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15th December 2006
We Are Scientists
playlist
“Lucid, discerning people with amazing taste and salacious
physiques.” That's how New York three-piece We Are
Scientists describe their fans. It won't be long before you're
among their number, either along with the nation's
nouveau punks, art rockers, indie fans and pop kids.
In fact, anyone who recognizes sharp songwriting when
they hear it, or is a sucker for a compulsive chorus or
three, will be a fan. We Are Scientists' first single 'Nobody
Move, Nobody Get Hurt' is three minutes of dark pop joy,
destined to cause a reaction in the moshpit and on the
dancefloor, an American take on monochrome post-punk
with more hooks than a fisherman's hat.
Having already caused a sensation among Britain's
tastemakers, We Are Scientists drummer Michael Tapper, guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain are poised to dominate the summer.
We Are Scientists are coming to the UK to tour around the release of 'Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt'
and readying for an assault on the festival season, playing both Reading and Leeds.
After their five-song demo caused a music industry stampede Stateside and a triumphant performance at
this year's South By Southwest turned up the heat, the band signed to Virgin Music. They celebrated with
“a lot of smug looks all around,” says Keith. “That was the extent of our celebrations. And smoking
invisible cigars.”
This isn't an overnight sensation, mind. We Are Scientists, all 27 years old, have been playing together
since 2000, after meeting at university. Chris and Keith met when the latter came to a showing of
'Dawson's Creek' in Chris's room (“which immediately lowered my opinion of him,” says Chris); Michael
was already in a band with Keith. After graduation the friends moved to Berkeley, CA. In a pub one
evening they wrote a list of song names on a napkin. “We had this great crop of really amusing titles and
decided it would be a shame not to form a band that could write songs that could then have these titles,”
says Michael.
The name We Are Scientists, says Chris, “came from the lips of a man at the U-Haul company where we
rented a moving truck. First he asked if we were all brothers because we all look kind of similar. We said
no, and then he asked if we were all scientists. We had to regretfully admit that we weren't, but minutes
later we realized gold had been struck, titular gold.”
Summer of 2001, the band settled in New York thanks to Keith's grandparents having a house where the
three friends could live for free. It was at this point that the band started playing gigs in earnest. Their first
New York date was hardly encouraging.
“It was at a metal club in Brooklyn called L'Amour,” remembers Chris. “Definitely not an indie rock club.
I think we had one fan, and even she wasn't a fan, she was Michael's girlfriend. We intentionally started
with a venue-inappropriate ballad that I sang, and anyone who might have stayed made for the door. At
the end of our set the owner clearly felt like punching us. His voice had this edge to it and he was being
really curt and holding his hand up in a balled fist.”
After the L'Amour disaster, the band grew into a more high octane live act. “We're more into having an
engaging, energetic live show than delivering something that's simply the album played live. When things
go 'wrong' when equipment fails or the drums fall over or I slice my hand open we love it,” says Keith.
“We have gotten mosh pits I'm not sure that it's terrifically appropriate, but it's happened.” The band also
recorded and pressed three EPs to sell at their shows “in extremely limited quantities.”
We Are Scientists' songwriting evolved from jokey, “crime-fighting team” songs into their current lyrically
enigmatic but musically punchy style. “I definitely like lyrics that are ambiguous, so that someone listening
might not know exactly what they're about and therefore end up filling in a lot of blanks,” says Keith. “That
said, the people who are the subjects of the songs tend to know it almost immediately, and become
angry.”
As for how We Are Scientists write songs, Keith will “write what I think is a complete song that I'm perfectly
happy to live the rest of my life with, and then I bring it to the band and it gets kicked around and torn
apart and turned into a different, more interesting song. So the songs are legitimately written by the band
as a whole, even though my ideas are the best.” Says Chris, “My ideas are the best.” Michael, on the
other hand, feels that, “the best ideas have inevitably been mine.”
“Different members of the band have different
ultimate interests in what we're doing with music,
in a way that is tremendously helpful,” says Keith,
explaining the working methods that make We Are
Scientists so uniquely excellent. “I tend to be
focused on writing really simple pop songs,
whereas Michael is more interested in pushing
arrangement boundaries. It engenders a lot of
sweating and hair-pulling and sneers and vows to
quit the band, but ultimately it produces catchy
pop songs that have an unintuitive twist to them.
It's a point of pride with us to recognize that, had
another band written the same song, the
instrumentation wouldn't be terrifically similar. We
like to temper our pop sensibilities with a sense of
ambition. We're serious about what we do,
although we don’t take ourselves very seriously.”
That attitude is exhibited on the band's hilarious
website, www.wearescientists.com, where you can
read everything from A Conversation with A
Groundhog' (“My favorite dinner is a stick.”) to a
'Reviews' section penned by the band (Michael,
reviewing 'Heartbreak': “I would wish it on my
worst enemy”).
After the L'Amour disaster, the band grew into a more high octane live act. “We're more into having an
engaging, energetic live show than delivering something that's simply the album played live. When things
go 'wrong' when equipment fails or the drums fall over or I slice my hand open we love it,” says Keith.
“We have gotten mosh pits I'm not sure that it's terrifically appropriate, but it's happened.” The band also
recorded and pressed three EPs to sell at their shows “in extremely limited quantities.”
We Are Scientists' songwriting evolved from jokey, “crime-fighting team” songs into their current lyrically
enigmatic but musically punchy style. “I definitely like lyrics that are ambiguous, so that someone listening
might not know exactly what they're about and therefore end up filling in a lot of blanks,” says Keith. “That
said, the people who are the subjects of the songs tend to know it almost immediately, and become
angry.”
As for how We Are Scientists write songs, Keith will “write what I think is a complete song that I'm perfectly
happy to live the rest of my life with, and then I bring it to the band and it gets kicked around and torn
apart and turned into a different, more interesting song. So the songs are legitimately written by the band
as a whole, even though my ideas are the best.” Says Chris, “My ideas are the best.” Michael, on the
other hand, feels that, “the best ideas have inevitably been mine.”
“I feel like we have an opportunity right now because we're getting some support, and I think we all want to
take advantage of that and make the best records and videos and website that we can,” enthuses Michael.
“Do things that interest us. It's definitely the thing we love most and that's why we're doing it. We'd like
people to like it and we think that they will. If they don't, they should talk to us and we'll try to bring them
around.”
Their forthcoming album, released this summer and produced by Ariel Rechtshaid of LA indie band
Foreign Born, is their first “legitimate” release. The album, which may be titled 'The Wolf's Hour', 'It's A
Trick, Get An Axe' or something completely different, will prove that a band of rare wit and massive
tuneage is here. Expect to be consumed by We Are Scientists come the summer.
We Are Scientists website
www.wearescientists.com
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© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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