Scientists? Where?

I arrive late at The Black Cat because traffic was awful, but I’ve called We Are Scientist’s manager and she’s told me that they’re going to be late, too, but she said an hour and it turns into two. Luckily I had money to spend and there was plenty of shopping to do until they arrived. At about five thirty, I’m spent and knock on the door and Dante let’s me hang out inside, away from the rain, until they arrive. At six they’re finally there and I introduce myself. They’re all pleasant fellows, but because of their lateness are hurried to get their sound-check done. Luckily half of the creative mind behind their masterpiece, We are Scientists, Chris Cline isn’t needed for the entire sound-check and is available for the interview. We get settled in their dressing room and I fiddle with my tape-recorder.

Chris has a certain wry wit that’s not at all intimidating and eased the majority of my nerves. We begin on topic, and quickly fall on and off track. Chris’ humor is beyond sarcastic, I thought I’d braced myself for, and despite our efforts to keep this strictly relevant to the band, and they new album and the changes to their sound, and blahblahblah, silliness ensues, much to our amusement.

You’re playing your new album tonight. Much of it.

I haven’t read any blogs about this tour… ahh, you wanted to keep it a surprise.

You have a new sound on this album, you have keyboards, did you use computers? No, we could…

But you probably won’t… new drummer? Adam Erickson, and on keyboards – Max Hart.

Do you like working with them? They’re a nightmare, does your publication allow swearing? (yeah) okay, they were a fucking nightmare, they’re behavioral issues give most convicts a run for their money.

They’re older than you? Roughly our age, I’m a spry thirty.

What’s that like playing with younger bands, Oxford Collapse is a bit younger than you and as far as your popularity, you’ve got seniority to a lot of the bands you play with. Yes, yes…

Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend… But on the other-hand you’ve got, the Rolling Stones, U2…

You put yourself up there with them? No, but in terms of popular bands – bands everyone has heard of, we’re not quite as big as U2, but everyone has heard of us. There is a disturbing trend towards younger and younger bands, I say disturbing because we have to hang out with these people. And for the second time in the interview I’m going to have to refer to something as a fucking nightmare. Going on tour with a bunch of 19-year-olds is a fucking nightmare. Actually going on tour with the Arctic Monkeys was cool, they’re weirdly mature dudes. Some of the other bands you mentioned I feel confident that they are little fucking nightmares.

Would you consider some of your songs to be more of the 80’s glam-rock genre? Yeah, some of the new stuff is glam-rock-y, at least synth-rock. Lethal Enforcer comes to mind.

Do you have outfits to match? We’re almost always wearing the outfits to match under the clothes you see. We’re trying to work up the confidence to go public with that look. You could say that those types of clothes are very, revealing. It takes a great deal of self-confidence.

Are you doing anything as a band to work on said confidence? We did a rope course two weeks ago in the Adirondacks, that was a lot of fun. Working out? No, that’s hard. But we bought a tanning bed, finally; on the bus, we converted one of the bunks.

Whose bunk? Keith’s. And he was sleeping in it, we finally got wise, because it’s impossible to catch a tan in England unless it’s done synthetically, yet he was always so tan, almost to the point of looking like a street-urchin caked in mud. We finally unearthed his secret and it became communal property.

(This leads to an aside about Amy Winehouse and her supposed addiction to her tanning bed, sores that she was trying to get rid of by tanning. Gross.)

Have you met her? No, but it’s safe to say, she’s a fucking nightmare.

How long were you in England for? We go there pretty regularly, three or four times a year. Touring, festivals, about four months out of the year.

I have to ask about your Wikipedia pages. (really the only “research” I did for this interview) Do you monitor them yourselves? No, are they inaccurate?

I don’t know? I think I saw them a few months ago, it seemed largely accurate.

Do you have a kid? Yes.

(He shows me a picture of Dash holding…he interjects, “a handgun, that’s an automatic pistol,” it’s a drill. He tells me that Dash likes riding mowers and power tools mainly. Dash is 2 ½ .)

What’s that like? How often do you see him? In 2007 we were home most of the year. I saw him every day, more than most dads with 9-5 jobs. These days I see him about as often as Santa Claus sees most people’s kids. That sucks. It’s the biggest downside of my job.

Does he understand that you’re in a band? Does he come to practices… Yes, he was at sound-check yesterday. He fucking loves it, he’s got the sound suppressing ear-muffs, so he can stand on stage while we’re practicing/sound-checking, it’s pretty great. He’s been on tour, he was in Ireland and will be in the UK in August, he comes on the bus, has his own little bunk, gets his fifteen minutes in the tanning bed. He loves the band, and everything about music.

Is he playing any instruments? Are you going to get him started early? To be honest, he kind of sucks at everything, but he’s learning very quickly. He’ll play drums, and guitar and he sings. He’s got one of those little mics, and when he beats on a drum he’s got pretty good rhythm. It bodes well, or poorly when you consider that most musicians are homeless, syphilitic, wrecks of human beings.

The lyrics for this album, did you and Keith collaborate on all the songs? No, Keith writes the lyrics.

What do you think about them in comparison with your first album? I’m not surprised, they seem consistent, I think they’re pretty good.

The first album has more songs about not being able to get laid, this one…It’s not the problem anymore.

You have to shoo those girls away! Literally, everyday. His songs aren’t always about himself, they’re in first person, but about situations people close to him are in; I’m not being evasive and saying they’re about me. But some of the songs on this album are more rooted in fiction, the last album was reporter-ly. For this album he’d have a kernel of an idea and turn it into something else for a few songs. I doubt any of the songs on this album are straight up reportage, but you could say that a few of the songs on the first album were.

Alright, Michael Tapper. Mmm…that villain.

How difficult was it to find someone to replace him? Pretty easy, Adam was the first person we found. He had been in a band with Max most of his life, LLCoolJ. I hadn’t heard of it, obviously, some shitty little LA act. Max had been in the band a few months when Michael took his life and knew Adam and knew that he was capable of filling Michael’s shoes. During Adam’s honeymoon, which we begged him not to take we had to work with two other drummers, one show a piece, while he celebrated his fucking wedding thing. (Alex interjects: Nuptials, I believe they call it… )Not interested, forget I asked. It was very selfish of him.

Do you think the new sound has anything to do with you going in different directions? No, because the album was recorded while he (Michael Tapper) was still with the band.

So he plays on each song on the album? He plays on every song except for, Chick Lit, Let’s See It, and Dinosaurs. Those were still in the works, so we ended up recording drums with a guy named Garrett Ray; fantastic drummer with a band in LA called Foreign Born, which is our producer’s band.

I read somewhere that you were going to be putting out a live album? In the spring we did a thing on four of our UK shows, we recorded the sets, and those are available as albums.

What’s the biggest difference between playing here and the UK? The size of the venues. There’s a different vibe because in the UK we’re a bigger band. Like, if we’re out watching the band before us people want to take picture with us and talk to us, but here they’ll leave you alone, it’s like “oh dudes from the band,” in the UK there’s more excitement.

Does it bother you that you’re bigger in the UK than you are here? I like both. It’s nice to be appreciated and have a lot of fans, so that’s nice about the UK, but I also, I prefer the more chilled out vibe in the US where you can actually talk to your fans and they don’t treat you like some celebrity, they’re just like “oh, nice set” you can have real conversation with people. In the UK it’s more frantic.

Do people dance at your shows in the UK? Yes. The shows tend to have a lot more, people get drunker and they seem more excited to be seeing us. Obviously there are some fans in the US like that but there are more passionate fans over there.

I like to get up front and dance and people here don’t.

(We discuss the Ting-tings and lack of dancing at most shows despite having perfectly danceable music)

I agree. But if it’s like and Iron and Wine show and there’s some dude doing his crazy hippie dance, it’s annoying when everyone else is enjoying pretty chill music. With a band where it’s all dance music it’s weird when people are just standing there like they’re watching a fucking movie. And that does happen to us here, we get the stare-ers.

What about New York? Williamsburg was really quite sedate. Bowery Ballroom was a bit better, a little more active last night. But in general New York audiences are not very physical; they do just kind of stand there.

I have a feeling you’re going to encounter the same thing tonight…Generally DC has been a little better than NY, LA is probably the best.

When was the last time you were here? Two years ago? I think you’re right, 2006.

(We take a break to eat. Mike of Oxford Collapse and we discuss the greatness that is Ben’s Chili Bowl. Apparently ingesting food causes us to completely digress.)

Chris: Max has a problem with alcohol.
Max: …but in comparison with other things that I have problems with, it’s low on the list, it’s like icing on the cake.
Chris: I’ll use a metaphor for Max’s privacy’s sake, it would be like deciding that you really needed to solve a child molesters’ alcoholism before you deal with his pedophilia…
Max: …I thought you were going to use a metaphor…
Chris:…that was a metaphor…

(After eating we find our way back on track, well, we tried)

Can you tell me anything about tonight’s show? It’s going to contain an inordinately high ratio of card tricks to songs, for us at least. And the Ting Tings, too. We’ll beat them at the number of card tricks per song, yeah, definitely.

Even if you only do one card trick tonight you will have them beat in card tricks. We’re gonna kill them.

Are you going to make it above them in the UK charts… In card tricks. Other bands focus more on their songs, and make it higher on the music charts; we kill them at card tricks. That will be the most distinguishing factor of tonight’s show. We find that some people don’t come to our shows expecting to see the card tricks. In fact some people get upset when they see how much time we use to do card tricks. We’ll play four or five songs, which is a healthy dose of music, but we like to devote most of our time to our real passion, cards.

Do you go to Atlantic City, or Las Vegas as a band? Never as a band for a sort of team building exercise. We go to the movies as a band a lot.

What was the last movie you saw as a band? We go in groups of three pretty regularly, there’s usually some loser who’s not down to see the movie, that’s never me. The last movie was Herold and Kumar or The Ruins, we saw it in Luxembourg.

Did you understand it? Or were there subtitles? It was in English, there were subtitles, there were French and German subtitles, but we didn’t need them, we speak perfect English, just another talent of We Are Scientists.

So you guys are okay at playing your instruments, but amazing at card tricks and English? Great at card tricks, fluent in English, is there no end to We Are Scientists? Probably, but we haven’t found it yet.

You and Keith have known each other for awhile… About ten years.

You’re not sick of each other yet? Oh yeah, I’m sick of him.

You’re just using him for his money? Oh yeah, he’s using me. I’m the independently wealthy one who pays everyone in the band, out of his daddy’s wealth. Keith takes checks from me, but it’s because of Keith’s beautiful singing voice that I’m allowed to tour the world and see cities that I could never have imagined seeing otherwise. Cities like Atlantic City, well I haven’t been there yet, but because of Keith I will probably see Atlantic City and because of him I’ve seen Laurence, Kansas; Eugene, Oregon; Birmingham England – over a dozen times; Leipzig in Germany, I don’t recommend it. Those are the notable ones, you’ve probably heard of.

We’ve digressed. What have I left out? Is there anything else you want to say? No, I never have an answer for this question.

Any advice? Yes, tell the kids at home to get married early, have kids as soon as possible, because you want your 50s and 60s all to yourself so you want the, out of the house by then. You have to have popped out the whole brood by age 22 so they’re out of your house by forty so you can really start living your life.

You didn’t have Dash that early, does that upset you? Yes, he’ll be around until I’m 46.

My parents didn’t start having kids until they were 26. Jesus Christ, I had three kids by the time I was 26!

How old are they now? I have a 14-year-old and 18-year-old and a 22-year-old. I was eight (when I had him) I’ll be honest, if I knew then what I know now, I would’ve started earlier.

What does the 22-year-old do? He works as a financial planner for Chase-Manhattan; he just got promoted to manager. I couldn’t be more proud of him. His name is Phil, Philip.

How do your parents feel about this? He’s their first grandchild, they love him, they get along great.

My parents are very happy with my not having any kids. They say that because they don’t want to pressure you, they want grandchildren.

They have two. Me too! Phil has a 2 ½ year-old, same age as Dash and he has 13-year-old. He was nine when he had his first.

Do you have any daughters? Nonono, I’ve always wanted one. I don’t have any official daughters, I have some bastard daughters.

But FOR really REAL, do you have any daughters? Any more kids on the way? No, I have one son. I do want a daughter. There’s just one problem, there’s a chance my daughter could end up being a boy, and if my daughter ended up being a boy, I’d be pissed. I don’t want another boy, I love Dash, he’s amazing, but I don’t want another boy. The only reason to have another kid would be to add variety. His mom and I have been together six years; we have been dating for six years.

God forgives you. Actually he wants me to be with Farrah Fawcett and I was all, “God, isn’t she a bit old for me,” and he said it would be a 22-year-old Farrah Fawcett, he has yet to live up to his promise.

Do you love the number 22? Because you guessed that I was 22 and Phil is 22 and a 22-year-old Farrah Fawcett…Nono, I think it’s just because you remind me so much of Phil.

There’s nothing significant about 22? It’s a palindrome; this is some Di Vinci Code level shit!

Before they go on we do a Mad-Lib:

The Rodeo

Rodeos are contest which had their beginnings in the western part of Serbia. Cowboys would get together for the annual roundup of sugar gliders and would brag and drink jugs filled with tequiza and sing some of their favorite songs like “Home on the Carving Knife.” In 1888, they started having contests. Cowboys would compete to determine who was the best bronco anthropomorphization. In one of the contests, they would ride with Brahma foxes and scuttle miserly cows. The cowboys would bet on how fast they could rope a dwarf-cobra-snake. Today, rodeos are held in Madison Irascible Garden, and winners get thousands of dollars and new vagabonds.

photos+show write up to follow.

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