Local indie rock band Tall Tales is set to release its new EP titled ‘It’s Just a Game’ May 19, which will mark its first official release.

Tall Tales is a local band consisting of: Jack Ingram  (Vocals/Keyboards), Rylan Fisher (Guitar/Vocals), Pierce Turcotte (Lead Guitar), Andrew Hosler (Drums/Percussion) and Tommie O’Halloran (Bass).

The members range from current high school students to recent high school graduates. Four of the members attended or currently attend schools in the Blue Valley district.

Ingram, Fisher, Turcotte and Hosler originally met while playing music for the praise band at the Church of the Resurrection, and the band later added O’Halloran to the lineup.

“I’ve always been a musician, and I met Rylan at [Church of the Resurrection] when I was in sixth grade,” Ingram said. “Last summer, I really wanted to start a band so I talked to Rylan about it, then shortly after we met Pierce and Andrew and ended up becoming a four-piece.”

Ingram said the band played a few shows during the summer of 2014, and that was when they started to take the band more seriously.

“We’ve been collectively working on [‘It’s Just a Game’] for around six months,” Ingram said. “Usually when we write songs, Pierce and Andrew will come in and jam on a riff and then the rest of us will form the the song’s chord structure; after that I’ll go write lyrics and a melody and then it’s pretty much done.”

The EP features six songs: “Checkers,” “Dear Friend,” “Don’t Know You,” “Echo,” “On Your Own” and “Queen of Hearts”. “Don’t Know You” was released earlier this year as a single.

“I think that for us the best songs come out when we all collaborate on them, and it just works really well for us,” Turcotte said.

Tall Tales currently has five shows scheduled for the summer. Members of the band will be selling physical copies of the album at their subsequent schools Tuesday.

“We’re gonna have a lot of physical copies to sell people because I know a lot of people who really like having the physical one, but we’ll also be doing a lot of distributing through Spotify and iTunes,” Ingram said.

Turcotte, who is also in another band called The Greeting Committee, said he has seen the music scene in Johnson County grow a lot in the last few years.

“I’ve definitely seen a lot more new bands in the scene around Johnson County, and I don’t know if it has to do with our involvement at all but it’s definitely gotten much bigger,” Turcotte said.

The boys said they enjoy playing with other bands and getting to interact with other musicians.

“I think it’s really fun to play with other bands,” Hosler said. “You get to see what their take on their craft is and how they do their thing different from yours.”

Ingram and Turcotte both said after they started playing in bands, they were viewed differently at their respective schools.

“I definitely saw some sort of shift after my other band, The Greeting Committee, played at an assembly and then released an EP two days later,” Turcotte said. “People just kind of know you by what you do.”

The band collectively has a wide variety of influences that ranges from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Walk the Moon to EDM (electronic dance music).

“We all like so many different types of music, and I guess it’s probably a good thing but our influences are really all over the place,” Ingram said.

Tall Tales will also be having an EP release party at Anthem Media Group May 31 to help promote ‘It’s Just a Game.’

“If I had to say anything to the people that follow us out there it would just be thanks so much for supporting us, and I am so excited for the future,” Ingram said.

The band’s website: http://www.talltalesband.com

The band’s Twitter page: @tall_tales_band

The band’s single, “Don’t Know You”: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dont-know-you-single/id912345004