You know, there were lots of moments where we were like, oh my god, like we should not have messed with these people. Like we were trying to kind of prank people and like, oh, you think that we're baby shambles rock stars, so we're gonna like get wasted and act like that. And then it's like, oh, now it's on like a newspaper the next day.
So we had to stop doing that pretty quickly.
Hey how are you doing, Greg?
I'm good, Thanks to you. How are you?
I'm doing very well? Thank you. Hello to everyone listening. Thank you for downloading this episode of Midnight Chat's the late night interview podcast where Greg and I get to meet some of our favorite musicians every week. Tonight's guests on the show are two people who, Greg, you have a very deep and personal relationship with.
I guess deep and personal or just met them a long time ago. Yeah, I'm being a bit facetious that. The reason I say that is because tonight's go is MGMT, the American duo MGMT, who I must admit, but I've never It's not that I've not been a fan of this band. I've just never really.
Listened to them. If I'm totally honest. Other than the huge hits that everyone will know, Kids Time to Pretend, Electric Feel, beyond that, I am struggling a little bit. You were there from the beginning. You interviewed them when they came to London way back.
I did. I interviewed them on one of their very first trips to the UK, when they were first playing shows over here two thousand and seven, and so it was nice to get to speak to them again and remind myself that that was a long time ago.
What I really enjoyed when I listened to this was a few things actually, but ultimately MGMT were quite a party band back then, weren't they. They were known for enjoying the good things in life and some substances, shall we say. And I did get the feeling, Greg that a lot of the time they I didn't remember anything at all, And I think there were times when you were asking questions and I could hear them thinking, I don't know what.
This guy's talking about. I actually thought their recall was pretty good, considering Yeah, I mean we're talking about an area here where MGMT we're releasing, like you say, Kids Electric Feel songs like Time to Pretend, which lots of people would have heard recently on the Saltburn soundtrack, and yeah, it was a huge time for them when they kind of emerged. They were suddenly supporting Paul McCartney in baseball stadiums and meeting arts hit monkeys, et cetera, et cetera,
both of which they talk about in this podcast. And the reason we were talking to them is because they recently released their fifth album, Loss of Life, back in February, which is amazing. You said that you haven't listened to
them too much of recent times. I think this is their best album and it's got two of my favorite MGMT songs, and it's got people in the streets and nothing changes, both of which I urge people to go and check out because I think they're amazing, and they do still have that sort of shy, introverted, mischievous, offbeat sense of humor where you're not actually quite sure whether what they're telling you is true or not, Like the story that Andrew tells in it about Adele singing him
Happy Birthday, and we revisit some good stories through and I'm not sure if he knows if that was true. I know that's I think that goes back to your earlier point about how much they were taking in at that point before we get into this view and mindful that we need to do a quick TikTok update after we spoke about it on last week's King Gizzard introduction.
Yeah, it's not good, Greg, I think they might be going down.
I didn't even realize that was a thing that could happen.
Yeah, the TikTok's not going well, but it's still there. If you'd like to follow us, it's Midnight Chat's pod. Instagram's going better. There's some stuff on Instagram, and I'll tell you what is on Instagram actually has a picture of us from around the time you would have first interviewed MGMT two thousand and seven. That's something that I just happened to post a while but it is there in the grid. So if you want to see how Greg and I used to look. Greg looked a lot
worse and I looked a lot better. That's what That's what we've come up with from that. That's all that's to us. Here is on episode one hundred and twenty six of Midnight Chats.
Is it think it's.
Greg Cochran talking to MGMT.
Ben it was your birthday yesterday, wasn't it?
It was?
It was? It was that my internet research told me that I'm not like a kind of creepy talker, like how did you know?
I know?
How? Did did you have a good one happy birthday?
Thank you? Yeah? I just turned forty one, which is.
It feels like the most uneventful birthday in a way, which I really enjoy.
Did you do something eventful for your fortieth? Did you? Like? Did you go big on that one?
Did?
Did a woodworking class yesterday, like an intro to woodworking, which was really fun.
What did you make?
I made a cutting board, so basically a block of wood, but but it's.
It's cool.
It was.
It was really fun, like working on the big tools and learning how to like you know, perfectly square the corners and stuff like that.
It was fun.
Dare I ask Andrew do you do? Do you do presents to each other on each other's birthdays?
We did for fortieth both of our last year.
Well, I know, I forced our managers to like go in on this big present and I was really happy about that and it's great.
Ben loves it.
Yeah, it's really really nice chair like a click a very classy, classy kind of lounge chair that it looks like you should be like smoking a pipe sitting in it or something like that.
That feels very that feels so adult. For like forty, Like I got a really nice chair. What did what did what did you get for your you forty? Andrew? Did you? What did you get for your fortieth?
So for my fortieth, I was it was like a joint present with Ben and our managers and my wife and uh, they chipped in and got like a projector screen and projector for our house.
So we have like a little home cinema setup. Now.
Well, I'm super excited to speak to you both because we have met once before. And I was looking back at the dates and the run up to this, and it was November two thousand and seven, which, much to my horror, is like seventeen years ago. It was. It was backstage at a venue called Coco in London. We were young, and we were fresh, and and I think I feel like, Andrew, you might have been wearing like a cape on stage that night or something like that. Could that be possible.
It's highly likely.
It's very possible.
Yeah, probably like a cape and like leggings must like kind of go to back.
Then you were you were playing on a bill with some other bands, one of one of them my remember, which was the Courteenas, who were a British band who are still still going now. But yeah, what what were your what are your memories from those like first tours, those first like movements outside of the States.
Is that sorry?
Is that the that's not the venue that had like the like giant giant disco ball, is it?
It is? It is? And it's like there's like a dome, so from outside it looks like an old theater and there's a big dome, and then inside there's, uh, there's like the floor and then maybe like three tiers where people would be watching the bands.
Yeah, I remember. I'm pretty sure that we the like following Winter.
We played there with when we were on tour with Florence in the Machine, and I think I remember the the backstage being this like very like little like narrow stairways up to like dressing rooms and stuff.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
I don't remember too much about that time period though, so that's kind of impressive.
Impressive that you don't remember that.
I do remember that. I remember there's a disco.
Yeah, you're please are the recollection on that? Well? What about you, Ben, What were your memories of sort of, you know, basically the band going abroad for the first time. Did it feel overwhelming? Did he take it in your stride? Was it just sort of like I mean, I remember you both being like fairly relaxed.
Yeah, I mean, I think, well it was, I mean it was. It was a wild time for us because so many things were happening for the first time, and I think, I mean, we didn't have like the normal trajectory of having like been in a band for a long time, just like doing the whole like touring and everything before things really blew up, So it was like it was all happening in real time, just right in
that moment. And and I I don't know if I think probably a lot of people who talk to us around that time didn't really like realize that or like fully realized that about us. So I I think, you know, probably a lot of the ways in which we came across as pretty strange in that at that point in time like could be attributed to that also just us being weird weird people in general.
But yeah, when I think back on it, it seems like we both had this, uh, this kind of smug quality because we thought that it was all just going to totally vanish and that this was kind of just like,
you know, there's no way this would actually last. It was it was so ridiculous, and suddenly we're in England having just been you know, touring in a van, and I don't know, it's just like it all felt like like a kind of surreal joke, and then you know, over the course of the next year, it quickly became less of a joke.
Yeah, for better or for worse.
And I just I always remember, like, speaking from the UK perspective, like lots of the music publications, we're trying to sort of box MGMT in describe what you were doing.
So like at one time you were like you were you were indie, another time you were like new Rave, another time you were sort of like this new wave of like psychedelic pop music, and they were all you know, basically, you know, when music journalists are struggling to describe what an artist sounds like, when they reach for words like oddball or like oddball poples something like that, And did you find all that quite funny at the time as people were trying to sort of like characterize you and
what you did.
It was funny in the same sense that I was just saying, where it's like it's funny, like oh my god, Like, how are we in this situation now where the British you know, tabloid media is coming up with ideas and
stories about us. So I think we had fun playing into their expectations and kind of like foiling them if we could, but then also quickly realized that we were like way overpowered like that we had we you know, there were lots of moments where we were like, oh my god, like we should not have messed with these people. Like we were trying to kind of prank people and like, oh you think that we're you know, baby shambles rock stars, so we're gonna like get wasted and act like that.
And then it's like, oh, now it's on like a newspaper the next day, So we had to stop doing that pretty quickly.
It just definitely in lots of ways it forced us to.
Change our approach to music and what we were doing.
Well.
There was a lot going on.
I mean, it did feel like in some ways there was like a combination of of like being sort of built up by journalists to be this like kind of this contrived like thing that like you know, either like fit into a box or fit into a scene or something like that, which is wild to us because I think we kind of we were just like doing what we were doing and didn't feel attached to a particular
scene or something. And then and the other side of it, too, was it felt like, in some ways it felt like we were being built up just so that we could be taken down, you know. And I think, as you know, it happens with a lot of like movements in popular culture where it's like, you know, there's this thing that's huge, and then it's like, oh, that's really not cool anymore,
and now this other thing is is the thing. And you know, I guess I'm grateful that after you know, however many years, that we're still here, and I think part of it is that we were able not to not take that stuff too seriously.
It's like we were on little jet skis and we were like there's like this giant like tanker ship we were going around like.
And then like they like they're like, oh yeah, like we were freaking huge tanker.
And we were just like like, let's get out of here, and we just like then we hid.
And went away.
I'm sure it's just the same in the States, but the British press are particularly well known for that kind.
Of Uh yeah.
Backstab basically. I mean eighteen months after you played that Cocoa show, you were you were supporting Paul McCartney in Boston, Like it was a wild couple of years.
He needed our support too, he wasn't doing that well.
We really propped him up in a moment, although he was picking up MGMT in the press of that time, which you know, is always a sense that like, you know, you know you're doing something right when somebody like Paul McCartney is talking about you as like an artist that they love because they want to kind of be associated with the with.
The latest thing.
That's insanity.
Yeah, those shows, what were what were they? Like, dude, what do you recall from that?
It was?
Well it was he said, so it was one show.
It was it was at uh Fenway Park in Boston, and uh, I don't remember, like we we met Paul McCartney and and uh, I mean it was like this kind of like Paul will see you now, like this very like arranged like.
But he was very yeah, yeah, yeah, it did feel it felt a little bit like like having like an audience with a with a king or something like that.
But but also like he was very like in that moment, seemed very like genuinely present and uh you know, took took time away from whatever he was doing and like had like a very like warm, like nice handshake and and very sincere nine seconds. Yeah, but yeah, I remember there was really terrible Mannicotti in the catering because it was like all vegan.
I think all of us catering is vegan, and I was just like, oh, man, like this sucks.
I don't want to eat this. And I remember my family.
My family was there, like my mom and I think my sister, and we were hanging out and it was just really fun. We were in the hotel where we were staying, and the Arctic monkeys were there, and we hung out and like we're like having oysters and drinks and my mom and Alex Turner were like really getting along well and it was just like so fun.
Still in touch now, still chatting.
Yeah, yeah, they're still talking.
I'm glad to hear that. You kind of had a very sort of like level not take it too seriously kind of mentality because you were at the Brits, you were heading to the Grammys. It was all of this like incredibly surreal stuff happening.
Well, one distinct memory I have from around then was that there was some I guess it was like a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel and like on our way, like in a cab or something, and somebody like we're like just walking in and somebody This was like when Los Angeles was like a foreign concept to me, Like I live here now, it's a very like normal place to me.
But when I was we were coming.
Here on tour and whatever, it was always just like this is the most like cuckoo place in the world, Like what what even is this city?
And we're walking in still to me.
By the way, we were like walking into this swanky party and somebody's like talking about Ron Jeremy for some reason, like just his name comes up. You're like, just as we're walking into the building, Ron Jeremy is like lounging on the sofa in the middle of the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel and that at that moment, I feel like that kind of broke my brain.
I was just like, what.
Is was there? Yeah?
And we went to a Grammy's after party for Columbia, our label, and uh, it was my birthday or like right around my birthday, Adele saying happy birthday to me.
That's crazy, that is incredible.
You can't make that shit up.
You need to tell how did that come? Aback, She's just like on your table and.
Yeah, she was in like our booth area. It's probably not as I'm doubt she's singing the whole song. But in my mind, after like seventy five years after the experience Adele saying happy birthday to me, maybe you could ask her one day if that actually happened.
Yeah, I'm trying to think back as well. So if this is like twenty ten, is Adele like a global megastar at this point? I guess she probably is right.
Not like Mega Mega. I don't think like right before.
Still, though, that's that's a hell of a claim.
Yeah, I know, let's hope it's true.
All of this was happening around the release of the debut album Miracular Spectacular and last year you played that album in full of the Just Like Heaven festival in Pasadena. How how did that feel.
Yeah, it was the first time we've done it, and.
It was really cool because we kind of took it as this opportunity. I mean, especially like we hadn't played a live show at that point in years, and.
Like it was.
I don't know, I think we'd sort of in distancing ourselves from that the idea of the sort of like nostalgia festival, like revisiting you know, like like we didn't want it to feel like like, oh, we're reflecting on our dinosaur of a career that doesn't exist anymore or something, And but I think we took it as an opportunity to sort of have a sense of humor about that.
And like we actually worked with a friend who who like writes for comedy and and sort of like we wrote little skits in the middle and and like I ended up having a really good time with it, and I think in some ways like reconnected with the spirit of the band when we started, like before things really blew up. And and we also had so we dug up all of our original demo recordings from Oracular Spectacular and we actually used a lot of them in the show where kind of like formed new tracks out of.
Them and stuff like that.
That was fun, like just even seeing the names that we would give to different tracks in a recording session. They would always you know these like really silly little inside jokes back then, and it's sort of like a time capsule to open it up.
One off thing, you'd be tended to do it again. Or was it just like it was fun, just has something to do and you move on.
I don't know.
I mean, we we put a lot of work into that show, like kind of an unreasonable amount of work where I think like maybe a you know, like a more possibly more sensible person would have just been like take the check and just like just do and but we were like, oh, look, they give us like a good budget to put on this show, and we just like put a ton of time and effort into the production and they did like dress rehearsals and stuff like that, and then it's like it was so much work, like
so much work, and then and then it was just done and like and now we're you know, working on releasing a new album, so we've kind of been putting more energy into that and haven't really visited the idea of doing that a regularly spectacular thing again, but it would be cool.
It would be a cool thing to do.
I'd love to do it again.
You should do it. It's like a Broadway residency or less Vegas Reency.
We have slightly tongue in cheek approached that subject. I mean it be it'ud be incredible, but I don't know.
I think it'd be awesome. Yeah, I really was getting into this sort of.
That different style of rehearsing and where it's like a production and there's like set changes and costume changes and scene changes and like lines and all this stuff.
Like I didn't I never was much in the theater. I did never did.
Like I was like a little boy and Bye by Berdie when I was. But but I was like, oh, this is nice.
I like this whole kind of communal group production thing.
It's nice one hundred percent some of the best stuff I've ever seen. Like I saw David Byrne play like five years ago. The name of the tours escape me now, but it was basically that sort of like highly choreographed kind of like three sides of a box kind of stage set, like everything moving between all the live players.
Even the drummers were like wearing their instruments and so they were moving around the stage and the whole thing had like a narrative, and I was like, this just some imaginative like there's there's a lot of values, just stuff being like let's just try something completely different. I mean, it's David Byrne, and obviously he knows what he's doing, but I love that creativity.
I think.
Also there's something too about.
I think when I see like a band performing live now, there's like there's such an element of like artifice to it where it's it's like it's it is a production, and you know, I mean I feel like almost every band you see now is playing with backing tracks, which is like nothing against that. It's just like the way that things are the way that people, you know, people expect things to sound like the record on stage or something like that.
But then at that point it's like.
There's something dishonest about assuming like, oh, everything you see is happening live and and like it's this real thing, and like why is that any more real than just like a straight up stage production with you know, like I don't know, to me, it's like more interesting to just lean into the stage production side of it and just like put on a show like that's that's cool.
We'll watch this space. I'm excited for that to happen. I want to bring things kind of more up to date, or at least the last few years, because I want to ask you about the reception to the song Little Dark Age, which obviously went viral during this sort of COVID nineteen pandemic. It was like a massive It was massive on TikTok. It was like a massive TikTok meme, wasn't it. And I read a stat this morning that basically it's soundtracked something like five million different videos of
that people have made themselves. And I just wanted to know what that feels like when you make a song and he just put it out there in the universe and then it just takes on this completely its own life. Basically.
It was very humbling in a way. I mean, just to be like you, no, it's completely beyond our control and you know. And it was a while after we'd released that music too, so it wasn't like part of the album campaign or anything like that, Like it just happened.
Yeah, but also I think I've I think I felt a little bit like validated or like, like, you know, that was our first single and it was the title track from our last album, and we always felt like it was a strong, catchy song that like could connect with people, and it seemed like, you know, it went well when we released it, but the label wasn't really pushing it or like, it's like, not as many people
believed in it the way we did. And then in two and a half or whatever years later, it kind of caught on and connected with tons of people, and it was it was kind of fun to just experience that, and it was totally unexpected and shocking.
Yeah, is there anything? I mean, there's no way you'd have been able to keep track of all of the ways it's been used, But there any Had you seen anything that like particularly stuck in your mind where you're like, wow, it's being used like this. Oh.
I mean, there's lots of along with the fun TikTok trends. I'm not neither of us is on and TikTok or really social media that much, but I am aware that there was like one of the kind of lines that took that song and ran with it was this weird like online kind of like isn't it like sort of like proud boy like war nostalgia and like some weird, like I don't know, neo fascist thing happened with this song. And it was particularly with I think the like slowed
down version or something so like that was happening. But alongside these like really like kind of interesting vibrant TikTok trends like the I think the first one was like where people were posing like classical sculptures with the song, and I was like, Oh, this is cool like that that's I wouldn't have thought that would happen, you know, I don't know. It's just like we're just observing all of these things and also just very happy that.
We've you know, our relationship with.
The song kids has been it's very complex, and we've made that song when we were nineteen, I think, and there's been times where we've been trying to just like get away from it and just hoping, hoping against hope that something could come and like take the attention away from it. And this little Dark Age kind of did that, so we were a little bit relieved.
I don't suppose have we played that many shows since it, like since that happened, because it'd be interested to know, like there's suddenly a massive song, so like that, where does it sit in the kind of MGMT like set list now? Is it just like it's one of the it's one of the big ones, right.
We haven't played any I mean outside of the Just Like Heaven festival.
We have not played a single show since.
And we didn't play Little Dark Age at that festival.
So yeah, and we actually we thought about playing it, and we were kind of wondering, like how that, like what that would be like to play live, because yeah, the last time that we performed at live as in twenty nineteen.
So you don't really know what to expect for the next time you head out on the road, if you head down the road.
No, not at all.
Yeah, speaking of kind of like the surreal nature of the Internet. I love whenever I'm feeling whenever I need to reach for some like uninhibited joy. I always looked at the clip of Kid Couldie dancing on stage with you to Electric Feearl at Coachella like six years ago. It's just I mean, obviously he kind of owned the thing.
It was actually almost ten years ago, was it really Okay, Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was twenty fourteen.
Okay, time is getting away from all of us. Yeah, I just I love that clip. It's just it's just somebody who is just enjoying themselves to the absolute max.
It's true. He really he seemed very happy.
He was enjoying it way more than we were too.
Like I was going to say, how were you feeling when you saw him doing that?
Well, it wasn't.
I would enjoy doing that, but like in terms of like playing on stage at Coachella, it's just like it's a little bit anxiety inducing I think to be on like one of those main stages.
And so that was nice.
It was like somebody's coming out to like take the spotlight off of us for a second.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well, obviously want to ask you about a loss of life and like everything that's happening for you in twenty twenty four with the new album Bubblegum Dog is one of my favorite music videos for ages because it obviously it pays homage to like a whole bunch of classic rock videos from like the nineties, And I went to ask you about the research stage for that video because we did, like you obviously settled on a bunch of different videos that you wanted to kind of include,
you know, Smashily, Pumpkins, Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, et cetera. But what what when you were thinking of the idea is like revisiting your presumably it coming from like your you're growing up with MTV. You would like come home from like college whatever throw on mtvared those music videos. So what what was that the long list? And how did you? Was that quite fun just thinking back to like, ah, yeah, that was a video that I saw a hundred times when I was sixteen.
Yeah, well, there was like we had some some really hilarious conference calls, like we're like talking with our friend Tom Sharplink, who also helped out with the Just Like Heaven festival and who directed the video along with Julia Vickerman, and and we were I remember being on the phone with Tom and like just bringing up all of these videos and it was like he was like very like paying very close attention to all of the references like things that we were just kind of saying off the
cuff just on the on the phone, and I think it was just like everything was very literally referenced in there, like he made sure that it was like all everything we talked about was in there.
It was a long list.
Compiling the list of like tropes from alternative and grunge videos in the nineties was so fun.
I mean, like like.
The like maniacally laughing old man in like in a Fish Islands, and then the oversaturated colors, the like small child in this like you know, the stretch lands small Child and dripping dirty dripping sink like random basketball rolling along like there's just we try to just like check them all off. And it was so fun. That was the most fun I've ever had making a video.
It was such a throwback as well, because it was literally it reminded me of like getting home for school sending on MTV and then later on it'd be like
MTV two. And I'm mean, to be honest, I'm glad that like the sort of stuff of your era, it's like still has that loads of credibility because like I was thinking, like, oh, what do I think of first when I think of like throwing on MTV two, And I was like Papa Roach videos, Limp Biscuit videos, alien Ant Farm, and was like that was like three years later and like you hit two thousand, like nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, and like everything changed, right.
Yeah.
It's funny to me also to think about like people who are who see that video who are not around when that stuff was on MTV and just like sort of like what is this, Like what is this artifact?
Yeah?
Yeah, it's the Yeah, so yeah, I've done well. Like it's a it's a it's a brilliantly. Uh. I was gonna say it's subtle, because it's not subtle, but it's just like it's just like the perfect homage. Something else. I want to ask you about the new album with When people buy the album, they can buy a bundle that includes a plushy toy that's designed from Anthony Ozgang who You've worked with Anthony previously on like artworks for albums and things like that. Is that right?
Yeah?
He did that album cover for Congratulations and we've known him for a long time.
What is a plushy toy to anybody who has no idea? And what does it look like? Because I was looking at the website thinking, wow, this is this. I've never seen a band bundle together this and like the new vinyl edition of their albums like Tell Me More.
Basically, well, I mean it's sort of also another nod to something that was not like a direct part. I didn't collect them or anything, but like when I was growing up, there was an era of the Beanie Baby and they're these little stuffed plushy bears, and they became like like they would like they started like culture wars, and some of them were like selling for you know, like twenty thousand dollars and all of this crazy stuff. And so that's just like embedded in my my hit
my head as something that is just totally normal. And so we made a plushy for a little dark age. We made like the kind of the one out of the guy from the cover of the drawing, and then I just was thinking, like it'd be some fun to do like a series, you know, and have them be collectible. So this is gonna be a collectible bubblegum dog one that is.
Sort of this.
Surreal, deconstructed children's teddy bear dog thing.
That's gonna say that has faces on both paws.
Yeah, well, I'm we're it does, but it's really it's really cute, though.
We're kind of ripping off this Teddy Bear that was designed by Philip Stark in the nineties that has that it's like a bear, but then like one appendage is like a different animal, and yeah, we're kind of just ripping it off. But it's really it's really fun. It's not like that's like a big thing that people know.
No exactly and it's like, you're right, it's it's it's it's scary cute. It's like cute until you realize you're, like, there's something else to play here. Yeah, and Loss of Life, like, I absolutely love it. Christine and the Queens joins you on the album on a track called Dancing in Babylon. How did you get to do Did you get to do that together? And where did that collaboration come from?
We didn't. We didn't record it together in the same place.
But when we were working on the album and that song was taking shape, it got to a point where it went from being this kind of skip along, lighthearted nineties sort of thing, loosely about a young couple called Catherine and Bobby, and then it sort of just kept changing and evolving in the music. Eventually, the bed of music kind of took on this eighties ballad feeling and then really started feeling like this is going to be a duet, like a call, you know, Colin response kind
of thing. And at that point when we were like in the world of eighties ballad duet Christine and the Queen's, his voice was like something we both thought of pretty quickly. There had been opportunities over the years where we both wanted to collaborate and it never really worked out the timing why so this was like the time to do it, and he was really into it. And while the music I think is a lot different from what he's been releasing, it, it sort of shares a similar sentiment and kind of
theme on how on the importance of love? I think so Yeah, it kind of just came together pretty pretty nicely.
It's a beautiful track, my my other favorites on the album People on the Streets, and nothing changes. It's just amazing. I wanted to ask a bit about because I'm aware we're coming towards the end of our time together today. You're more than like twenty years in at this point in MGMT, how do you feel like you know everything about each other at this point, like creatively and just randomly, I.
Mean, in some ways, yes, because I mean we're basically
like siblings at this point. Are like, you know, we've like grown up together in a lot of ways, but we've also been living on separate coasts for a while, and I think we've both like I would like to say that we've both chilled out as people in the last the last few years, I think, I think, especially like the pandemic years, I think we've kind of like really focused more on just like domestic life and like the simpler things and kind of getting back to basics
a little bit. So it's been nice to, like especially it's been nice to like approach making music together again, just from that perspective of, like, you know, getting rid of a lot of the extra crap.
And just just kind of getting back to our roots a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah, And what about you, Andrew? What surprises you about Ben? Still? Is it like, what's what's what's the what's the best most unpopular opinion that Ben has about like a band or a film or something that you're just like, how do you not love that? Or why do you think that's good?
Oh?
I don't know, it's hard to say something specific like that, but I think since we've been we've known each other and we've been friends and collaborating for half of our lives.
It's it's surprising and.
Like heartening and kind of incredible to me that we come together and really like we've been doing the same thing since we were twenty, where every time we work together is is like a little mini epic journey where we both are rediscovering each other, learning how to kind of work together and like compromise but also hold strong, do our gut feelings, and and then that kind of all morphs into what this next MGMT sound and experiment
is going to be. And I think the fact that we're never trying to recreate and are somewhat consciously trying not to like do the same thing again, it keeps it so that our relationship can stay fresh and we're
still learning about each other every time. And I'm just happy that, you know, we haven't tried one of these experiments out and come away being like, you know, screw that guy, like he's really an asshole now now it know, it's like we're kind of like, you know, we like we both learn every time, which is really great.
And last question was your plans for twenty twenty four apart from obviously released in this new album. Are you going to do some shows? And if you do, we're going to bring the giant cowbo with you. What are your plans?
We don't really know.
I mean, I think one thing that we have told ourselves for a very long time is that what we would love to do is finish an album and just start working on the next one right away. And I don't know what it takes to make that happen, or
if that will happen. I know that, you know, there's a certain amount of like promo and whatever that inevitably happens when you put out an album, But I really would like to keep I feel like we're in a very good creative space right now and I would love to keep that going.
Well. Listen, thank you to both of you for coming on the podcast. Let's not leave it another seventeen years to speak. And yeah, it's been great hearing about everything in the new album and I can't wait for people to hear it.
All right, Thank you, Thank you very much.
Nice talking to you, Good to see you again.
Midnight Chats is a joint production between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochrane, mixed and mastered by Flow Lines and edited by Stuart Stubbs. Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
For more information, visit loudan quiet dot com