what makes life so gloriously beautiful. Don’t miss it.
Tennis has had an incredible, almost unprecedented 15 years and we are lucky to have existed at the same time as them. Farewell, Tennis. Thanks for everything.
Get tickets to Tennis’s final Denver show here!