School of Rock

UNO Grad Neely Jenkins left the classroom for a tour van as a member of rock band Tilly and the Wall — and she hasn't looked back.

 

By Tim McMahan

Photo by Rob Walters

 

In the center of a storm of balloons, confetti and blazing, choreographed strobe lights — standing on a stage above a crowd of 700 in Omaha's Sokol Auditorium — was Neely Jenkins. The 1999 UNO graduate and elementary school teacher was about as far away from a classroom as you can get, singing into a microphone surrounded by the rest of the band known as Tilly and the Wall — the sweethearts of Omaha's famous indie music scene.

Indie music isn't so much a sound as it is a style, encompassing bands and performers whose music isn't typically heard on popular FM stations. These are the singers, songwriters and musicians who dominate the airwaves at college radio stations across the country and across the globe, performing a style of atypical rock music.

In the late 1990s, Omaha's indie music scene emerged at a national level, thanks to the success of the city's Saddle Creek Records. Its roster of bands includes artists like electronic-dance act The Faint, acidic guitar-rockers Cursive and, most notably, Bright Eyes fronted by singer-songwriter Conor Oberst, an Omaha native and former UNO student who has the unfortunate distinction of being labeled this generation's Bob Dylan by the fawning national music press.

"I grew up going to punk rock shows while in junior high and high school," Jenkins says from a tour van headed to Washington, D.C. "It was a different independent pop scene that I fell in love with.

"Then when I went to UNL, I met a bunch of people from Omaha who would become the folks involved in Saddle Creek Records and its bands. I noticed they were going on national tours and then international tours. They were building a big fan base."

By the end of the '90s, Jenkins was part of the scene, involved in a band with Oberst called Park Ave. Its forte was cute, chummy love songs fueled rhythmically not by a drum set, but by band member Jamie Williams' tap-dancing. Recording only a single album, the band never took off.

 

Out of music, into a master's

Oberst went on to national fame, but Jenkins' music career looked like it was going to be short-lived. She and Williams finished college in Lincoln. Jenkins then pursued a master's in UNO's Cadre Program.

"It's a one-year master's degree program where students teach in the classroom during the day and take classes at night," Jenkins says. "It was a super-intense experience, going from typical college life to the stress of teaching kids. I was frightened about jumping into something so serious. It was the biggest change in my life."

She says she made it through the program with the help of her 40 or 50 classmates. "Their support was the best thing I could have," says Jenkins, whose focus was elementary education. "My classmates included students who aspired to teach junior high and high school. I heard what their lives were like and had a resource to share stories from the classroom. The program was awesome."

It was while teaching at Omaha's Bancroft Elementary School that Jenkins and tap-dancing fellow teacher Williams became friends with two guys from Athens, Ga. — keyboard player Nick White and guitarist/vocalist Derek Pressnall. "Jamie had met the boys while selling merch on a Bright Eyes tour," Jenkins says. Before long, White and Pressnall were living in Omaha and hanging around Jenkins' home to watch "Dawson's Creek" with their pal Kianna Alarid. In early 2001 the five friends formed Tilly and the Wall as a fun side project. The band's name was inspired by a children's book by Leo Lionni.

The Tillies' music is bright, brash folk fueled by a guitar, keyboards, Jenkins' and Alarid's vocals, and Williams' center-stage tap-dancing. Their lyrics attracted teenagers struggling with coming of age, with relationships and with themselves. The words related to those on the outside looking in during their high school years.

 

On the road, out of class

The band released its first EP in 2003. A year later their debut full-length "Wild Like Children" became the first album released on Conor Oberst's new record label, Team Love Records. Faced with the prospect of being able to make a living making music, Jenkins closed the door on a teaching career in fall 2003 after five years at Bancroft. It was a difficult choice but Jenkins says she has no regrets.

She hasn't completely left teaching, anyway — when the band's not on the road, she's available as a substitute.

"With all the experiences we've had traveling to places like Iceland and Japan, I have an opportunity to share those experiences in the classroom," Jenkins says. "I think it means so much to the students and makes them want to travel as well."

Tilly and the Wall released its sophomore effort, "Bottoms of Barrels," in 2006 and supported it with a guest appearance on "Late Night with David Letterman" in October of that year. "It was the scariest thing I've ever done knowing there were that many viewers out there," Jenkins says.

"After 'Letterman,' teachers who didn't understand what I had been doing changed their perspective. They realized it was a neat opportunity."

 

Easy as ABC

As was a gig for "Sesame Street," whose forthcoming season this fall will feature Tilly and the Wall's version of the "ABC Song" in a music video. "That was even cooler than 'Letterman,'" Jenkins says. "We all grew up with 'Sesame Street.' It's part of our lives."

With their latest album release this summer — "o" — Jenkins and the band find themselves back on the road. "Sometimes I ask myself if I'm too old to do this," says the 34-year-old. "Maybe I should go back to teaching because that's what society says I should do, but then I think about touring and getting to see my friends on the East Coast again.

"In the beginning, all anyone saw was three girls in a band, and no one took it seriously. Now we know how the game is played. We don't take guff from anyone anymore."

 

Photo: Neely Jenkins, center, left full-time teaching in 2003 to pursue a career with Tilly and the Wall. Bandmates include, from left, Nick White, Kianna Alarid, Jenkins, Jamie Pressnall and Derek . Photo by Rob Walters.