I was afforded the opportunity to have a bit of chitchat with Keith from We Are Scientists this morning. They’ve got a great new album coming out on May 13th (that will still be available May 20th) via Astralwerks called Brain Thrust Mastery. What transpired was less a discussion on music than a passionate exchange about burritos and water slides.
Keith: So how is 7:30 in the morning treating you right now?
Sean: It’s actually treating me really well. The weather’s really nice right now because I’m in Arizona, so it’s a good time of year.
K: Well, I’m in Manchester right now, and it’s not really nice.
S: Is it raining and cold?
K: Yeah, there was a, I’m not really sure what you would call what was just happening. It was sleet. It wasn’t hail and it wasn’t rain. It was a good sleet, I would say.
S: A good quality sleet.
K: Yeah, that’s one thing I would tell Manchester - highest quality sleet. Doesn’t phone in the sleet.
S: They need to put that on the entrance to the city, the sign - Manchester: Home of your highest quality sleet.
K: Legitimate sleet.
S: How long have you been over in the UK?
K: Well, we’ve been in and out since the beginning of February. We were living in London for about 6 weeks prior to the record coming out, just doing promotional stuff, playing random shows and doing interviews and TV shows and things like that. Then once the album came out, we got the hell out of dodge and went over to Europe proper, and have sort of been touring since then, and just got back to the UK early this week. Last week, I guess. Last Friday. So we’re running that back into the ground now. We have exhausted the UK.
S: So in the end they’ll just literally throw you out of the country - Enough! Enough!
K: [Laughs] We’re testing their tolerance for us in this situation.
S: Now, are you playing somewhere tonight?
K: Yeah, we’re playing the Manchester Academy. Which, if you’ve ever been to the Manchester Academy you’d would know it used to be a horrible box. But now, it’s a much better box. They tore it down, like they used to have dressing rooms that you could tell had literally been broom closests before. Now they’ve built a really nice complex. The actual room is exactly the same, it’s just a big poured concrete room. But, everything else, all the amenities are really kind of nice now. But they kind of just, they didn’t really fix up the room itself. But it is a really fun room, we played here a long time ago when we were doing a tour supporting a band called Editors over here. And they were, they were sort of 4 months further into their career than we were and were doing really well. And we got over to Manchester Academy, and it has a capacity of around 22,000, or no, I mean 2200. Haha. I just remember being kind of blasted by how big the room was, and imagine if it had been 22,000? It would have been a heart attack.
S: Yeah, that might have been a bit overwhelming that early on.
K: That would have been horrifying. Though I guess we’ve done festivals now that are at least that many people. So please, 22,000 is nothing! [laughs]
S: Now, you guys aren’t doing Coachella.
K: No, we aren’t doing Coachella. This is like the third year they’ve made an offer and we’ve been unable to do it. It’s a really bad, bad streak to be on. Just keep saying ‘Thanks Coachella! You’re pretty much the most awesome festival ever, but yeah, we aren’t going to do it’.
S: True, but how many bands get to say that? ‘Oh, we had to turn Coachella down AGAIN’. You can hold that over other bands.
K: Yeah, but apart from the weird, ya know, turn of snobbery you can give it there’s not even anything good about being that kind of snob. Saying you’re not going to Coachella is just losing, there’s no doubt about it.
S: You guys need to get ready by clearing your schedule next year.
K: Yeah, next year our summer is empty, and we’ll hope Coachella would be able to keep their pride in check and ask us one more time.
S: Well, or mabye you can play the East Coast version now that they have one.
K: I think we’re going to see if maybe we can get on that one.
S: Are you guys planning on a US tour this year?
K: Yeah, there are talks right now of, uhh, maybe September I think? Because right now, we’re going to finish this UK & Europe tour at the end of the day. Then take a week or two off, finish the summer festivals in Europe, so maybe the end of August? Well I think, well actually I guess I’m speaking out of turn because nothing is actually pinned down yet. Though yesterday there was talk of actually doing a couple of weeks in the states in the middle of this summer. But who knows. I’m making a lot of promises right now.
S: I like to interview people and then obligate them. Tie them down to a few arbitrary dates, then make them feel bad when they can’t actually do it.
K: I’m going to get a real stern talking to from my manager when this goes out and I’m implicated.
S: I’m surprised someone from the label hasn’t popped up on the line - ‘You can’t say that!’. Now, I read somewhere you guys were touring with Kaiser Chiefs at some point, right? Is that still happening?
K: No, actually that was back in November. We did I think 3 weeks with them. It was all arena shows, and they had a really big production, so they were taking a lot of days off. Ya know, they had to move a lot - literally, their stage - so we just filled in the dates they had off with our own shows. So now this tour, it’s all our own shows in towns that we picked.
S: Which is probably a little bit nicer, I’d think.
K: Yeah, ummm I mean there is something sort of nice about just showing up in someone else’s arena and playing to their 15,000 and then just leaving, and hanging out backstage as the little people, the opening band. But yeah, the shows really are much much more fun when they’re people who are actually there for you. Especially since Kaiser Chiefs are such a huge, huge mainstream success over here, so they attract this element that isn’t necessarily aware of We Are Scientists, even given how well we tend to do over here. There were a lot of parents that were clearly doing their one date a month kind of thing, they’d gotten a babysitter and come out to see Kaiser Chiefs. Which is awesome, it’s cool. They are just generally the people that don’t come to our shows.
S: And that can be a challenge to, to sort of try to win those people over.
K: I think we did that by taking our shirts off on stage every night. Just, as we went on stage we’d very casually take our shirts off. I think we were getting undressed to go to work. I think crowds really adored that.
S: So you were playing the Morrissey card - tossing off your shirt halfway through a performance?
K: Well, we did it pretty clinically. We’d just walk out and slowly take off our shirts, as if we were rolling up our sleeves, and started playing. We, at one point in Manchester we actually got the crowd to chant ‘Me hungry for chippy’, which didn’t make sense to them as the word ‘chippy’ is an actual word here. And it’s just….[someone speaks in the background] oh hey what’s up? Do you know that band Oxford Collapse?
S: Yeah.
K: We’re on tour together and I’m in their dressing room and they just showed up. And they look pissed.
S: They look pissed?
K: Yeah, I better go now.
S: So there’s some kind of incident taking place over there.
K: Yes, I’ve had to recuse myself from Oxford Collapse’s dressing room, which I was using as my own personal office.
S: Well hey, that happens sometimes.
K: Yeah, you know what? They can wait while I finish my business.
S: They need to make room for the big people.
K: That’s what I’ve been telling them, but they’ve responded poorly to it. They sort of wince when I say that.
S: As long as there’s no violence as a result.
K: Nah. They aren’t going to bite the hand. [laughs]
S: This is really weird and random, but I read an interview with either you or Chris, and it was talking about…because you guys used to live in San Francisco, right?
K: Yes.
S: And then you moved to NYC?
K: Yes.
S: Well, one of you was saying that one of the major pitfalls of moving from the West Coast to the East Coast was the lack of a decent burrito.
K: Oh god yes. It’s true, it’s true.
S: See, I live in the Southwest so I can sypmathize with this.
K: You can’t sypmathize! You are surrounded by burritos-a-plenty!
S: Well, I mean I can sympathize with having a lot of burritos around you and then having them taken away.
K: But your burritos aren’t being taken away! No one is taking your burritos!
S: Well, I have gone other places like the East Coast where I haven’t had burritos…
K: See, you think you can understand, because you live in a burrito-rich world. You can fantasize about what I’m going thru, but my friend, you have no idea.
S: Well, it would be horrifying.
K: It’s worse than you can imagine. Although, I feel that interview must have been done before we started touring in the UK where there is legitimately no burrito, where you even start craving Taco Bell, and that sounds good to me right now.
S: I was going to say, I went to London a few years ago and I discovered that very same thing, which is that there are no burritos anywhere.
K: Yeah, the tradeoff is that the Indian food is pretty fantastic.
S: It’s just a little give-and-take.
K: Yeah, but god do I miss those burritos.
S: Sorry, I took us on a strange detour here. I just thought I’d better ask, given my own burrito fetish.
K: Yeah, I still haven’t found a great burrito in New York City, although there are some good ones, some that will do. But nothing to get excited about. Where in Arizona are you?
S: I’m in Phoenix at the moment.
K: It’s a nice town. A hell of a town.
S: You guys have been through here, I think.
K: Yeah yeah. We played uhhh, one show in downtown Phoenix and then, what’s one of those Phoenix suburbs?
S: You probably played in Tempe, if I were to take a guess.
K: Yeah, Tempe.
S: That’s where most of the bands end up going.
K: Tempe is where the university is, right?
S: Yeah, that’s where most of the music venues are. I mean, Phoenix has music venues but a lot of them are really big.
K: We played a big one in Tempe with Arctic Monkeys, and then we played a little one that was us and a band called Art Brut in Phoenix.
S: I remember that, you played at the Brickhouse I think.
K: Yes, yes. It was right by Alice Coopers’ Sports & Burger Imporium.
S: Haha, Alice Cooperstown, yeah. There’s a really strong Alice Cooper presence in Phoenix.
K: [laughs] Oh god, I really hope that’s true.
S: No it is! He lives here, at least part of the time. And he does those really cheese-y, poorly produced local commercials on television.
K: God, why?
S: I have no idea. He did one where, it was by the police dept I think, and it’s about not drinking and driving. So he rolls up in this golf cart, and then the police pull him over. It’s incredibly stiff.
K: So does the policeman go ‘COOOOPER!’
S: Haha, you actually aren’t far off.
K: Then the policeman says ‘Have you had too much to drink? AT COOPERTOWN?’.
S: That’d be a nice crass way to turn a drunk driving commercial into a promotion for your own business.
K: Yeah.
S: He has a radio show too. He’s kind of omnipresent here.
K: It’s funny, with Phoenix, my strongest sort of cultural association is Pyscho, by Alfred Hitchcock. Because in the beginning, where she’s in Phoenix? I really, I romantacize Phoenix because of that scene with Janet Leigh and the dude having the affair in the hotel room, and than that awesome cowboy comes into her work, and he’s really mysogynist. Oh it’s great. I love Phoenix, I really love it.
S: There are parts of Arizona that are still like that. I mean, Phoenix is really huge now, but there are all these little pockets of cowboydom throughout Arizona. Where it’s still kind of like that. Places where the big cowboys are still walking the streets, bowlegged, weighed down with these huge buckles.
K: Well, what I liked about that guy and what seemed very Phoenician - is that what you’d call it? - is that I think he was an oil billionaire or something, but he was going into a real estate office to buy his daughter a house or something like that, and he was throwing money around, and then she steals the money. Oh, and then what a mess.
S: It doesn’t go well for Janet Leigh in that movie.
K: No, it’s safe to say her plan goes awry. Anyway, sorry for going into my Phoenix mythology.
S: No, that’s okay. People have really funny images of Arizona, to this day. Thinking it’s an untamed frontier.
K: I actually heard that Tucson is a cool town. Is that true?
S: It’s very cool actually. If you ever get a chance to play there, you would love it.
K: There’s a big school there as well, isn’t there?
S: Yeah, University of Arizona is down there. But they have a really cool, the whole city is kind of centered around this music & arts district, this long stretch of all these little boutiques & galleries. And a great venue called Hotel Congress. This old hotel where all these bands play.
K: Yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. Does that have a, is it sort of long and deep and the stage is just on one of the side walls? So it’s sort of, is the layout kind of funny? I’m trying to remember details I’ve heard about it.
S: It’s like a ballroom, sort of. You walk in, and there’s a long bar, and depending on which way you come in the stage could be considered to be on the side. It has all this really ornate decorative framework around it.
K: Now, tell me about…sorry, I’m turning this interview around to ask you something.
S: That’s refreshing, because I usually am not the one being interviewed. I like it.
K: Before you ask me anymore questions, I need you to tell me more (and I’m just making this up) about Phoenix’s network of really great water theme parks. I need to know about the water slides.
S: Haha, what do you need to know?
K: I need to know where they are, which one has the longest bank of water slides in Phoenix, which one has the highest speed water slide…
S: Let’s see, you’re kind of rustling my memory here because I haven’t been to one in a while.
K: What? See, you bastard, you are really…I bet you haven’t had a burrito in a few years either!
S: No, I had a burrito a couple of days ago. Please sir, please, do not go defaming my character amongst all 7 of our internet readers.
K: Well, you have all these waterparks and you aren’t using them.
S: There’s Waterworld, but that’s not really my favorite. I don’t think it’s the best one. Then there’s Big Surf. They have this huge wave pool and they’ll (or they used to) show movies on the wall, ya know, Jaws or something, so they can completely destroy your fondness for water activities. But as I remember they have some pretty decent slides there. And it’s next to Golfland, I think.
K: Golfland? Does Golfland have water slides?
S: No. In fact, maybe I’m thinking of the one in Tucson. Or is that Waterworld? Well, either way you have options.
K: Maybe I’ll just do both.
S: I think you should do a tour that’s based completely on the relative location of nearby waterparks.
K: You have no idea how close we’ve come to doing just that. I almost cancelled a show in Pennsylvania because we drove by a waterpark on the way and I was so driven by lust that I was like ‘Dude, just cancel the show’. Because if we had stopped, obviously, we wouldn’t have made the show. But I was ready to sacrifice all of our Pennsylvanian fans.
S: Maybe Pennsylvania just needs to take one for the team.
K: Yeah, give me a break. If you wanted us to play, you shouldn’t have built the waterpark.
S: I think that was the plan all along. What else could they have been thinking? They wanted you to go.
K: You think they just lured us into the state by booking a show?
S: I think it was a clever bit of manipulation.
K: So it was a test. Did we fail?
S: Yes, I’m very disappointed in you. I wish you’d done better.
K: Apologies, apologies to Philadelphia. Or no, it was Western Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, I guess.
S: Oh, well Pittsburg is known for its clever mind games.
K: Yeah. Well, alright, that’s the interview.
S: The publicist is probably going to cut us off at any moment. I guess we should probably talk about the album.
K: Eh, whatever.
S: Well, because it’s already out in the UK. And doesn’t come out here ’till next month.
K: I want to say May 20th.
S: I think it’s the 13th.
K: Come on! Impossible! Both of those are what, when do records come out? Tuesdays?
S: Those are both Tuesdays.
K: So let’s just say we’re both right.
S: I like that. It’s coming out on the 13th and the 20th.
K: Well, it will still be out on the 20th. So we’re not wrong.
S: I don’t like using negative terms like ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect’.
K: No, we’re just creative. We’re a couple of arty types.
S: We’re thinking outside the box. There’s the box, and then here we are not in it.
K: I love it. Let’s just call it the 13th though.
S: I feel that’s fair, because that’s the date I picked. Speaking of which, is that one of those decisions that is completely out of your hands, in terms of release dates?
K: Yeah. Well, you know, we were definitely not excited about the split between the dates because we knew there was a contingent of listeners who, ya know, you probably normally have no compunction about downloading an album illegally, but why not even give them the choice to buy it legally? Why put it out to the world and sort of force them to download it illegally? So we thought, well that seems kind of stupid and like throwing away sales.
S: Oh, but England’s internet doesn’t connect with ours so you’re safe.
K: Yeah, I’ve noticed. [laughs] I mean, I think we’re largely okay with it because it was sort of a function of us really wanting to make the switch to Astralwerks, because we were on Virgin before and Virgin is - without getting into too much detail about it - seems to be in a sort of Ground Zero situation from some of the EMI craziness that’s going on. To say that Virgin had other things to think about would be an understatement. So we were definitely more than happy to wait a month for the album to come out if it meant that Astralwerks was doing it.
S: Virgin is still the parent company for Astralwerks isn’t it?
K: Yeah, but my impression is that they are sort of eyeballed as the kind of indie, I mean my thinking is that Astrawerks isn’t the big spender for EMI, I don’t think they’re throwing a lot of EMI’s money away. Whereas I think Virgin still operates like a major label, and has an incredible expenditure on a lot of bands that don’t necessarily make a lot of money. Whereas with Astrawerks my impression is they sort of run things a little more indie-style.
S: Astralwerks seems to have a much better focus in terms of bands. They’re only signing people they feel pretty strongly about, creatively.
K: Exactly. And there had been so much changeover at Virgin since we’d been signed, and you know, new presidents and entirely new teams, that it was pretty exciting to be dealing with people who legitimately want to have us on their label rather than just kind of having inherited us. And it’s funny because our label over here really loves us because we do really well over here. In the UK, they sort of, they’ve got their 30 Seconds to Mars, so they’re fine. It is really, really nice for Astralwerks to be super excited just that we’re showing up. Just to get invited to the party in the states is rad. And I hear Astrawerks throws a mean party.
S: I don’t have firsthand experience on that. We need to make arrangements for me to be at the Astralwerks party. Where is this party? How do I get there?
K: If you have to ask, you may not be ready for it. But yeah, we weren’t initally very excited about the idea of a delayed release, but with label politics, and given that we weren’t in the states anyway, so we wouldn’t have been there to promote it. Not in the way we were promoting it over here. And I would describe our promotional schedule over here as punishing.
S: You were on a radio interview when we first started talking, weren’t you? Or you had just wrapped one up.
K: Yeah, and that was kind of the start of all the American stuff.
S: Where was that interview at?
K: On the phone.
S: I wonder where the person on the other side of the phone was.
K: That’s a good question. I have no idea.
S: It might not even have been a legitimate journalist. I might not be one!
K: If you are a speech program you are some advanced technology. Artificial Intellgence has truly reached dizzying heights.
S: I’m calling you from a top secret government lab.
K: That’s just as exciting as speaking to an informed human. Whichever you are, I’m delighted.
S: We should probably wrap this up, they told me to watch the time and I really haven’t at all.
K: I am sorry for not watching your time, and asking you about water parks and discussing Psycho.
S: Haha, nah, it was interesting. I’ll ship you over a burrito. That’ll get thru customs, right?
K: Yeah, why not. Take care man!
MP3: We Are Scientists - Lethal Enforcer
- Sean
April 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
[...] 15, 2008 by starbright31 Rock Sellout: Interviews: Keith Murray (We Are Scientists) Rock Sellout has an interview with Keith where they discuss the tour, to burritos, and the label [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Fabulous interview Sean!
April 15th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
This is a pretty entertaining exchange, Sean…I think it’s my favorite interview you’ve done since Bruce Foxton.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
haha, this reminds me of my own interviews….one funny mess! Never dared to put it down word by word - but this is amazing, Sean! A very enjoyable read! :)
April 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I figured if it’s really that bad, I have an obligation to let people know just how bad it is! :)
May 1st, 2008 at 9:11 am
[...] discussed the seemingly pointless nature of staggering releases with We Are Scientists’ Keith Murray a few weeks ago, and he had mentioned that part of the reason the band were willing to do a delayed [...]
May 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
[...] We’ve been big cheerleaders for the band for a while now. I interviewed Keith Murray a few weeks ago, and Kip has already included WAS in 2 out of 4 podcasts. So clearly they have the Rock Sellout [...]
August 17th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
[...] We Are Scientists (read my interview with Keith Murray here) are joining Kings of Leon for a 23-date US fall tour. WAS are still supporting their sophmore [...]