TLOBF Interview :: Yeasayer

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Odd Blood, Yeasayer’s follow up to 2007’s All Hour Cymbals is due out on the 8th day of February in this bright, fresh new year. Peter Bloxham spoke to Ira and Chris about pop music, visual aesthetics and if the American indie music scene has started to lead the way over the British.

TLOBF: So first I want to talk a little bit about your perceptions of indie in the UK at the moment, because you guys maybe have some early British indie influences but at the moment how do you think that compares to the scene at the moment in the UK.
Chris: I don’t really know what the indie scene in the UK is, to be honest actually. I don’t know if there even is an indie scene here.

See now I would say that East Coast American indie is producing some amazing stuff right now.
Are we East Coast American Indie?

Yes. For the purposes of this conversation, yes.
Hahaha, okay. We can play that game!

Good, yeah. So I think that if you’re an indie band in the United States you know that you’re never going to be like huge mainsream, billboard…. Mainstream in the UK is like pure manufactured pop and watered down indie.
Chris: We do see like a weird… we saw a weird thing last summer I don’t really know like there’s all these bands in the UK that are huge over here that I don’t even know.
Ira: Yeah huge, like stadium huge.
Chris: Like Kaiser Chiefs etc etc

Kinda like Kings of Leon?
Chris: No, I mean well they’re huge the play stadiums in the US. I mean they’re a big fuckin band, but they broke here first. I mean… they’re terrible, but I think that through virtue of the fact that they are American they could get big over here and then keep working on it in the States.

Yeah a lot of bands seem to do that.
It takes a little longer to break over there because it’s huge, y’know…
Ira: It’s huge and also radio is totally different here, I mean you have no real options for radio in the States. I mean there’s college and shit-
Chris: Radio in the states is so corrupt but I think you have a system that allows small bands to like, you know jump up.

Ah now, see I think this is true.
Chris: Well we don’t have any more so I think people have given up on it. And so bands like… it’s not like Dirty Projectors or Animal Collective never actually think that they’re going to get into nationwide big radio and sell tons of records. That’s not going to happen.
Ira: They can get on small radio and small markets around the country. And they can just be making a name because they’re original and so they know that blog kids and… it seems like you have a lot of music fans that don’t really know – I’m talking middle of the road music fans that might be attracted to Grizzly Bear – but they don’t really know where to go, they’re not Nickleback fans and they don’t like Creed and they don’t really like 50 cent, because you know the whole hip-hop thing really swallowed up the mainstream but then kind of killed itself.

Yeah yeah, this is what I think has happened to British indie, though. I think it’s an advantage to come from an environment like that. I mean, if you were Grizzly Bear and you were releasing Veckatimest and you know that was going to be a major release and you were a mainstream band and this was supposed to be played on major radio – would that have been the same album?
No

And I think it must be a similar thing for you guys…
It was weird for us to even think about that, I mean we had to come and do a radio edit for one of our songs, like come and shorten it, you know cut it down so it could be played on the radio because it’s sorta a longer song and we’re like “Really?”. It’s like the video we had with naked people in it. In the States, it’s not going to be on MTV, so who cares? But over here they’re like “Well we’ve got to do an edit so it can be on MTV” and it’s like “…they still do that?”. So it’s weird to us, I don’t know I mean we might be down with some pop stuff on the radio, y’know I’m psyched on the new Rhianna thing or new Jay Z thing, I like some mainstream hip hop, some Kanye stuff but in general you know, that’s it for the kind of stuff on the radio that I’m going to like. So we just don’t have any expectations, I mean nobody I know… even a band like Vampire Weekend or MGMT or something who to us are the only friends we have who seem like really huge bands who are really rich or something, even they don’t get played on mainstream that much…
Ira: They get on like alternative radio. It’s like alternative mainstream. They’re still very much in some markets, it’s very coastal. They’re not played all of the country like Leona Lewis would be..

That can happen in this country for indie bands, but maybe, all in all, mainstream recognition is not that much of a good thing for a scene. In fact I think on the whole, ‘indie’ music from America is generally of a better quality that British stuff right now.
Chris: I don’t even know what… I mean what bands are here?

Well, exactly(!)
Ira: The X X they’re kinda rad, doing something pretty cool, different.

Yeah, there are some, but-
I think as a result you have a lot of guys who are trying to fit a mould. We play these festivals and there these 19 year-old kids in bands I’ve never heard of who I think just got signed to some major label and they’re coming out, smoking onstage and playing their sassy kinda things and trying to sell, trying to whore themselves to be that thing.
But they’re basically just psyched that someone came at them and said ‘Here’s £30,000” and they’re like ‘OH MY GOD’!

Yeah like ‘Holy shit! What do you want us to do!?”
We’ll do whatever! And you wanna say ‘That’s peanuts and don’t go blow it one place because you’ll be fucked”. I mean actually I think some of those bands to end up being big bands in the States but it’s just … I mean we just played with some, we had this band open up for us and we asked you know, ‘What label are you guys on?”
‘We’re on uh, Capitol’
‘Who?’
Haha, Like does, Capitol exist? It was weird they were young guys and they’re like, ‘So! When you’re touring does your label pick your openers?’
‘Err… no? What’re you-“
‘Does your label make you do this or this?”
‘No! What do you mean?”

“Does your label come into the studio and delete the album and tell you start over again?”
Hahaha, yeah! Or “So uh, what producer did they tell you to work with?”
Err, we produced ourselves…
Ira: I also feel like uh, you see all the kids and the bands are real young. But a lot of the bands you talk about that are coming from America – they’re a little older. Those guys are older, you know TV on the Radio – older. Those guys put in years.
Ira: So they’re coming to it from a very different perspective. Very different assumptions.
I mean we’re not cute.
Ira: And we have different assumptions on.. what we think longevity is. What we want as longevity, even just through the fact that we’re looking at things that way.

Sure and nobody actually told you to go away and write that first album, nobody gave you any promises over it and you just did it.
And also, each step of the way we think ‘Oh great, we get for our advance, or we get this or this festival and so on’ but I know that next year that might not be the case!

Right, but you’ll still be band even if that stuff isn’t happening in much the same way that you are now.
Ira: We’re still going to be making weird music.
Chris: Or just not sitting on our laurels about it, you know? Not treating it a way where we think ‘Oh we got that advance, we made it, we can chill out!’
People often ask, is there a lot of pressure on your second album because you made it and we ‘re we still haven’t ‘made it’! We’re not even trying to ‘make’ it we’re just trying to do it! It’s not about making it, I mean no-ones buying a boat. I don’t think we’ll ever buy a house.
Ira: You’re invited on my boat when I get it though.

Thanks man.
Ira: It is true about that age thing though, it is weird because… There’s no band that busts on of New York that’s like twenty.
Chris: No. Animal Collective, I know most people think that Sung Tongs was their first record. That was like their fifth record. Those dudes are in their thirties. TV on the Radio are slightly older like thirties to late thirties, they were busting their asses all throughout the Nineties.
Ira: Blonde Redhead, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s.

Totally but that’s completely because… I mean at nineteen you could’ve been one of those bands but nobody came along and thought ‘This is marketable and profitable in the current climate’, I’m gonna put you guys on stage here, here, here and here, make an album…
Right

Whereas, say you were nineteen and on the trajectory to where you are now and someone had come along at that age…
Chris: It would’ve been awesome! I would’ve done it, I know I would’ve done it!
Ira: Totally! That’s what I was trying to do when I was nineteen!
Chris: That’s how I thought it worked, like ‘Well if we keep writing these little tunes then eventually we’ll get picked up!’ – but I think in England that really does happen.

It does happen. And it’s… a good thing but also a bad thing because we don’t produce much of those more mature…
Chris: It’s a good thing for those kids but yeah its bad ultimately for the scene…
Ira: I think it’s bad for the progression of any art form.
Chris: Yeah I mean, The Smiths. They had to really like work at it to catch on, no major label wanted to touch them. That’s why they were on Rough Trade and so that’s how the indie movement got started in the first place.
The other thing about the UK though I think there’s a cool uh, I like all the electronic music culture, the dubstep scene and the grime scene I don’t know how much of that is embraced by the mainstream. I know Dizee Rascal and that kinda thing crossed over into that world but in general I think that’s pretty cool, that’s pretty different, pretty fucked up. You put it on and it’s like say Roots Manuva or something, it’s not derivative, while it is a similar trajectory to American hip-hop but it’s not like Belgian hip-hop which is like “Da Beats In Da Bop Doo Da Da Da”

Hahaha!
But you know the UK stuff is really different, all these off-beats and you know, the kick will be like on the two.
Ira: I feel like that gets into American pop actually I mean Tricky co-wrote Umbrella, right?

Uh-huh. I feel like those scenes over here are healthier and more productive because they are allowed to exist outside of the mainstream and can please themselves and develop.
Chris: It just seems like the sound system, Caribbean influenced culture that would be thriving in a more independent hip-hop scene , it just seems a little more real. So that why the word Indie is always like… Indie?

It’s a weird thing isn’t it?
Stupid, like… UK Indie, I don’t know what it means and…

It’s a genre here, in the States it’s more descriptive I think.
It’s kinda become a genre in the States, but I take a little bit of, it’s like I look at like um I still believe in the idea of independent record labels, or even independent bands. If you’re Radiohead and you’re still on a major but you still dictate everything that you do.

Yeah yeah yeah I get that.
So I believe in that ethic, you know?

Well consistently they’re the guys who come up the best albums, really. Obviously I guess.
Ira: Yeah

Another thing I wanted to ask you about was. The fact that Yeasayer has quite a distinct visual aesthetic. Is that something that you’re deliberately controlling?
Chris: Yeah. I went to design school. So I went to school for Fine Art, decided to be a film major I was going to be a graphic designer but just got burnt out on it after a year. When I first graduated school I did some graphic design for like hip-hop reecord labels, that was one of those early jobs that really suck. It sucks to have some saying to you “Can it be more urban? Can you do a little more funky?”
So doing the design for our stuff and just as a result I know to have a pretty grounded aestetic and I think we all know what we like and uh, if I’m not doing it then we have a pretty close family of people, good friends that’ll do it, like the guy who does our lights for our live show, he builds these customized scultpures, he’s a guy I went to school with and has been a friend of mine for around ten years and he did the artwork, he and I came up with the concept for the artwork with the new record and he like did it. And as a result it’s very weird, I mean, he’s a weird dude and he came up with some weird shit that was like, we’re really trying to push this borderline between what’s well-designed but also ugly, unsettling and sort of interesting.

Like really avante garde?
Yeah, I mean I think it’s a nice… you have a nice platform for doing that when you’re in a band. The t-shirts, the things, the website stuff, the videos all the things that you can do and basically become an artist or at least a director of it all, a production designer of it all but you have this band and you have funding for it.

Yeah yeah totally, and you have a ready made audience, too. I mean, how hand-in-hand with the music is the art and the moment? Are you working more on things after you’ve finished the music or…?
Chris: Personally, when I write songs I think about little movies. Little visual cues within it, lyrically that’s where it comes from and it helps me. I don’t have any formal training in music, maybe somewhat in the production side but in terms of visuals I spend a lot of time studying that so…

I think that the art and the video for Ambling Alp is quite abstract, are the lyrics abstract? They don’t sound very abstract.
Chris: They’re actually pretty literal. Out of any of the songs I think they’re the most literal. Yeah I was more into like kids who made that, these guys are called Radical Friend and them just feeling out the flow of the song as opposed to just trying to tell the story. I mean you can listen to the album and hear the story, you don’t need to see the visuals of the story, you can make them up in your head when you listen to it, I like to see visuals that are totally different.

Also, I think Odd Blood on the whole, it sounds like a freer, happier album. Is it coming from a freer, happier place?
Ira: I think it’s clearer. I think a lot of the first album, we kinda figuring out what we were doing and layering upon layer and really creating this mood. And I feel like with this we’re … I don’t know if emotionally we were in a clearer state. In some ways we probably were. I feel like it’s much more of a physical, immediate album. I think it felt like that when we were making it.
Chris: I think there’s some dark uh, dark stuff on the record. But yeah in general I feel like there’s more love songs. Yeah, it’s a happier record I guess. It’s… a different record.

Well that’s good(!)
I don’t know if I’ve figured out the overall sentiment on the album yet.

So you didn’t have an overall idea of any of the moods you wanted to project really?
Chris: I don’t think we had an overall idea necessarily about lyrically what it was going to be about, but sonically we had an idea and we sort of started from that idea which is like making a poppier record with like more electronic dance and production inspired beats and production techniques that we liked and wanted to mess with.
And as a result, maybe write some love songs on top of that. More personal stuff and then some stories, Ambling Alp is kinda a story song, Stranger Union is a story…

It’s pretty un-self-conscious.
Is it? I don’t know.

Yeah I think to write love songs and admit that they’re love songs and lyrics like those from Ambling Alp, it’s pretty head on and unashamed.
I don’t like ironic music but I dunno ‘unashamed’, it’s not like.. you hear all of this music and that’s like the Pop Sentiment, that you have to walk to the fine line of being cheesy before you like eeegggh.
Ira: before you fall over into the pile of Snow Patrol.

Hahaha, yeah. Yes. Totally.
Chris: You don’t wanna trip into the Snow Patrol.
Ira: You do that and then it’s like, every album has to be a really goodgey love song.
Chris: Nononono, no wait! We’re doing DISCO ROCK now!
Ira: No, dudes! Sorry!

Haha, you guys can get away with it though, because you own more instruments.
Ira: Hahaha!

When you have one dude playing acoustic guitar and then… power solo! I’ll tell you you’re in trouble.
Chris: People love that shit! That shit gets huge! People love that crap!
Ira: I, I think it’s also performance.
Chris: If we wanted to be huge we should just have an acoustic guitar…

Yeah! So maybe you could do that?
Chris: … I don’t wanna be huge(!)
Ira: I don’t wanna be huge in that way. Then you’re just huge for a song.
Chris: That doesn’t even sound like fun, I just don’t want that. It sounds awful!

Yeah. Even Kings of Leon said recently that they don’t even like their own music anymore.
Chris: (Impeccable Caleb Folowil impression) SOMEONE LIAK YOOOO!

Should’ve seen that coming dude when you wrote that song.
Ira: Heheh, I know! What were you thinkin?
Chris: (still in mid-flow.) IMMA NEED SOMBODAAI
Ira: What did you think that you weren’t going to have to sing that song every day for the rest of your life?
Chris: They’re laughing all the way to the bank I guess.

Maybe if after they had written that someone had said ‘Guys, you really want to record this? Because that’s it for the rest of your lives if so.’
Chris: Yeah… if someone presented me with that option I’d be like ‘Okay!’

You reckon?
Yeah cause then I could still do that and then I could still do like weird… I could still play, I could still do Upset the Rhythm nights with some weird noise band. Someone might say ‘You’re that guy who wrote that terrible song!’ and I could say ‘Yeah… I’ll buy you a beer.”

Hahaha, I’m really sorry about that, hey!
In fact, I’ll buy you a car!

HA!
It would have to be guaranteed though.

Someone comes to you. Some weird guy shows up. And he’s like, got a suit made of gold. He says ‘Heeloo… tomorrow you’ll wake up with this song in your head and you’ll write it and the next week you’ll be partying in a Jacuzzi with Beyonce’
Chris: Yes…. YES!
Ira: I think the best of both worlds would be to able to excorsize those demons and then sell it someone else to someone else to sing.

Like Prince.
Ira: Yeah, like Prince, the guy form One Republic. Not that he’s really -
Chris: Haaha, the guy from One Republic!
Ira: Yeah not that he’s all like “Yeaahh, sticking to MY roots on MY thing!” but I guess that’s how he makes a lot of his money. But yeah getting that shit out of the way. I would LOVE to write some songs for Creed.
Chris: Being indie is definitely over-rated!
Ira: And Nickleback. I could write the fuck out of those songs.

You should do it. Call someone up.
We’re trying, man, we’re just getting our foot in the door right now!

Oh yeah I guess you gotta do the whole Yeasayer thing and then…
Chris: Politics, politics.
Ira: Playing in smelly bars that don’t have bottles of water for hundreds of people is overrated.

Yeah? I think it’s a beautiful thing.
Both: It can be. It can be!
Chris: I don’t wanna do it for the rest of my fuckin life, man! Jesus!

(giggling)
Ira: I don’t wanna be forty and doing it.
Chris: It’s not my end goal. And I don’t find anything romantic in it. Like ‘It’s just so real’ and that ideal.

And you guys write your own stuff in demo form and then you come together and work it out?
Ira: Yeah there’s ideas, sometimes someone has a more complete piece but yeah we always get together and produce it.

You get a lot of stuff that way? More than you’ll ever use?
Ira: I think that’s the goal. Yeah we did on this one.
Chris: We do a lot of revisions though!

You have b-sides? Enough for an EP or something?
Ira: Yeah I like the idea of having something but an EP is sometimes just like ‘Heeeere’s the CRAP!’. I like that there are deleted scenes on movies and everything but sometimes I think, ‘Oh… this really changes how I think about this movie now..’
Chris: We’ll have some B-sides, but an EP… I feel like if we’re doing to do that it should allude to what we’re going to do in the future in a way. And not just be “Leftovers!”. I mean we had some trouble almost at the end, we swapped out some songs and replaced with some ones that were B-sides to have the ‘flow’ and energy the same.

So those other tracks are still waiting to be…
Yeah they’ll show up in a BMW commercial at some point.

Hey that’d be awesome.

Odd Blood is released on 8th February… look out for a review on TLOBF soon!