FEATURED INTERVIEWwith We Are Scientists
by Kristine Howard | (email)
There is nothing but good press swirling around LA, NY, and in the UK about the We Are Scientists (or tWAS). If you were one of the lucky ones to catch their shortened NATIONAL TOUR OF AMERICA OF ALL TIME, you know exactly why. When I caught them at the Mercury Lounge in June, my hips and legs and arms started twitching and jiving in some sort of knee-jerk reaction to the music. Yes, my friends. I was dancing. The thumping beat, signature bass, and dripping vocals have created a band that is "about to take the world by storm." Add this to their killer image and cutting humor and wit (have you SEEN their frigging website?) and you have a triple mothergrabbing threat. In fact, this threesome, Keith Murray, Michael Tapper and Chris Cain, have recently signed to Virgin Records- a move that is certain to only expand upon the success they've found overseas. After I pleaded and promised an orgasm, Keith volunteered Chris to answer some of my questions. And this is what he had to say.
Aside from the music, you guys have an interesting and ever-changing image. You currently look like a mismatched grouping from precisely three separate bands: one emo rocker, one jamband hippie, and one dude from Journey. How do you feel about that? Was a stylist involved?
Damn good. We feel really goddamned good about it. It's actually a very conscious scattershot approach to drawing fans that allows us to be all things to all people. The emo kids love us. The hippies and jammers love us. The guys from Journey ring up every week or two just to see how things are going. And then we get this whole fourth group of people based on the actual music, which is neither emo, nor jammie, nor 80's rock -- it's just plain free jazz.
Your latest single is extremely catchy and radio-friendly. How has it been doing overseas? Do you have high hopes for it becoming a hit in the states?
Well, NOBODY MOVE, NOBODY GET HURT was our first single, and it came out about a month ago, and it's done pretty well -- a good amount of radio play and MTV2 play for the video. I think at this point it has sold twenty-four million copies or twenty-four dozen or something in there. THE GREAT ESCAPE is our next single, and it's coming out in August, and it's going to tear its way up the charts like a weasel tearing up a staircase of little weasel-sized stairs. We have to believe this.
At this point it's possible that neither of these songs will be a single in the U.S. -- they may, we're just not sure. The reason is that, as everybody knows, the Brits and Americans have very different taste. Show a Brit a plate of sallow custard sewn with boiled peas and call it Cuckolded Nuggets and the Brit will eat it -- tepidly, grudgingly, sure, but eat it he will. Whereas the American will not eat that sort of thing.
You're getting more press in Europe than in the states (photo shoots for sexy male magazines, TV spots, etc.). As an insider from the industry, what do you think creates such a differential? Is the market less saturated or do they just have better taste?
Well, in this case the difference can largely be explained by the fact that we've put out singles and toured and have an active PR agent in the UK; none of that is going on in the US yet. It's to be hoped -- nay, assumed -- that when we ramp up activities here in the home territories this Fall we'll see a response similarly enthusiastic to the one we've gotten abroad. 'Enthusiastic' might not even be the word -- 'zealous', 'fanatical'.
What would need to happen in the next three years for you to be satisfied with the progress of We Are Scientists?
Personal growth. Michael would need to stop using filthy language to describe wild animals; Keith would have to get through his rubber sheet phase; I've got to break my dependency on marbles. Got to, got to, got to. Ridiculous to spend so much money on what amount to little more than tiny glass spheres, if you think about it.
How many years have you been touring? You perform without a smidgen of the awkward or inexperience. Is this something that has always come so naturally?
No, no. For a long time we right sucked. We were doughnuts smeared with poo -- not appetizing, not even legal to sell. But yeah, practice makes perfect, as they say, and although we never were very good about practicing, we are now a perfect band, performatively speaking.
What music have you been listening to lately?
Hmm. Well, as a band we've been listening to a lot of Bowie, Lou Reed and the V.U., the Art Brut album, Oxford Collapse... then individually some other stuff. I'm not tremendously qualified to give you a report on Keith and Michael, but I'll tell you I noticed Michael bought the "50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong" retrospective album the other day, and is also very into Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, and Antony & the Johnsons lately; probably a dozen other things too that I don't know about. He and I both really like the new Sufjan Stevens album. Keith is very pro-Cribs right now, among other things. A couple of albums getting frequent rolls through my 8-track are Leslie Feist's 'Let It Die', Lucinda Williams's 'Essence', the new Frank Black nugget, the Q & Not U catalog, as I mourn their passing...
Bishop Allen has said to me that you boys are going to take the world by storm. Who else would you consider an undiscovered talent, about to break through?
Well, not that they're completely unknown or anything, but Bishop Allen is certainly going to experience great leaps in renown over the next year or two. We've heard the new album, and its future impact is beyond dispute.
Our buddies Editors are already blowing up in the UK, but they have yet to hit over here yet, so we get to pretend to know top-secret shit when we talk to our American friends. They've secured a very solid-sounding deal in the US; based on that and the quality of their new album, The Back Room, I feel safe predicting that next year will be Year of Editors.
Two L.A. bands whose fortunes I can safely predict will increase are Dirty Little Secret and Foreign Born. Both great rock bands whom you should take a listen to as soon and often as possible.
Finally, I think the band U2, which is I believe an Italian band that's actually been around for a while but has never gotten its due, is going to be all over the place very, very soon.
Please share your opinion about that Coca-Cola commercial where they're all singing about teaching the world to chill.
Coke is doing some really important work with that series of ads. The world could definitely stand to chill out right now -- lots of people are really pissed off and seem to be constantly in contemplation of how to further damage relations with their enemies instead of repairing them -- and I think that people just might listen to an impartial third party like Coca-Cola, who've always shown themselves to be all about getting along and restraining our darkest inclinations (think those adorable polar bears). Yeah, I think if more mega-corporations could see it in their hearts to co-opt really important messages in the service of sales, the human race might just stand a chance of making it out of this century alive.
Since the whole Scientology thing blew up with TomKat, you boys have oddly been getting tons of press. Is there some kind of connection here?
Well, we introduced them. Michael's actually the godfather of the alien baby that's been implanted in Katie's belly (due date: 10/4/2008). We wish those two lunatic lovebirds all the best. If we end up getting some great press out of it then, hell, I don't think that's any worse than Coca-Cola healing the world and at the same time ratcheting up units moved.
And to piggyback on that one, do you find that you're oddly in love with much younger, almost robotic women and jumping with fervor on household furniture?
I've always felt that to jump on household furniture less than fervidly is disingenuous. It's like lazily riding a bucking bronco. It's like, oxymoronical. It's like, whaaaa...? It's like, hell yeah we're in love with women of tender, nubile exteriors but stale, dead interiors! What is not to love?
Why do you think piggybacks are called such?
Don't have to "think"; have chosen instead to know. They are called that because when you piggyback something onto something else you place that first thing onto the back of the second thing (picture a child being given a piggyback ride by her father) and on the BACK of a pig is exactly where you will find his back. Not necessarily the case with other animals (picture a sea anemone).
Do you enjoy the smell of Windex? Not the Touch of Glass knock-off either. I'm talking genuine blue juice.
Funny story about Windex. I've lost several members of my family to Windex over the years. First one to go was me dear old mum, Old Belle, who drowned in a vat of the stuff after wading a bit too aggressively in pursuit of some bauble or another that had toppled from her tray of baubles into the deep blue pool -- her tiny jade Harry Conick Jr, I think it was. Less than a year later Grandpa slipped from the sheer walls of this world when he was mountaineering in Illinois and slipped from the sheer walls of a rock face or something -- Windex-unrelated. But then see while hunting for Grandpa's body in the dense Illinoisian scrub brush, cousin Cymbal stumbled upon a squirt bottle of that finest surface cleaner and, seduced by its ethereal ultramarine glint, guzzled it. Dead. The pattern continued. Windex worked its way through half my family -- nephews, two brothers, all my grandparents, pets, gardeners. But yes, perhaps strangely, I do like the smell of Windex, and I recognize this predilection will likely be the end of me.
What did you boys do before you started this band? Do you see yourself doing anything but this in the future?
Michael used to watch a ton of TV -- dawn till lights-out on weekends; Keith did a fair amount of guitar playing and assorted shenanigans designed to pester the neighbors like putting flaming sacks of poo on their porches or putting their very houses inside a shroud of flame; I spent a lot of time riding bikes and also for a while was very into drawing guys like Spiderman and Iceman with markers. This was back when we were little kids, though; I doubt we'll ever really go back to doing that.
I would like to hear exactly one story from a recent gig. It should be something humorous, to entertain your masses.
Hmm... humor rarely unfolds at our gigs, to tell you the truth. They're exciting and life-altering and sensual and all that, but not really funny. So I'll make something up:
At this recent gig, this guy came up to me after the show and goes, "Hey man, great set!" And I'm like, "I know your mom has a great set; that's why she and I are intimate." A major burn, right? Sure, sure -- well it gets better. He says to me, "What the hell?! I'm trying to tell you I liked your show, man." And I say, "Oh! Well then let's get off the subject of moms, because I just got off your very mom, right up off of her after she and I had finished what we were doing." At this point I'm really digging into this jerk. "What's your problem, dude?" he asks me; "I really liked you guys until about a minute and a half ago." So I just look him dead in the eye and go, "Look, I'm really sorry about what I said." It was truly amazing. Times like that make me wish W.A.S. had a documentary crew following us around all the time. Get that out on DVD or something, right?
You have an extremely devoted, and slightly wacky, fan base. What would you like to tell them today?
Show yourself.
No, just kidding. I would probably say, "Hey, you guys need to tone it down, because nothing is getting done in the world today because nobody can hear themselves think over the din of the howling cheers of We Are Scientists fans. The world has a lot of problems and, not that you caused them or anything, but it's time for you to become a part of the solution. Just... just tone it down a bit."
Is it true that you only agreed to this interview because I told you that I'd orgasm if you consented?
That played into it, yes. Sometimes giving another person an orgasm can be a really challenging -- even frustrating -- task, so when the opportunity presents itself to sort of snap our fingers and make someone go rigid with pleasure... well, we rarely say no. How was it, by the way? Was it alright? I swear we can do better. We were up all night last night driving back from a show, is the problem. Look, just give me like five, maybe ten minutes to rest and you and I we'll get right back at it and I'll try to draw out the answers a little bit and be a little more subtle in my textual movements -- use a gentler narrative arc and more tender diction. I think that might be a better approach for you. Just give me FIVE minutes...
Chris, it was fant-effing-tastic. Thanks, love.
To monitor their overtake of the globe, and to laugh until you almost pee, go to the tWAS website: www.WeAreScientists.com.
Les Angles Morts What's Real?
(Blue Skies Turn Black, 2005)
Rating:
Too many bands these days perform in front of rented projector screens displaying homemade videos that have little to offer your ever-fleeting attention span. Some of the worst in my experience have been digital projections of a band’s album art, and an old overhead projector with two people replacing hundreds of slides of crayon-drawn houses burning down. More intriguing, inspiring bands like The Cinematic Orchestra and Pere Ubu actually compose orchestral scores to films with none of their own; others have artistic displays that enhance one’s natural experience with their music. Les Angles Morts is right SMACK in the middle.
Les Angles Morts sell you post-punk prog-rock cinematic garnish. A mouthful? Let me explain: They don’t compose unique music for every film they lay their shadows upon, but they are inspired by and organize their sets according to the parts of the film that deserve to be enhanced by LAM’s awesome freakout energy. They decorate their chosen films with smirks on their faces while moshers kick the shit out of each other all night long. LAM’s sound is like a requiem to time warp. It is wholly embodied in their emphasis on the forgotten frequencies of 1970s and 80s analog synthesizers. On stage they are accompanied by sci-fi films, also borne from the womb of the 70s, or poorly produced documentaries (often sloppily tilted to distort the image some).
Why such an incredible live band decided to take their music to the studio, I have no idea. What’s Real is absolutely a let down, but no doubt a nice souvenir to take home after an orgiastic bath in synthesizer punk stimulus. It’s entirely instrumental with the exception of a few spurts of megaphone-enhanced vocal nonsense. Les Angles Morts takes the power rush of Lightning Bolt or Athletic Automaton and combines it with the quick changes and goofy poise of Need New Body.
Their songs share with Need New Body a tendency to change quickly in tempo or mood, an attribute exemplified in the remarkable first track, "What’s Real Summer". "Huge Antlers" carries the album under its wings with a King Kong-esque dance produced by numerous drum changes. The communication between guitar and keyboards here is at its pinnacle, but at all times both elements help to construct the fast-paced psychedelic island of doom that is What’s Real. "Sing Together" serves as proof that even the hardest strumming of electric guitar can produce unconditional beauty.
Les Angles Morts are avant-garde explorers of the art-punk underground that Montreal is becoming eminently known for. They exist in the matrix of production co./label Blue Skies Turn Black, which is a popularity mega-magnet in the underground world. Today, the reputation of BSTB as a "bearer of good shows" has spread throughout Canada and North America, but the label remains local, harboring forgotten names like Blake, YUL and Rockets Red Glare. Alongside Les Angles Morts, BSTB is also home to bands such as Kepler and Kiss Me Deadly, who have been receiving refreshing amounts of praise these days.
To wrap this up, What’s Real is certainly a worthwhile album, but it’s a puzzle without their live show still ringing in your eyes.
-Jeremy Young | (email)
Sabrina Dinanat the Roisin Dubh
Galway, Ireland - 08.03.05
At least once a week, Galway's best and most venerable music venue, The Roisin Dubh, hosts a free show featuring up and coming acts- and they're almost always worth checking out. For one thing, the Dubh is one of the finest places in the world to catch a show. Walk through the cozy front pub, complete with fireplace and bookshelves, and a velvet curtain unveils the intimate back room... equally welcoming but infinitely more rocking. The room features a full stage with superb sound, good sightlines and fair-priced beer. Candlelit wooden tables and exposed brick round out the inviting atmosphere, and you can slip out the back door to smoke butts by the river. What more could you ask for in a club?
Anyway, I stumbled into a chance to see local songstress Sabrina Dinan play a solo set here last week, and it was one of those welcome surprises that makes you wonder how you possibly could've missed it. This girl's got it.
Dinan weaves her well-crafted songs together with a layer of breathy, sultry vocals and intricate guitar work. While she's clearly influenced by the old standards, like Ray LaMontagne, it's to her credit- she delivers to her audience the very finest elements of acoustic music.
Dinan did more with her guitar than many full bands manage, but it was her songwriting that really captivated me. Eerily reminiscent of Wheelkick's own Will Dailey, she made complicated songs sound simple. Beautiful melodies shifted, grew and evolved throughout the song, acquiescing to off beats and interesting changes in cadence. She takes her time telling a story, leaving the listener hanging on every word, and every note.
With a bashful graciousness she held the room hypnotized for the better part of her set, and timidly answered the call for one more leaving the line, "It was only a makeshift memory that brought me to this place," in our heads. Dinan was an absolute pleasure to soak in- a full on musical experience spawned from just a voice and a guitar- and the show left me eagerly awaiting her forthcoming debut EP.
-Jon Gorey | (email)