Instrumental rock and electronic music is something one may not expect to find in the middle of Iowa, but that is what Des Moines based band Tires is all about.

Back in February the group released their first album, which had been an aspiration of guitar player Phil Young since the formation of Tires. He said that finally seeing an album come out of his own personal project was special.

This record was not released in a typical fashion, however. 300 physical copies of the album were self funded. Plus, each one has hand screen-printed covers and artwork. Young believes that this creative choice makes their work more unique and collectible to whoever picks a copy up.

“It’s much more kind of like an art piece rather than a mass produced record” Young said. “I think it should be something that is unique to the person that owns it.”

The decision behind putting the extra work into the album art comes from Young’s background as a recording engineer, where he has helped a lot of other artists put albums together. He believes that when an album feels mass produced it loses something.  

“I feel like it kind of loses the human side of it,” Young said.

By making Tires’ album feel more personal to their listeners, Young felt he could keep a special creative element within the finished product that is sometimes lost during production.

Young also has a thoughtful outlook on what he hopes comes out of the band’s music when showing it to their audience. When Tires perform, they are not trying to convey a specific message, but rather, they are trying to get the audience to draw their own meanings from the music.

“I’m not in a band or on a stage to say anything profound or try and change anybody’s mind or anything like that,” Young said.  “The music, hopefully will inspire emotions and feelings in people, but really I want it to draw out the feelings and emotions of the persons that were already there.”

The band recently had a successful album release show as well. Young said that they came close to selling out the Vaudeville Mews in Des Moines and he called the experience overwhelming, surprising and awesome.

“We were technically like 5 people away from selling out the Vaudeville Mews,” Young said. “It’s just really cool to see everyone coming out to support local music.”

Since the time of the album’s release, Young said that he has received positive feedback and reviews. Moving forward, Young hopes to coast on the album’s release for a little bit and get the record out to new audiences.

“Now that this is out we have to stick to our guns and keep playing shows and get the album out there to people who are interested,” Young said.

To find out more about the record, visit Tires’ Bandcamp page.