Ezra Koenig (Part 1)

Tetragrammaton It really was at the buzzer, like the final semester of college, and I think I was starting to have some anxiety about what am I going to do? I didn't have a ton of direction, the way that some of my peers did. I don't know, I had this name vampire we can for a while, but that was the first time we got together and we had a rehearsal and it was the original four members and we played a battle of the bands. That's when it became a real band, I guess.

Did the band come together for the battle of the bands, or did it already exist? It kind of came together, we all know each other and maybe in different capacities had done music, but at that moment, and maybe we all had it, but I certainly had this feeling like I need to start something more legitimate. But also there was a vibe, I had this idea for a kind of like preppy band, you know, and I even wrote a little bit about it to organize my ideas.

And luckily, I found the perfect collaborators, people who took those ideas and ran with them. And yeah, and also there were a couple songs. And the song I always think of as kind of the first vampire weekend song was Oxford, comma, because I'd written it in the months before the band started, and it so clearly to me represented what the band might be.

You know, so we played it at our first rehearsal and it felt like, yeah, everything from like the title of the song to like the vibe, it just kind of felt like, alright, this is not just, hey guys, wouldn't it be cool to jam together, it had a vision? How seriously did you take the idea of the band? Like, did you think this is going to be my full-time job, or did you think this is a fun project?

It was somewhere in between. I don't know, both of my parents were like interested in art, artistic people, but both very down to earth and kind of like real about working and money and stuff like that. So when I think back to that time period when the band started, I had this funny feeling both of, you know, like a lot of people in college.

I had to kind of just chill out for a few years, and then suddenly I realized, oh, I'm not going to have health insurance when I graduate, you know, that was going away. I hadn't really thought about it, and then I realized, alright, I need to get a real job, and I have this distinct memory in that time period of, it's funny because at that time a lot of people were going to work at Lehman Brothers, which famously went bankrupt a year later.

I remember hearing, you know, was it one year later? It's right when Van Breden was starting. It was right in that era. And so I remember all these people were going to work at Lehman Brothers, and I remember hearing people saying, you know, they get $10,000 as a signing bonus. I'd never heard of signing bonuses. I weirdly maybe didn't even know who the Lehman Brothers were, but I remember thing like, oh wait, I got to get a job, and you know, I became a teacher.

So anyway, that's all to say that I probably had some feeling that now is the time to try to do something artistic, but also I still got a real job as we did it. So I guess I was like hedging my bets, and I'm thankful for it because I was actually reflecting on that recently. Like, there's probably some universe, you know, my parents, they lived a 30 minute train ride from Penn Station or the New Jersey.

There's probably some universe where I could have said, I'm not going to go teach eighth grade. I'll sleep in my parents house, crash with friends in the city, and we'll get this going. But instead I did both, and it's probably, it was for the best, because I would go teach all day in bed style. And then at the time, Rostem and C.T. lived in Greenpoint.

I just remember that because the only way to get from bed style to Greenpoint was to take a bus. So I'd always be on the bus, go sit in front of the computer with Rostem all night, and come back, wake up early. Probably some of the most tired I'd ever been in my life in that period, but it was good that I had both those things.

In the early days of the band, was there more time with instruments in a room looking at each other and playing or more time sitting in front of a laptop and programming music? No matter what, there's always more time in front of a laptop, but the first album and the sound of that album came from four people sitting in a room together. Debateably, that's the only album that came from that, and that's why it has the sound and the vibe.

But yeah, we were in rehearsal spaces and whatever we may have added or futsced with later, you know, every song on that first album has live drums, live bass, we hadn't departed from that yet. So even if we still spend a lot of time thinking and rethinking the arrangement in front of the computer, it came out of more of a classic four guys in a room. We've been recorded ever classically with four guys in a room or always recorded bit by bit.

Always recorded bit by bit, but that was just partially like, just made the most sense to do it that way. Like, let's try to get the drums down and then, you know, just have separation, because we were recording in pretty small studios. Tell me about your experience in school.

I think I had a sense that I needed to work hard and go to a good college, and so, you know, by the time I got to high school, I knew how to like go for it, you know, and I knew how to like, I didn't always get good grades, but like when I felt like it mattered, I could go hard and get good grades. For whatever reason, ambition or snobbery or something, I wanted to go to like a good school and Columbia felt like the right mix because it was a good school, but it was also in New York.

And, you know, when I was a baby, my family lived on the Upper West Side and my grandparents lived in the Bronx, and you know, so living, I felt connected to the city, but growing up in the suburbs, I thought it was feeling like I got to get back.

So, I had this kind of, I guess, academic ambition to go to a good school, and then once I was there, the drive kind of vanished, and I realized as much as I enjoyed a AP biology in high school, I wasn't going to go study, be pre-med, and then I realized I actually had no idea what I wanted to study, so I knew some people who became English majors, and I thought, that's something.

And then, I was at more writing or literature. Literature. And, you know, one cool thing about Columbia, they have this core curriculum, so, you know, you have to read the Plato and Aristotle, and so you get a pretty like old school classical education.

And, that's why by the time I got to the end, I felt like, all right, I'd met some cool teachers, I'd read a few cool books, but I hadn't specialized in anything, so I think I did have a pang of self criticism by my senior year where I was like, wait a second, these people know how to like trade stocks, and these people are about to go become doctors, like, what did I just do?

And I felt a little bit like a goofball, and I didn't even major in music, either. I took some music classes, and, you know, I like theory up to a point, but I guess I didn't feel passionately about anything in particular. That's why English literature was kind of fun, because you do some 18th century poetry and some post-colonial stuff, and it was, you know, it was like a smattering of this and that.

Sounds good. Yeah, I enjoyed it. You said some songs were hanging around when did you first start writing songs? I started writing songs when I was probably like nine or ten, because I do have some old tapes, because I had a little kind of like, dick to phone, old school tape recorder, and so I remember writing songs, and I remember actually, yeah, the first time I would think about chords and lyrics,

that's probably nine or ten, my first song was a song called Bad Birthday Party, and like somewhere I actually like wrote down the words and the chords, and then, you know, I'd bands, I remember being 13, and having a band that played at our seventh grade graduation, and we played Sunshine of Your Love by Cream, my friend Wes, his brother was super into you too, so we covered one, and then we didn't want original, which is a song that I'd written called The Beast from the Sea, which is a song that I'd written called The Beast from the Sea, which is a song that I'd written.

The Beast from the Sea, which was kind of like a rock lobster, kind of a satirical surf song. I had this crew of guys, including Wes, who went on to start this band, Rarara, we were always recording, and kind of messing around, so yeah, songwriting was always there, and that's why there were like little riffs lying around, and there were some songs that became, they were on the first vampire, we can help them like, brin, and I stand corrected, that I wrote when I was like a freshman, so I was like, 18, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19,

19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, shopping in Manhattan. So I remember I had like a whole list of things I wanted to get and remember what store you went to? We went to a bunch of stores. We went to the, I was so into SCA at the time. We went moon SCA which was, I don't know if it still exists but I was an independent

record label. They had a little store front so I think I went there and bought like a, you know, the toasters or mefascafles and then I remember I think we went to the Virgin Megastore and, you know, one of the tower records, maybe that one on the upper west side which, you know, at the time, I still think about that. It feels like such a dream being in that giant Virgin record Megastore. But I remember on that trip that was a huge haul for me because I might have gotten like

eight CDs. You know, CDs weren't cheap back then so it had like my mom's friend being like, I'll chop a couple hundred bucks. I wasn't saying. So I remember at the time I was interested in, for whatever reason, somebody had mentioned Sun Rod and me so I wanted to get a Sun Ross CD. Maybe I just saw a picture of how many look cool. So I remember getting some like 60s Sun Ross CD and then I remember getting some like a 60s SCA compilation because you know, I was like a

lot of people in the 90s. I was hearing the third wave stuff and then to get a 60s SCA compilation that had, you know, the tightest high by the Paragons or the first SCA version of Red Red Wine by Tony Tribe, which was like, I was obsessed with that. So yeah, I was kind of interested in some old music already at that time. How do you think you were hearing about it? How did you know to look for those things? Were you online yet? Was they were online yet? There was a Marricot online. So there was

something, well yeah, there were chat rooms and things like that. Did you have music-neared friends? In seventh grade? Yeah, I was starting to a bit. I mean also, I was lucky that my parents had a good record collection and the records were prominently displayed in our dining room. So I would look through my dad's records and he had very good music taste and he bought records right up to the point when I was born. I remember having a mix of kind of a pride and slight sadness and now I look at it

as just how life works. What I realized that the absolute newest record my dad had is the first run DMC record and I'm like, oh right, because then I was born and then now the sky's working as I was off. Probably not thinking too much about new music, but I was like, that's pretty good run up until, you know, the mid 80s. He had all the madness and specials records. So I'm sure I must

add some conversations with him about what's the roots of this music. And then I think I was also very interested in surf music, which 100% would have been because of like how big the pulp fiction soundtrack was. So I knew a lot of kids who maybe had that. I probably just went one step further where I was like, I want to hear more music by Dick Dale and, you know, I want to hear other stuff from that era. Was it hard to find at that time or no? I mean, I don't know if I was

particularly lucky just where I grew up in Northern New Jersey, but short trip into the city. And, you know, if you have some cool uncle figure taking you around and you could go to the tower records or the Virgin Megastar and if you said like, I'm interested in surf music, they had a surf music section, which is incredible. And then even where I lived in New Jersey, there were specialty record stores within two miles of my house. There's a place that was a punk rock ability record store called

Let It Rock, I think. And there was a kind of just funky, everything, the store called Crazy Rhythms. Oh, and one other thing I might say is that I had the good fortune to grow up in the broadcast radius of WFMU, which was a independent station. And then WSOU, which was the Seaton Hall radio station. So, for whatever reason, it focused on heavy music. I have no idea why a college station would focus so much on hardcore and metal and stuff. But so there's a lot of interesting stuff. But also they

had like old time American music. I first heard the blasters on that station. On W. Yes, so you. That's so new. There's weirdly with specificity. WFMU had a show called Reggae Schoolroom on Sunday mornings. Again, now I look back and realize how unusual that was that you might just put on the radio. And here's somebody going deep on Jamaican music. I feel like there's a show called Three-Cord Monty. That was all like rock ability and 60s stuff. So, do you ever get into Don Kay Reed?

Who did the duop show? Oh, I wonder. Because also do you remember there was WCBSFM with cousin Brucey? Yeah. And for all I know, that might be my biggest influence because I was a kid in the 90s, so the 50s weren't that far away. I don't think there's probably any station in New York that's routinely playing old school stuff. I listened to WCBSFM more than I would listen to K-Rock or whatever. I mean, I listened to that too. I had transitioned into it. But WCBSFM, I remember being like

incredibly moved by Earth Angel. What's that song called that goes? Because I want a girl. I just remember finding it like so moving. Oh, dream lover. You dream lover and Earth Angel. I love you. And you know the plasmatics did a cover of that. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I remember hearing about the plasmatics. I think my mom lived in the same building. Isn't that more something? Yeah, but I loved all that stuff. In fact, I remember being a kid

when Pearl Jam had a hit cover of last kiss. I just remember being like, I prefer the original. I was so familiar with the original last kiss because I loved all that 50s and 60s stuff. You said you had the name Vampire Weekend floating around? Yeah, it's funny because it's not a particularly good name. It's not something you've got to

hold on. It's memorable. What's memorable? Yeah. It's worked. In that same kind of college era before the band started, at some point, I was home for the summer and my friends and I made a kind of vampire backyard movie like Camcorder kind of thing. And that was totally stupid and silly.

But there was one part of it, you know, who knows why at that age, we found it so funny that that there was a line in the movie where a dying father says to his son, you need to go to Cape Cod and tell the mayor that vampires are taking over the country. Just the idea, this is so stupid, but the idea that Cape Cod, which obviously has many towns, but that Cape Cod would have a mayor, but that still appeals to me somehow. It's something funny

about Cape Cod having a mayor. So somehow that formed this connection with Cape Cod, where I'd been a handful of times as a kid growing up and somehow Vampire Weekend and Cape Cod kind of stayed together in my mind. And then I started adding the preppy element and who knows why all those things made sense together. Maybe the weekend part more than the vampire kind of fit this idea of Cape Cod and vacation vibes. And the preppy element, just that's how you dressed or

you saw it as a style statement. It was kind of both. My family was not a preps school kind of family at all. My friends and I, you know, we, I guess in a sense, we were pretty traditional kind of like indie types in that we liked going to thrift stores, listen to Belance Abaston, go to thrift stores, and I just found when we'd go to thrift stores and I would see LaCost and Isod's stuff from the 80s,

I was really drawn to it. And I would buy, you know, those polo shirts for $4. And then at some point I wanted to wear boat shoes. At the time it was hard to find boat shoes. I think I thought it was cool. I also remember one of the, one of the first bands that I got into like before they were well known was the Walkman. I had a buddy who was like, he had their first like hand silk screen 12 inch or something. And I was still in high school and we went into the city and we saw them

open for some band at the Bauri Bottom. And I just remember seeing some of them were wearing like V-neck sweaters and being like, oh, I like this. And then I remember there was some early press they did where it's somebody else. And I remember they were like, oh no, we're not. But I remember being like, oh, there's something cool about it. I wonder if you took it further what that might be like. So I dressed that way. I don't want to say ironically, but like thoughtfully. And especially

back then it was before the floodgates had opened. I guess this is true of all types of fashion. But if you wanted to find some cool boat shoes, it wasn't easy. And also even if you wanted to find a nice like button-down stripe shirt, you really had to kind of like dig for it. But you know, the northern New Jersey goodwills and upper west side selfish and armies are pretty good places to find. Cool stuff. LMNT. Element Electrolikes.

Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? You want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function. Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps. Element Electrolikes. Drink it in the sauna. Refreshing flavors include grapefruit, citrus, watermelon, and chocolate salt.

Formulated with the perfect balance of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you hydrated and energized throughout the day. These minerals help conduct the electricity that powers your nervous system so you can perform at your very best. Element Electrolikes are sugar-free, keto-friendly, and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. LMNT. So what was the first song that you remember writing that ended up being of Empire Weekend

Song? The absolute earliest. And this song was never on an album. It was on a movie soundtrack, but it's kind of a fan favorite. It's called The Ottoman. And that riff I know I wrote in high school. Let's listen to that. Sure. So the song changed, but I know that riff goes back to about 15 years old. Where in the history of the band do you bring this song in?

That was right after our first album. So it's still like the early days. You know, that might have been one of the first times that we were approached to do a song for a movie. So naturally you just put all this energy in and make your first albums and then you're thinking about the second album. Somebody says, oh, do you want to do a song for a movie? So that's probably why my mind went to, you know, I have this riff from high school. And I wanted to build it into

something a little bigger. But then when I look back on that riff and I think about those days of being 15 and my friend Wes's dad had a fender deluxe and I love playing through that amp and I realized how much I enjoyed just putting a little bit of reverb on a clean guitar. And I realized right, there's a connection that fits the early vampire weekend stuff. Which guitar? Always your instrument? No, I mean, I always, I'd had a guitar from, you know, my tween years, but I started on piano and

I've always been way more, for lack of a better word, sophisticated on piano. I'm still learning guitar a bit, but like if somebody, even just basic music theory stuff, I can think it through better on piano. And when I would took piano lessons and I was an amazing, but I'd probably reach to place where I could probably play some box stuff where people go, wow, you're really good. Nobody's ever said that to me about guitar. I've never been one of those people where I'm playing

guitar and be like, whoa, you can play that Joe Walsh lecker or something. Whereas with piano, I could occasionally like, my fantasy dream ambulance, like Shuman piece called the Prophet Bird. And I could play like really fast and glean, glean, glean, and impressed people. Whereas I'm still waiting for that day to come with guitar. It may never come. It's crazy. I still just remember the beginning of this piece. I already forgot it. My fingers could move faster on piano.

Where is on guitar? I never had that kind of fluidity. And sometimes I can still sit, read Bach decently and I sit down and play that. And again, it's not like I'm a concert pianist. But truly, by comparison, my guitar playing is so naive. How much time do you spend studying or practicing piano? Well, my parents would say I never practiced because that was a point of contention like a lot of kids. But I was routinely taking piano lessons. There were like

recitals and stuff. And I remember once or twice going to competitions. And that was so not for me. We played like a blue chip stuff, you know, Bach and Shuman. How many years did you study with a teacher? I don't know, five or something. And then of course, we just had a piano at the house. Always. So it was always just there to kind of mess around on. Did either of your parents play piano? Yeah, my mom did. How often would she play?

You're in there, not constantly. But that was something she enjoyed too, was like reading through Bach and broke music. And I guess also, it's true for a lot of people too. It's just piano is easier to even if somebody starts told me to play some kind of complicated jazz chord on guitar. I really have to stop and be like, okay, where, where am I again? Where's piano? Somebody says flat 11th or something. It's kind of just, you know, right there. Do you tend to

write on piano? Yeah, I probably write the most on piano. And I can, yeah, I come up with slightly more interesting harmonic ideas on piano. But then there's always been a thing in Van Pro weekend with these very simple guitar riffs and those start on guitar. Do you always write songs the same way or do they happen in different ways? Yeah, they happen all different ways. At any given moment to this day, you know, I still have a million voice memos of chord progressions, riffs,

little ideas. I have, sometimes they have words that go with them, sometimes they don't, sometimes I just have a list of phrases I find interesting. So it started with phrases, it started with guitar riffs, it started with samples, basically every possibility. It was the first thing you released an album or was there anything before an album? Was there a demo tape? It's funny because, you know, coming from like the Pro Tools generation, the demo tape was essentially

the album. It's not like we left, okay, we recorded that and then we went re-recorded it, you know, we might have punched it up. But we released singles with at least a couple different labels, but yeah, we were from that kind of interesting moment where some version of our album, which we'd sold on as a CDR at our shows, was floating around. So by the time

we signed a proper record deal, the album was next to done. Maybe there's like one song left to record, but the album that came out on Excel is very similar to the first thing they'd heard. So, yeah, and I don't even remember at the time, because this is like early days of blog and internet kind of destroying or rebuilding the music industry. So I remember there was like a real concern where it's like, well, your album essentially has been floating around on the internet

for at least a year. Why would anybody buy it? You know, it turned out okay, but those are the types of discussions happening. How different would you say the CDR version was than the album? Maybe, I don't know, 10 or 15 percent different. And more mixing or different performances, what do you guess? I think we, I think maybe there's one song, maybe M79, wasn't there yet, but yeah, I think maybe more thoughtfully mixing, maybe adding a few elements, maybe re-recording

some vocals, but not particularly different. And we experimented with going to professional mixers. I remember somebody did a mix of Oxford comma and they'd change the snare sound. They might have reinforced it by doubling it with what at the time would have been a more typical modern rock radio sound, like, you know, because that's something, I don't know, they just added something. I just remember at the time being like, luckily we all had this instinct, I think, just having this

feeling like, you know, that just isn't it. It's whether we're shooting ourselves in the foot and releasing something that sounds too much like a demo. We have to just more or less do this version. Well, do we can find CDR version on YouTube? Could it be funnilyst in a one song that way?

Yeah, it would be called the blue CDR version. I found an old this old blog post and there's a download link which doesn't work because it's from 2007, but it's interesting because I see the track list and so that reminds me, yes, we cut the song Boston from the album, which is a really good song. We probably could have left it and we added M79 and I stand corrected. So yeah, it's there's two tracks. We can find the missing song. There's Boston winning becomes a

classic 16 years ago. Okay, yeah, so we would have done it on a radio show, but that's going to be some kind of live thing. I've never seen this before. I have a, oh the Take I don't think we needed to cut this from the first album. Yeah. But I guess it made the first album even shorter in punch here. It's 11 songs versus 12. Maybe it was a good thing. Yeah. And who were your contemporaries? What were the other bands that you would consider were your peer group at that time?

Because we started at Columbia. It didn't particularly feel like we were part of a scene. Because when you're at school, you're just there because you go to the same school. So there might be some other bands, but we didn't particularly have a musical scene there. So, when later people would talk about MGMT and animal collective or bands that lived in Brooklyn as being part of the same scene.

I bristled at that a little bit, just made me just on some pedantic nerd shit because I kind of felt like, well, we didn't know them. And then I looked back on it. I'm like, you know what? I did know people who went to Wesleyan and I do remember visiting my friend at Wesleyan and there's even some small part of me. I'm like, did I see MGMT? Like when I was 20? It's possible. I was like over there getting ripped at the Zonker Harris Day, which is some kind of weird Wesleyan tradition.

So, yeah, now I look back and I'm like, all right, these people were contemporaries. The only people I knew were Dave Longstreet from Dirty Projectors because I'd randomly met him through somebody at Columbia and I ended up touring with Dirty Projectors playing saxophone in the summer before Vampire Weekend started. So I knew Dave and then I knew another guy named Dave McLevich. Because he had the start of the span Chromio who were kind of bringing back 80s funk at a very unique time.

And I'd seen them open for the streets at Bowery Ballroom and it really blew my mind. Because, you know, in the Strokes era, it's again, it's so hard to picture. But in the Strokes era, seeing these two Canadian guys, one of them was playing a talk box and who were doing kind of like, you know, Roger and Zap type stuff. I can't overstate how unusual that was. Anyway, I saw them and then the next week I see the singer walk out of the library.

And so I went up to him and I was like, I think I just saw you play at Bowery Ballroom. And he was like, oh yeah, I'm getting my PhD here in French literature. So I knew these two guys named Dave. So looking back, I'm like, yeah, does Vampire Weekend have some shared sensibility with Chromio and Dirty Projectors, sure. But at the time, it didn't felt more like, well, these are guys I know. These are friends of mine, but are we a scene? I don't know.

But did you feel more like you were a band from Columbia or a band that would play at the Bowery Ballroom? Do you know what I'm saying? If you didn't go to Columbia and you were still living in your parents' house and you went with Bowery Ballroom, you would think of yourself as part of wherever the bands would play. That would be what the scene is. Yes. So in that sense, we were a band from Columbia because our early shows were all parties.

I don't want to call them frat parties because Columbia is very much not a classic fraternity place, but it has these clubs that are co-ed. There's one called St. A's, which is actually our first album covers, The Shandle Lear there. So our early shows were shows at college. Playing Bowery Ballroom was my number one ambition. Like that was the venue that I'd seen the most shows at that seemed cavernous to me, like, whoa.

Mercury Lounge was kind of like, well, I guess if you played Mercury Lounge and got all your friends to come and feel full, but Bowery Ballroom was the one. It was like you made it. Yeah, that was like the garden to me. But no, the early shows were at college. And then once you graduated college, we played random shows that we kind of booked ourselves. So we didn't have, oh, and then like I said before, my friend from growing up West, who was at college at Syracuse, he had this band Rar Raya.

So of course, I had a connection to them. And a lot of our early shows were in Syracuse because we knew people in Syracuse. And then once we were signed, we did open for Animal Collective at Webster Hall, which was super cool. That felt like something's happening with you. You get to open for like one of the great bands of your time. It didn't feel like some early days, like, hey, what's your name? You know, it was just different. So much of today's life happens on the web.

Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy, using one of Squarespace's best in-class templates. With the built-in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins, and menus. So your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs. Your unbreakable creativity with fluid engine, a highly intuitive drag-and-drop editor. No coding or technical experience is required.

Understand your site's performance with in-depth website analytics tools. Squarespace has everything you need to succeed online. Create a blog. Monetize a newsletter. Make a marketing portfolio. Launch an online store. Squarespace app helps you run your business from anywhere. Track inventory and connect with customers while you're on the go. Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create and customize a beautiful website.

www.squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. Did you think of it as a live band or did you think of it as a studio project from the beginning? The beginning had equal doses of both. Like if I picture a very important song from the early days, A-Punk, you know, still probably our best known song, and I think about, okay, how did that song come together? I had a guitar riff. I remember a one-point just sitting with CT and playing the riff. He's like, I like that riff.

He started playing drums. And then the whole band got together at yet another practice thing and jammed on that first part. And then somebody's like, well, we need a B section and then Ross them starts playing the da-na-na-na. It's like, oh, now we got a B section. I start singing over that. And then Bayo's doing his thing on bass. And at some point CT says, what if you go, hey, hey, hey, hey, or something?

I go, okay, I'll do more like, hey, hey, hey, but anyway, that was, okay, not every song was like that, but that was a very important song that came about through a classic kind of band rehearsal thing. Now to finish that song, I'm sure there was a lot of time I can then picture sitting next to Ross in front of the computer and saying, how does that sound or him throwing on the flute sound and us talking about it and saying, that's cool, that's not cool, all that stuff.

So it had the flavor of both because Ross-Tem was already so interested in production. And in fact, in some ways, our relationship started that way because there's a version of the song, Brynn. I don't know if it's lost to time, but when we were freshmen, I remember meeting him and he's like, I'm into music, I'm into music too, and we talked about bands. And at some point, I played him the song Brynn that I had and he was like, why don't we record it? Because he was so interested in recording.

You played Tim Live, like you performed it? Yeah, I must have played it on a guitar because I had the, yeah, like I had the, it's not a Remembrance. Yes, I must have had. I had that riff and I had this idea for a song. So we must have tried a demo of it. And then I remember later that summer, I recorded it back in Jersey with my other friends.

But so, to me, that's symbolic of something, which is that before the band started, you know, he was so interested in recording and production that that was always very present, which was perfect because I'm sure without that, I probably would have like lost some interest or something because I've always been slightly more interested in, I don't know, making records has always been the thing that I feel the most connected to. So anyway, in the early days, we had equal doses of both.

By the second album, it seemed obvious to me that we could not achieve what I wanted to achieve if every song started with four guys in a room, bashing on instruments. And looking back, I'm so lucky that I had that set of collaborators in that day because there were still times where I could show CT and Bayo a riff and sound check and we started to groove and like on the song, cousins where I had this little riff. And then they started coming a little bit.

So again, that kind of just grooving thing, but then by the same token, at that time, you know, Rossum sending me beats that he made, you know, for lack of a better word, we worked hip-hop style. You sent me a beat. Let me listen to it. Let me see what I come up with over it. And I think that kept the band interesting, hopefully for the listeners, but more importantly for us.

And then I also started to realize, I remember the song Hannah Hunt, which is one I'd written pre-Vampire Weekend, which didn't come out until our third album. And I remember trying to take it into the studio. And I think a lot of people have this feeling because you don't realize, right, you can make music so many different ways.

And if you're a songwriter and you write kind of like a tender, quiet, country-esque thing, and then you go to your kind of indie band, bros and say, all right, guys, here's a song. And then you start playing, you start hearing live drums and stuff. It can be incredibly depressing. Nobody did anything wrong. But it's still a bad feeling when you start to realize, like, wait, I thought this was a good song, but as we jam on it, it just feels so off.

And again, then I started to realize what's obvious now, which is that, yeah, some songs you start with the bunch of musicians in the room and some, you don't want to drum set anywhere in sight because you want to be so quiet and you want to listen to the, you know, the snare sample off the speakers. So, you know, we had to transition into that. It is a normal thing in a band, regardless of the size where every musician believes they're supposed to be playing all the time. Right.

And no one stops to question that in a band. And that's why you also eventually have to say we can break out into different groups because, you know, fair enough, if I'm sitting in front of a guitar all day, I'm going to noodle on it. If I'm sitting in front of a drum set, I'm going to do a little something. When you're in front of an instrument, you do something with it.

So, and I also had to realize, I was like, right, there's, I can only think straight sometimes when I'm alone or when it's me and one other person. Even to this day, there's certain moments when I'm working with like say, R.A.L. or something and I just realize, and of course, sometimes he's always had great people working for him, excellent assistants, all of whom I really like.

But I started to, even I had to realize this in my 30s where it's like, right, when we're doing drum takes, I want everybody there because we want a troubleshoot. But if it's remotely anything emotional or I want to like really, not even emotional enough, I just want to speak from the heart about why I love a certain record and why I hate another one. I clam up if there's anybody else in the room and that's a huge part of making music. So sometimes you need the instruments to be gone.

You need the people to be gone. And of course, that's something that takes years to learn. During the process of making things, do you spend a lot of time listening to references? Definitely. And I spend a lot of time listening to the demos. Like, I realize I'm probably, there's certain demos I listen to hundreds of times. I mean, it's scary to say to think, but it may be even thousands. Because there might be some little instrumental that we made years ago.

And I come back to it little by little and I start to get a lyrical idea. Or just one day I realize, you know, I always have these crazy ideas too where I'm like, thankfully we never did any of this where I'm like, oh, and then we'll do three EPs in different genres. And, you know, I'm thinking about that for years and I'm listening to them and listening. And then eventually I'm like, I'm insane. That song should just be track one on the next album.

And I only start to realize that with time and from listening over and over again. So I spend so much time listening to our little demos. And then yeah, like any musician I get obsessed with certain songs and then in the studio, we play each other's stuff. Or most of your demos made in one session? No, they can be all over the place. And sometimes I don't really know which one is good for a long time. I often think too about like, I'm guilty of this too.

And I certainly have friends and peers who I know do this. Where sometimes somebody will say like, oh, has a new album going, it's great. We got seven songs. And they'll play some of them and be like, well, these three don't have a lyric yet. But I know it's good because whatever, slap sort of the group. And I realized I used to be like that too, have my little instrumentals and be like, well, this is obviously cool. So this will go on the record.

Whereas now I realize until you have the lyric that seals the deal, you can't move it into that column yet. I think it's okay to believe in it. It's probably good to believe in it. Yeah, you just got to keep it real a little bit. Yeah. And also recognize, to me, it kind of sharpens your mind a little bit to say, you could have the most amazing beat, let's call it, instrumental piece of music. You could have one of the greatest composers in the world composed it for you.

And until you have that turn of phrase that makes it a memorable song, it's essentially worthless. And if that makes you feel down in the dumps, then you shouldn't think that way. But for me, that feels more like, all right, that's what's so fun about this. It is the reality of the situation. Yeah. There's probably the instrumental, I have a quizzical look. Right. Yeah. I don't know what this is yet. What's next?

And by the same token, as unfair as it seems, which sometimes very sophisticated musicians, I've heard, you know, can feel like it's a bit unfair. Somebody can write the most sophisticated chords with the most interesting production. And then some kind of naive goofball comes in and plays one, four, five. And that turns into the best song on the album. And that's just how it is. Yeah. Sometimes the technical glitch is what makes it interesting.

Right. What I mean, like it's beyond even songwriting. Yeah. What makes it interesting. Yeah, you never know. A cool turn of phrase by itself is not valuable until there's a melody and a set of surrounding arrangements to make it work. And I always find too, like, you know, listening back to songs. Yes, sometimes I realize I like this song because of that random acoustic guitar thing we forgot to mute. And that sounds like a little beep, like a brum. Yeah, you never know.

Yeah. Let's listen to something from the first proper album, just for the story. Sure. Would A Punk be the best choice, you think? Yeah. I mean, that's definitely the best-known song. Okay, I'll start with that. So that was just sort of the kind of part that, oh, that's also a song that we've wrote at joblant fisch it sia che strrium ni hömmen's wind 是 the militia is spring It's going er I love the eyes dazzling Because I are to request those considered To cast out during those considered

And, that's more Ourself The Mexico Cutting teeth out of course I'm on a gun's all I put your hand on the doubting soul What you're looking about, and you're watching tonight I'm a ring-lice here with me You'll be the other side of my room with you I cast out the record comes in I cast out the record comes in I cast out the record comes in I cast out the record comes in Was that the first single?

No, I feel like Manson Roof was the first kind of like taster single But that was definitely like a significant single Would you hear it on the radio? Did you play in bigger venues? Yeah, those early years were just like It was like a lot of good things happened We go on tour in a van?

We toured in a minivan in the early days But we were on a bus pretty quick And yeah, it kind of felt like from When you're we start the band next year, we sign a record deal You're after that, that album's out And we... When you sign the record deal, the album is essentially done Essentially done, yeah, we had to maybe put it in the first year So in the first year you make the first album?

Yeah, and so we had to have a few weeks more of work to finish it Do you play many shows in that first year or no? A decent number and some very small shows So I felt like we'd hit every step We just hit them quickly and then by the time the album came out We started to have those milestones that are Far beyond the initial ambition of playing the Bowery Bar And like play Glastonbury for the first time And people really know the song On the first album?

Yeah, on the first album Yeah, like people, you know, with big English crowd And they know eight punk and Oxford commoners singing And all that kind of stuff So you know, going around the world obviously was pretty novel And then the show is getting bigger and bigger How surreal was it? Like, yeah, this is right or like, wow, can you believe this?

If I really think back to that time, I think I was equally excited by our success And equally wounded by my first taste of like criticism And like becoming a public facing person So I guess like with many things in life It probably netted out to feeling about the same

I guess I figured it out a little bit But I didn't really know how to like roll with the punches So even if I didn't sit and anger necessarily all the time You know, of course like any but it would like read some review Or some hate or and be like, well they don't know the first thing about me Or what, you know, once that would go It would still linger as anxiety Which is like, well, what if these people are right?

What if the, we are just a buzz band Or we, we weren't a one hit wonder in the sense of having a giant hit single But could we be a one album wonder? You know, even as I listen back as you play A Punk and I think back to it I can hear that music and say, let's play what I would have said too If I heard our first album Not that I don't like it or I'm not proud of it But I could see like, there's a novelty aspect to it It's um...

Isn't the reason a buzz band is a buzz band is because it's good and people like it Isn't that part of it? Yeah, but I guess it's also part of the fun is like seeing Where something can go And to say, yeah, so this is exciting right now It's connecting with people, the story of the album And a lot of that came from the band Dressing preppy and being like, we met at college

And there's a collegiate atmosphere Of course, I thought I was having fun with it And having a satirical element But even so, it's if something is rooted in kind of youth You can't blame people for saying, I don't really see this being a long-term thing

So I think that period was equally kind of fun and anxiety-producing You know, again, I can't tell, I don't need to tell you How many times have we both probably had this conversation with musicians They talk about early success and they're kind of like, yeah, that part was fun

And then that part was incredibly stressful So, you know, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get the second album out quickly I think, of course, I and everybody in the band had things we wanted to say artistically But also there's a feeling of like also probably wanting to prove to people

There was more to the story And I remember having an obsession that I wanted the second album The first time came out January 08 And I remember thinking, the second album needs to come out in the 2009 calendar year Who knows what? You know, I had this feeling like Yeah, if we are a buzz band and the sun's setting on us, like let's get something out soon It ended up coming out January 2010, which looking back was crazy Because we played so many shows in that time

And you had your whole life to write the first album Right, not very true And now you're busy promoting the first album and writing and recording the second album Yeah, 2009 was a stressful year Because we hadn't really stopped playing shows And I have a memory of everybody being really stressed out

We're trying to finish the album And then we had an offer to open for Blur and Hyde Park Which that was a very exciting task It was big, looked up to Blur Especially to be chosen by them to open It's like 70,000 people in Hyde Park Oh yeah, it's a huge...

Yeah, and you know, there's such an iconic band there But I remember being like Oh right, even to go do one show When you have to fly to England That's going to be bare minimum Three days of your time And realistically a week of your energy Yeah And like right and every week counts when you're rushing to finish You know, and suddenly realizing, oh god So you know, that was an intense time It has been cherished in tribal wisdom traditions for thousands of years Indigenous people the world ever

Have used this plant-based compound in spiritual healing And ceremonial rights and rituals of centuries Monies and late, it has been shown to increase alertness Improved focus, elevate mood, enhanced cognition Hightened reward sensation and more We're talking about nicotine

Nicotine is a wonder worker Inspired by Indigenous practices throughout history And guided by a wealth of contemporary research The team at Lucy set out on a mission to create clean Brain-boosting nicotine products for the modern lifestyle Whether it's their nicotine breakers, parches or gum

Lucy's products are carefully formulated to deliver a pure and potent nicotine experience Free from the undesirable aspects of cigarette smoke Backed by rigorous research Nicotine is known to amplify cognitive processes, emotional regulation

And modulate the release of neuro-transmitters like dopamine, serotonin and non-epinephrine Experience the power of this natural nutrapping By visiting Lucy.co slash tetra And discover next level smoked free nicotine Warning, this product contains nicotine Nicotine is an addictive chemical On the first album after playing Glaston Berry Would you guys feel like celebratory? Would you high five? Tell me the energy around the band Was it just like work?

I don't know, I think everybody was kind of probably like dealing with their own sense of self And probably once it got real, probably everybody had to decide a little bit like Yeah, where's this heading?

Because you know, suddenly the band is taking up a lot of time So I think everybody was kind of taking it in So I think there was mutual excitement There were certainly moments of like group celebration But you know, there was also a huge transition happening Going into working on the second album

And like I said, suddenly I'm realizing certain songs are only going to reach their potential If we don't work on them as a band And I'd had a tiny bit of foresight when the band started I'd been in bands growing up So I had a tiny bit of foresight when the band started that I could at least say to everybody I want to be the singer when I started this band, it's because I want to be the singer Not saying I won't be open to other things, but you know

I just kind of remember you know being in seventh grade and every time there's like a song Everybody's looking at each other like maybe I could sing this one And just realizing like sometimes it's good to have clarity People can have different projects and I also said early on

I want to have a final say on choosing the songs Just because I was so obsessed with albums and again I had this feeling like Can't be voting on every song, you know, because people are going to have different sensibilities and different points of view

And I'd like to think that I was a hopefully had enough sense that I would recognize what was great about somebody else's song or somebody else's contribution But even then there's still growing pains that a band has to go through in terms of who does what

You know, suddenly say well these songs maybe won't have a real bass or real drums on it That's a growing pain for everybody Did you know it in advance or was it more in case by case you get to a song This one's going to be better without the band on it

I wonder, as a huge music fan and the discography nerd I imagine if you'd asked me when I was you know In my college years like what is the arc of a great band look like I would have reeled off the Beatles and Radiohead and Beastie Boys or whatever And I would have said the bands who I admire the most They had drastically different ways of working from album to album Whether that means using live instruments here or orchestral arrangements there, samples

I guess I'd always probably had a model in my head that the artists I liked were never beholden To rules about instruments or arrangements So I guess I knew that but I probably hadn't thought about how does that actually happen Right I will say personally I like it when you hear a song and you know

Let's say the artist has ten albums and you hear a song and you know what album it's on Not because you remember which album it's on but because only that album sounds like that Right I like that Yeah Now I also like the Ramones and I also like ACDC Yes And those are exceptions to that rule Yeah

Yeah no if you can be the Ramones or ACDC and you crack such a specific sound on your first album Might as well stick with it but even the first vampire we can album From song to song and you can tell it's a collage So we had to make a series of different collages

We didn't have a one sound to stick with but yeah I agree And even if you go a step further and it's like not only does it sound that sound could only be that band in that era If you need to go a tiny step further and even say well that lyric could only be from...

I mean that's like as good as it gets when you realize like I mean you know Sometimes you're the beneficiary of huge social change and say like Yeah I want to hold your hand versus tomorrow never knows Like that makes sense that one that those were a few years apart in terms of...

Yeah I love that stuff And deep down I've never totally known how to put it into words but that's what I love about music You know I've come to enjoy performing live But I didn't see a show once that blew my mind and said I want to be that guy on stage

You hear stories like that that's that was not the case It was only when I started to look at for lack of a better word discographies That's what got me excited about overall output of an artist Yes and you know and that's what was you know that's what's cool about whatever era you're born into

Not only do you get to watch the great artists of your generation unfold that story But you get to look backwards and just see it already You can go backwards forwards, sit in the middle for a while Like I can just I can picture being like 13 just like sitting in the white album

And like letting that world surround me and thinking about They only could have made this after Sargent Pepper And it makes sense that this was before let it be, it has to be You know like I love that So while touring the first album Would you be writing songs while you're on the road? Would you be testing songs at Soundcheck?

Yeah, here and there. I remember the song Cousins started as like a jamming that riff in Soundcheck And then there are other songs like White Sky that rostomed to me like a 30 second kind of electronic beat that he'd made I just listened to it over and over again

I started writing a verse and I wrote a chorus And so they were all kind of in play and then maybe I had other songs But when I picture writing on tour it's very rarely like stopped by a studio with some of the guys Or even sitting alone with an acoustic guitar It tends to be more that walking the streets of Brussels, jet lagged and listening to old demos And suddenly having a little melodic or lyrical breakthrough That's what I consider writing on tour

If you look at the second album see if you can imagine what would have been the first song written for it Yeah, a lot of these songs have some like deeper roots

Oh, you know what it is? It's actually giving up the gun which is probably why it sounds a bit different Because that was a song I'd kind of experimented with in college when I had a little rap group And I remember it's like it was that was a useful song because it was helping me to realize I probably shouldn't be rapping But I made a beat and so that song existed That was pre-vent probably giving up the gun but then I remember being like maybe we should bring that song back

And then Ross took it and ran with it and built it into something new But that song probably had the deepest roots Let's hear it a little bit You're so drone-owned and rusty but beneath the rising sun It's like the black trophy forgetting all the things that's done And though it's been a long time you're right back where you start from I see it in your eyes but now you're giving up the gun When I was 17 I had a roof like still Yeah, much more like this was like pop compared to the first album

I don't want to say slick that's like an overused term but like you're not slick but tight, produce Yeah, I don't know, you know Yeah, definitely more produced Yeah And that song maybe is a bit of an outlier on that album but the one with the deepest roots and also I guess in some ways yeah reminds me of that period of being like we got to let's try some different stuff What would be the most representative if you were going to say this song best represents the album?

It's hard to say when I look at this album I am struck by you know ten tracks How much ground we covered you know there's like some punky guitar songs that seem related to the first album I mean in some ways maybe track one Hortchata because that I remember working on that song a lot in those early years And I'm pretty sure there's not like a drum set on it so in some ways and I had this feeling that should be track one

So I guess that's because I must have it to sound different than the first album Would you think of it as progress or just different?

That's a great question because you can imagine after doing dozens of interviews to promote the new album You know you're asked to reflect a lot on your discography and even sometimes you get that backhanded compliment of somebody being like saying like You really like leveled up even when somebody likes your new work and they say really achieved something new or backhanded Yeah, what I always felt was that yes it's not progress per se it's continuing to reveal the whole

So I kind of felt a little you know I guess like if you're revealing a map of the US And then you then you started out by just showing a little box that showed LA or something And you know if you have confidence and you're familiar with the territory of the United States of America And people say like all right well I get palm trees It's sunny, the film industry is based there and in the back of your head you're thinking like

Right but eventually I'll show you North Dakota. Yeah, you know eventually I'll show you a Yeah Telehassy flower or whatever so I always thought of it more that way that and maybe I didn't know how to do it But if you would ask me even as a high school student or a college student say you know again

I'm talking about idolizing the the Beastie boys and radio head and the Beatles and whatever If you would said like do you think your band might one day make a song that's made in more of a pop fashion or a hip-hop fashion

Or doesn't have real drums or has a choir or has an orchestra I'd be like of course Because these are the tools of music and I love all that stuff and we'll figure out a way to do it You never saw it in a small box You never saw for a guy's playing rock as the limitation of your musical output

Yeah definitely not and I think yeah that's why the second album is so important because Second album is like you said or famously hard did you have your whole life for the first one and then You know you're too for the second but some of these songs that were made in more of a Sitting in front of the computer kind of way felt like representative of the new approach Yeah, Hwarchoud especially maybe just felt like a if I'll connected to the first album

But felt like this step into a slightly new world and maybe that's why I always tend to have strong feelings about track one Beyond that I'm not very good at sequencing but I knew that should be track one Let's listen to that What's your favorite Paul Sybing era?

Oh that's a good question I mean it varies but you know there's definitely a part of me that doesn't want to say Grace Land and yet to me that is his most perfect album it's probably the one that inspires me the most I mean I also have these moments where I've gotten I get very obsessed with the bridge over troubled water album And I guess those two are probably his I imagine is two most successful albums between Simon and Garfunkel and the solo material

But yeah the Grace Land rhythm of the Saints I think the truth is that that combination of the sounds his collaborators what he was doing lyrically Embracing world music Yeah it is to me nothing quite sounds like it and I think bridge over troubled water is one of the great albums of that era But I can think of other folk or orchestral music I love but there's only one Grace Land you know what I mean Would you say you felt more stress going into the second album or the first album?

Probably the second album I think their you know first album is a little bit of that ignorance is bliss Kind of thing and it was also novel whereas by the second album you get that unfortunate feeling of like

Oh now I have something to protect. You didn't know anyone would hear the first album really Yeah and now you know well there's a bunch of people who heard that we're gonna hear this Yes and I also felt a little bit again I don't quite feel like that these days and I look back and I have some sympathy, slash judgment of my young self for caring so much and being too naive or something to recognize like yeah that's what happens people

allowed to have opinions they're allowed to even hate you it's okay but you know that's like hard not hate you hate your music Well it felt personal at times because sometimes the way people hate on music is by making it personal

You know so you could call it hating you and even that you have to eventually accept however you get there eventually you have to accept So you know at the time when I think about that feeling of I imagine going into the second album outside this feeling of like the knives were out

And it's funny too I you know I think so often when I talk about the albums and stuff Because I am a music fan you know I can like nerd out for hours about you know classic second albums and how other artists did and what I learned from them and stuff But the truth is luckily there's always just kind of an artistic thing that pulls you forward in spite of all these anxieties and stuff

So yes I felt like the knives were out for us and I felt the sense of wanting to prove something and I wanted to avoid the pitfalls that a lot of artists have on their second album But as much as all that stuff was on my mind it's also you play the hand your dealt and these are the songs that we had and these are the ideas we had so we just did it

So in some ways now I look at it as being like all that stress and worrying maybe who knows maybe that stress made it 7% better or maybe made it a little more thoughtful about when we shouldn't put that out first

Maybe but I guess the case in point it's not like I look back and say well here's the thing we had 50 recorded songs and we painstakingly chose these 10 Those are the 10 we had so you know all that stress what was it a struggle to get to this 10 or did it happen relatively in a natural way We weren't too far off there were enough of these songs and ideas had been floating around for at least let's say a year that we I'd say we more or less had 7 or 8 that felt just about right

You know luckily they worked out maybe it two more came thankfully it was in the combination of both the high stakes feeling of a second album and like sitting down and being like Okay, we better start writing because we got nothing it wasn't that and then how was it received in general?

I think it was received well I remember some like early good reviews and the shows continued to get bigger That's a good sign Yeah, that's a good sign If shows continue to get bigger it's always a good sign Yeah and of course the haters can say you're still coasting off the previous wave but I've seen enough now that I feel like I can differentiate between the feeling of one versus the other

And like you know when people reacting to the new material and there's like a new vibe in the air and so yeah ultimately it felt like it worked and you know looking back at how close those albums were together It's probably a lot of people were still discovering the first album although it is funny because you realize it's interesting when you have five albums and you meet people who found their way in on each album

And as much as you might think well the contract the second album was only barely two years not even after the first album so you can lump those together But no I still meet people who I know are like we actually had some joke with Beyo about calling people generation Contra

We just meet a certain type of fan and I can just tell that the second album was your way it wasn't the first They might like all the albums but I can tell this that micro generation of people for whom the second was the way in And ultimately I feel like as long as each album cracks the door for maybe a new type of listener then we've done our job Welcome to the house of Macadamias Macadamias are a delicious superfood

sustainably sourced directly from farmers Macadamias a rare source of Omega 7 linked to collagen regeneration enhanced weight management and better fat metabolism Macadamias are healthy and bring boosting fats Macadamias, failure friendly, cheeto and plant-based Macadamias

No wheat, no dairy, no gluten, no GMOs, no preservatives, no palm oil, no added sugar, house of Macadamias I roasted with Namibian sea salt, cracked black pepper and chocolate dips, snack bars come in chocolate Coconut white chocolate and blueberry white chocolate Visit houseofmacadamias.com slash tetra

What kind of people come to the gigs? Now describe the audience Well we've only played one real show so far on this album and we played in Austin during the eclipse couple weeks ago That's cool Also, it was a good experience Oh happy birthday Thank you

Yeah it was amazing actually I didn't realize you know how intense the eclipse might feel and also how gratified I was because it was a cloudy day So we stopped playing during the eclipse and we went backstage or at least in the parking lot to look up And you could hear these wild sounds coming from the crowd, people howling at the moon And it got really dark like spooky dark And we looked up and you couldn't see anything and truly in a kind of cosmic way at the perfect moment

The clouds parted just enough for two seconds to see the moon in front of the sun and the sound we could hear from the crowd was crazy Wow And that was very special experience I did have a thought in terms of the crowd looking out at that show in particular

I really had this sense of like wow I'm looking at the whole history of the band Because I saw people who had even just in terms of the t-shirts Because I'd see somebody wearing wow that t-shirt we sold on the first album and it has a very 2000's indie look Or look at that person they're wearing like a polo button down shirt They're connected to this preppy thing that is you know a pillar of the band But then I'd see people who are maybe the fans of the older fans

Who are wearing kind of more like riffs on grateful dead imagery which is way more the fourth album And I just really had a sense I was like looking at the, yeah kind of just like the whole history of the group And you see some parents with their kids

And you see some people who are kind of like right you must have gotten to us when you're in college You must have gotten to us when you're maybe middle school Or you even see some people you're like well you're like you're way older than all of us So you know it's a nice mix in terms of age range

And I did have that good feeling where I was like right we have a body of work now And looking at it the crowd just in terms of the fashion I can tell people are connected to each era Would people sing along?

Oh yeah definitely lots of singing along That's good People are singing along from songs from all the different albums and that's such a good feeling too Just to know that they work jumping around in time And that you can like have some fun with the set list and go from the early days to the middle to the recent That's a great feeling Do you feel an obligation to play songs in the way that they were originally recorded live?

Up to a point like we have new people on stage in the band So recently we had two new guys Colin and Ray And at first we were just looking to cover guitar parts But then Colin is a great saxophonist and Ray is a great violinist and plays pedal steel

So we can't help but have a little bit of that sound like on violin or with that sound like on sax And then certain songs I think are almost built to play with So it depends on the song but yeah I love having a little bit of fun with it How much coin do you do on the second album?

So much I think in 2010 we played 200 shows or something so that was just felt endless And you know gratifying up to a point you know by the end of that tour we played our biggest shows up to that point And you know maybe by the end of that year it felt like we could look and say okay the second album was officially a success And again when you know how the classic sophomore slump the biggest fear is to be like So that really was a whip lash

So it didn't feel like a whip lash it was like no things have continued to grow felt good Definitely needed to take some time off Back then probably even just taking two months to do nothing probably felt like a long time

You know today two months is nothing I didn't take two years to really feel the effects But I remember taking a little bit of time off and then Yeah the third album I guess it's true at that point was probably the longest gap we've had so that was three and a half years between albums

So that felt like a long time and it also felt like to me that it was time to do something really different This is before anything's written you had an idea that it's going to be really different than what came before I mean but of course there's always these little things hanging out like like I said the song Hannah Hunt which became an important song on the third album that predates Vampire Weekend So you know there's always stuff like that but to me that doesn't mean much

It just means that it didn't know what to do with it so the I don't have the insight How do you describe the difference in the third album?

The simplest way to describe it is that it's darker and more serious And you know there's times I bristle to even say that myself because there's always been a part of me that's kind of like the contrarian part of me that wants to say Some people just couldn't see the heaviness or the darkness and the early stuff Or some people need to if the album cover isn't black and white they're not going to understand And yet I also I can see both sides of it where

Now of course the first two albums have a brightness and a youth and the third album moved into different territory I might have had the territories more lyrically or sonically darker Yeah but it was definitely going for something different And when I think about these songs that are very emblematic of that album I realized you know at step and Hannah Hunt we're hanging around for years before that So you know what does that mean? But again it wasn't their time

You can you know the best laid plans right? Like things only work not just because you make an artistic intention To say we should do something a bit darker now But also you have to be at that space emotionally Otherwise you won't have the ideas to feed it And so you know being

When I think about what I contributed to that album Being in my late 20s and what I wanted to write about and sing about It was changing and so not only did I feel like this is what the band needed to do Just in terms of continuing to paint our picture but it's also just what was happening

So yeah darker heavier I'm sure the average BPM on that often dropped quite a bit I even remember at the time even though that album still has some like punky tempos On believers and dying young and stuff I still have a memory of like sitting with a friend

Just being like I'm just concerned this album so kind of slow But I like those songs I loved the quieter mid tempo songs But there was this part of me that kind of felt like Well we're known for a kind of high energy indie stuff Will this feel boring or lifeless to people

So it was a concern of mine not enough of a concern to pull back too much Yeah the third album is the one that really caught me Like that's my way in Right There's songs on that album that yeah I see the connections between the first two albums But it's like you know if you hear obvious bicycle or step versus a punk Yeah in that sense it's incredibly different Yeah what song do you think would be most emblematic of the album?

To me it's always been step again even though step had these deeper roots There's even a time where I had an idea Oh maybe I'll make a solo album after the second vampire we can album where it'll just be me Kind of taking inspiration from random songs I like and rewriting them

Because you know this thing is totally inspired by Souls of mischief step to my girl which was like I think kind of a B-side or a bonus track It was hard to find back in the day and then that in turn is built on Grover Washington doing an instrumental version of a bread song called Aubrey

Of course I know all this stuff because we had to clear the samples But I had this thought where I was like oh that could be like a fun project It's a great idea It's still a great idea Yeah and I still there's times I'm still I'm always open to it

I always think to myself like if I find some old song and I like it Like maybe that'll get me writing something else and it'll become of you know start co-writing with I mean you know it's hip-hop It's just a sample and a rough you get an idea and make it your own But there was something about so step had been hanging out but there's something about and again It seems so obvious in retrospect but the moment where I thought no this should be a vampire weekend song

And we started working on it and it had this combination of kind of like a mid tempo hip-hop thing I wanted the groove to kind of like be reminiscent of a bittersweet symphony That's kind of like something that felt like a bit like a band but also kind of like a head nod type thing

Yeah like the Rossim's arrangement with the harpsichords and things like that It started to really feel like this is where a vampire weekend should go And it felt like that was an early one we worked on that really made me feel like right

This feels so connected to the early work and yet this is where I always wanted to go to in terms of songwriting Let's listen to a step Back back we're back I used to front like I grew up with my canxburg and kuchta I used to love well only New York champagne and disco

Takes a medley slash San Francisco but actually I'm cleaning out all the meter Your girls in bulk clear with the communist street My mom was in trouble then boom box in walk man I was a whole other book girl that was back then I was a little bit like a little girl

The gloves are love and it's the wisdom teeth that I've got you on the back I feel it in my bones I feel it in my bones I'm drunk enough I'm ready for the house I'm drunk enough I can't do it alone every time I see you in the world you always step to my girl

And sister Tommy the day goes better she's rich than creases she's tough for the leather I just ignore the tears of past life, still conversation deserves but a bedding knife And punctured like when the stars together they didn't know how to dress for the weather

I just don't know how to dress for the weather I just ignore the tears of past life, still conversation deserves but a bedding knife I'm drunk enough I'm ready for the house I'm drunk enough I can't do it alone Wisdoms of gift but you traded for youth

Ages and honor to stand up the truth be so the stars and they hid from the world You cussed the sun when it's dead to your girl Maybe she's gone and I can't resurrect it the truth that she doesn't need me to protect it You know the truth that the true weather flows

Everyone's dying to kill you now old yet gloves are love Wisdoms of gift but you're not a bad person I'm drunk enough I'm ready for the house I can't do it alone I can't do it alone I can't do it alone I can't do it alone I can't do it alone That is so beautiful club that's all Thank you

That is such a special song I think for Van Par weekend I had the sense that the three albums were heading to that place It's funny to talk about and realize that song was hanging out right next to all the songs in the early days It could have conceivably been on a previous album other than the fact that it didn't belong on them I'm glad it didn't because maybe it wouldn't have sounded as good Obviously in that sense there was growth and that was the first album that Ariel worked on

So I think he brought a bunch to the table in terms of the sound of that album Yes, it just wasn't the moment Even sometimes just because the song is good or it has a cool idea It doesn't necessarily belong on that album It's so much more meaningful that that song is on the third album I'm so glad it worked out that way Yeah, just the context is right It makes a difference Totally Tell me about the songstep It had deep roots What was the beginning of it?

It was just listening to that soul's a mischief song And you know I said, you hear a little bit of that Yes, just a reference You know, and I said before like I had my experimentation with rapping throughout my life

Even when I was in high school, one older guy at my school, Raj, who was a friend and also a bit of a mentor to me He was a hip-hop DJ and he rapped and spent many hours driving around the suburbs And into the city, you know, in his car listening to the roots and you know, a tribe called Quest

So I think I always wrestled a little bit with the fact that Van Proghen came out So specifically, kind of punky indie energy and also thinking But hip-hop is so meaningful to me And yet I know when I attempt to rap, it just doesn't feel right So there's something about listening to that song a lot and saying like, is there some way that I can take How inspired I feel by the lyrical approach but actually sound like me Yeah, also want to ask about that punky energy, was that the sound of the day?

That's an interesting question There were different types of punky energy floating around I remember, and I loved gang of four and stuff, you know, I remember spending, who knows, $23 out of my limited funds When I was in high school to get an imported CD because it was out of print at that time

So I loved all that stuff but in the early 2000s there had been such a revival of, I guess we could call it kind of post-punk references and dance punk stuff All the stuff that I loved, so I remember specifically in Van Proghen started talking about we can't do that kind of like punky disco beat

So yes, there was a lot of flavors of punky energy but with Van Proghen I think there weren't too many people At least in the US, maybe in England it was different, referencing another flavor of punky energy which I love which was Elvis Costello, Squeeze and Grand Parker Very much my dad's record You were like singer songwriter version of punky energy

Yeah, exactly. I don't want to say nerder because it's just overuse but yeah, Van Proghen you're like, right, as much as you know And whatever famously the sex pistols would diss the Beatles, right, they had to, that was their stick And then you realize you hear those bands and you're like, there's nothing that weird about the Beatles with a little more punky energy like you know, that's what Squeeze is Okay, step to my girl, here we go My melody went somewhere different but da da da da da

It's Grover Washington Jr. doing his version of Aubrey which is a bread song so that's why ultimately the guys from bread publishing on that song because there's a bread song Aubrey and there's a Grover Washington I believe version

Yeah, yeah, right, this is it. It'll go yeah, squeeze that part So I'd never heard this norad I heard the bread song but then eventually I'm like that's where that little bit of the melody comes from Let's hear Aubrey bread It's funny with this stuff I realized too like it's good that I heard just like this like little bit of saxophone in the background of the Soul of the Misty of Song because I couldn't have taken that and run with it if I like knew the bread song intimately

Yeah, I would have been too imprinted in my brain Aubrey was her name and not so very ordinary girl or name but who's to blame For the hearts that never played into like the lovely melody that everyone can sing Take away the words to grind it doesn't mean us thing And Aubrey was her name

We tripped the light in there to give I don't know what there's something about like 70s pop culture that is so depressing or sometimes you watch like children's movie from the 70s more than the 60s more than the 80s there's just like this deep sadness in the It's the mean generation

Right well there's a case to be made in the 70s is the greatest generation of music too but it is a different Earlier than later right well yeah the early 70s is like the peak of analog recording yeah and the early 70s is really what we think of when we think of the 60s Like when we think of the 60s we don't think of the 60s we think of 67 68 69 70 71 Right yeah when some of the 60s artists were really hitting like an amazing strike like Marvin Gaye or you know

Because the early 60s are really like the 50s right yeah the simplicity of the pop songs and yeah how was the third album received I mean I'm sure there must have been some bad reviews but it was like for the people who liked us it was seen as like a breakthrough I have this memory of being like we got a couple really great reviews off the bat and really felt like okay we did something we broke new ground

Now I'd be kind of like well you who cares about reviews but at the time again you're looking for validation and then I remember on that tour the Portland show didn't sell out And it was it wasn't a particularly big venue I should remember this like I still joke about it with the guys like the Portland show didn't sell out you know Portland is That was the era of Portland is you know it's an indie town so I just remember being like what is it I thought that we had like just broken new ground

It's so important in the career because the trajectory from the start of the band through signing a deal through the success of the first album to the continued success of the second album It's nothing but a series of like level ups and that that trajectory doesn't go on forever So you it's impossible it's impossible right so like even I Kind of remember yet in certain cities being like well we didn't sell as many tickets this time as the second album

But I don't get it isn't this album even better and then it was an important moment to realize right because you can't worry about this stuff And there's so many different types of W's and so many different types of L's and you have to let go and there's something about this album where I still meet people who are like Like the people who love modern vampires they I don't know they they talk about it in different terms than the people who love the first two albums for instance

And of course we people who love them all but yeah and that ultimately is is why that album probably is so important to our career is because it broke new emotional ground And a few hundred tickets in Portland doesn't really matter What may fall within the sphere of tetragramatine?

Counterculture tetragramatine Sacred geometry tetragramatine The Avant Garde tetragramatine Generative Art tetragramatine The Tarot tetragramatine Out of Print Music tetragramatine Biodynamics tetragramatine Graphic Design tetragramatine Mythology and Magic tetragramatine

Obscure Film tetragramatine Beach Culture tetragramatine Esoteric Lectures tetragramatine Off the grid living tetragramatine Old Spirituality tetragramatine The Canon of Fine Objects tetragramatine Muscle Cars tetragramatine Ancient Wisdom for a New Age Upon entering experience the artwork of the day take a breath and see where you are drawn What was the third album that was making the third album different than what came before? The third album was difficult to make.

Was it first when you made in California? Kind of. It's the most time we'd spent in California. We did plenty of it in New York but there was meeting Ariel and doing quite a bit of work out here on trips Made it the most time we'd spent here working. I remember it being difficult. I remember still having a lot of stress. Maybe just as much if not more. I mean people I work with have like clowned me about you say every album is like high stakes.

You say once we have three albums we can breathe easy. Once we have four, once we have five, I do actually feel like now we have five and I can breathe easy in a sense But whatever I didn't feel that way after two and I felt like the third album was high stakes. So I remember having a lot of stress. Describe the difficulty in making it. We'll just creatively remember at a time just feeling we didn't have enough songs.

Looking back we probably had already had all the songs that people love but we still needed a few more. Maybe that was still me negotiating the fast and loud songs versus the quiet and slow ones and being like, oh god if we don't have the balance right. People won't accept this from us. And then also just reaching the without going into too much detail. Just like naturally band stuff. Like realizing four people, four sets of ambitions and hopes and dreams and figuring out what the band was.

And me having to realize that even if I was the de facto leader and then realizing right but that's. That doesn't mean it's easy. That means people have all sorts of feelings and trying to figure out what does it mean for everybody to be a part of the band and. What we're bringing in our real I think was a positive thing but even that represented a new triangulation of energy and stuff like that. So I think of that as a pretty in one sense like an unsettled period.

Was that the first time you had an outside producer involved in? Yes. And you know so much of that album was. Ross and I are already done. And yet we still needed. Are you all the comment? I mean there's certain so when I look at that album I look at their songs that we just needed like another set of eyes just to let us know it was done and kind of put the finishing touch. And then there's songs where he fundamentally changed them and he got to be in from the ground floor.

Like obvious bicycle for instance. He dramatically changed that song or everlasting arms. Those are the two I always associate with are all really changing. But even the ones that we had done so much of the work already we were in the kind of a stuck in something. And we needed not just his ears but even just like him just just another person just to kind of move past certain things. But I think that's natural in the band.

It's like you start out and people probably are like oh cool you know things are going good we're all in this together. And then you reach a point where people say well hold on I wanted to do more of this or some he says I don't know if this is my be all end all. And so you're in this unsettled period and then maybe eventually you go through all those things and you reach another period of relative kind of like calm.

But I think of that as being a particularly unsettled moment and everything certainly worked out for the best. But you know like there yeah that was a we were still in our 20s and kind of like figuring out the future of the band. So I think some of that anxiety which maybe a lot of people feel in their late 20s about everything about your career, your relationships, your approach to life. And that anxiety is in the album.

Which of the two songs that you said Ariel really had a hand in would be more in single listen to. And this might be above my pay grade as a my approach to production has always been as a listener. You know I can talk a little bit about compression and EQ and all this shit. But the one that I associate so much with a set of sensibilities coming together is everlasting arms because this song began with a kind of synthy beat that Rossim had made. And I wrote on top of that and I really liked it.

And yet there was something kind of how would I put it shiny or fun about the bouncy synths that didn't seem to fit with this album. And I just kind of remember this one day where Ariel I think threw down some bass and some kongas and created this kind of like organic but still using a bit of like side chain compression which gave it this feeling of old and new together where I was going to like oh right.

That felt like a little bit of Ariel bringing his sensibility to something that had started with Rossim. Then I wrote on top of and then got to him. So I think of that one as being like. This is a little bit negative. Yeah right off the bat it's the most hiss. They're never fan on a vampire we can song. I call Ariel his he fits sometimes he's looking at his. I thought it over and drew the curtain. Leave me to myself. Leave me to myself. I hope the piece is as you play the hallelujah.

Leave me to myself. Don't leave me in myself. If you've been made to ever master you'd be fired and by the open hand, fired and by the hand. Good I've been made to serve a master while I'm never gonna understand, never understand. Hold me in your everlasting arms. Looked up for the fierce trap needs shudderly, it's going down. So that one when you wrote to Rossim's keyboard it didn't yet have a beat? It definitely had some of the grooves. It didn't have those drums. I remember the sense.

It was more bright and senty. So it didn't have the tapest, it didn't have kongas, it didn't have analog acoustic drums. It didn't have a bass guitar. There was something very real there of course I could write on. I was very excited by it but it was like putting on a different set of clothes to the same kind of feel. How often would you get a piece of music from Rossim and write to it versus not find a way in? It would depend on when. I can remember all the ones that worked.

It's hard to remember the ones that didn't work. I remember us being really in the zone together in that period when I felt we didn't have enough songs and we took kind of writers retreat, just the two of us. And at that point I felt like in terms of the songs that started with me I kind of felt like I was tapped out. I had a hand on a hand step. Those were songs that I had been working on so long. I didn't feel like I could just start something again.

And I remember rapid succession, him playing me that and then what became don't lie. And just immediately having a sense of like I know what to do with this and then I know what to do melodically. Even before a guttorial I knew I really felt strongly about that song. It just didn't quite fit the aesthetic of the album yet. And tell me how did Ariel get involved and at one point in the process?

I would say roughly halfway through and he knew you were halfway through or did you think you were near the end? I'm sure we thought we were near the end. I always think we're closer to the end than we are. My memory of it is that we had, you know, I can only speak for myself. I remember fairly early on having this feeling like there's some really good stuff here. We're having some pretty significant breakthroughs in terms of what this band can do. And yet there's a feeling of like stuckness.

But I think Russell knew Ariel better than me. In a weird coincidence, a guy named Mickey Stanley, whose brother was in our year at Columbia, was kind of interning for Ariel. So I think it was just like a coincidence. So he and Ross and I got to know each other a bit. I'd met him maybe once or twice. And I knew I had got a good vibe off of him because I remember, I think it's a matter of a debate about who suggested him first.

But I just remember at the very least we were both totally on the same page when about he'd be a good person to work with. And I mean, it's funny looking back, which aspects of his work I even knew. I felt a connection to him because as a teenager, he'd been in a Scott Punk band called The Hippos. He'd had randomly kind of was known for having produced this big hit for the Plain White Teas. Hey there, Delilah, which is a huge song continues to be.

But you know, that's not necessarily indicative of like his sound. I mean, one thing about Ariel is like he doesn't have one sound. All I knew was that he kind of had the right vibe. And actually, it just kind of just worked out. And I think it just made a lot of sense to have somebody else in there doing something for the third time. You just need like a shake up. And how would you say the process was different having the third man there?

It probably relieved some tension like emotionally. That can just be true anytime you have three people in a room versus two. You know, suddenly you can try and glean differently. Can you set up ideas and new ideas? Let's try this. Yeah. Or you can take out some frustration. You make them the scapegoat. These are important to kind of be united and making fun of somebody. Or you know, I could leave more often and feel like, okay, there's still some dialogue happening.

I mean, just in terms of workflow, I remember the two of them being in rooms across the hall and working on different songs. So just in that sense, there was like more getting done. You know, just listening back to the songs with you. And I hear like every last thing, arms. And I remember being like, right, at that point, that was, I thought that was far and away the best vocal I'd ever done. And I think part of that was probably being with some, like sometimes recording vocals with Arion.

He was somebody I didn't know that well, but that weirdly made me feel more comfortable at times. And he had a different approach to like comping. So I think his vocal comps brought a new energy, his love of analog recording, which up to that point had not particularly been a part of Vampire Weekend. You know, and I think like those first two albums are very pro-tools. And you know, hence the the Hissie Fit aspect. So yeah, I think it changed the workflow.

And it got us out of just like some of those log jams. So I think there's songs that, it depends on the song. There's songs like without R.L., yeah, maybe it's down 10% different. And then there's songs, we're like, no, it's on dramatically different. And that's why I think of him as coming in at the middle. What happened after the album's finished? I wasn't received for the most part.

Possibly, yeah, like it was, there was some like, I remember some very like meaningful reviews, which you know, on the one hand who cares about reviews. But it's better than the other way. Yeah, and also when reviews are important, it's like a funny thing. Like reviews, a musician shouldn't think reviews are important, but having an interesting dialogue around your music, of course that's important.

And having people who connect to it or have interesting things to say about it, that is important. I was taking it on the road. Taking it on the road was like pretty good. You know, like I said, there was still this unsettled feeling. And then there was also that funny thing too, which I look back now as being realizing my nervous system was probably addicted to the upward trend of the last couple of years.

Hence, something as ridiculous as being like, wait, why didn't we just talk on the Portland Show and sell out? That must be a bad sign. And now I could look at it and say, good sign, bad sign, people who cares. But I remember at that time kind of feeling like, and I think it's also just the truth, doing something for the third time. Sometimes third times the charm. Sometimes third time is, I feel like, well, we've really done this haven't we?

So I remember some of the shows, like it's very easy coming from New York to remember every album New York show very vividly. First album would so many different shows be playing Bowery Baldwin for the first time. The peak of the second album was doing Three Nights at Radio City. And that felt like, wow, you know, big, I can't imagine. I think the nature of Radio City is, yeah. It feels monumental. Yeah, it felt very special and to be there three nights, yeah, like a mini residency.

Like, wow, all right, back in the dressing room, like, wow, we're putting on a show. That felt very exciting. And I think even probably the energy of like our friends and family being a little bit like, okay, wow, this was like, look at all these people. And when I remember modern vampires, I remember playing at the Barclay Center where the Nets play in Brooklyn, which I live really close to there at the time. It should have felt like a homecoming.

If I just remember feeling like, oh, maybe we don't belong in arenas. And maybe we're not going to as good as this album is and as meaningful as it feels to me. Maybe something, some kind of magic is gone or something. So I remember having mixed feelings in that time, which looking back, it's like the whole album is about mixed feelings. So, you know, who knows? Had you done many renegades before Barclays? No, that might have been our only one. And remember, it was a cool bill.

And I remember it was a pretty new venue at the time. And it's nice. It's not a dump. So there was something kind of exciting about it, but just maybe just the vibe was off. Maybe the... I did. It's also not fair to compare a new building to Radio City. Radio City is such an iconic once in a lifetime experience. Absolutely. Even though Barclays was a new arena, it's an arena like an arena.

Yeah, totally. And I think sometimes you remember these moments and these feeling like walking off stage and being like, I don't know, we were not a juice or something. It's the magic gone, am I over this? And I guess it's the same way that I figured there's some quote somebody said once that I like where it's like, with all due respect to the mysteries of the universe and the soul, sometimes you feel a certain way just because you're hungry.

And it's true. Sometimes you really think about some moment where I felt like the light had gone out of my life, where I felt like, what's the point of all this? Who knows? Maybe you were hungry. Or you ate the wrong thing. And I think that's the kind of true too, with all due respect to the artistic temperament and the big feelings that we have about, why am I doing this and do I feel connected to my work? Maybe sometimes you just played the wrong venue on the wrong night.

But the feeling's real, you know? Yeah. And is it at the end of that album cycle that Rostem decides to leave the group? Yeah, more or less. Was it brewing for a long time?

Well, I don't want to speak for him, but I would say so because even in the early days of the band, I remember very early days him saying something to everybody else in the band, I don't remember the conversation, I don't remember the tone, but I remember it was something long lines of like, you know, I see this as one of many projects that I'm involved in,

which is not a weird thing for a producer to say. And I don't know, like I said, I've always had a feeling of vampire, we can be just about anything. All I want to do is pick the songs. So I remember I wasn't freaked out by that. It just didn't seem like one of those bands where the lineup needed to be the exact same forever.

So I wasn't, when I think back to this period and I talk, I remember it feeling unsettled or wondering if something had come to an end, whatever internal things were going on with the band, that's also just my own personal relationship to music. So in some ways that also felt like great timing.

The first three albums are such a complete thought that I knew, as soon as the third album was received before Rostem left, I already had the sense I was like, well, we've gone from A Punk to Step, that's something. We've gone from a kind of collegiate indie party-ish music to an album that the critical, fan, industrial complex seems to think is serious work. Okay, that's really something. In some ways you could even say, well, that's enough to do that transition.

So as soon as that album came out, I already had this feeling of like a thought had been completed, a moment had ended, and looking back and sometimes hearing or reading music writers talk about that, even just that year felt like the end of one thing in the beginning of something else.

So to already have those feelings, to already having made an album that in large part is about wrestling with meaning, I mean, now I look at it as being somewhat naive, but you know, the way that you wrestle with meaning when you're in your late 20s and think like, okay, what is the rest of my life going to look like? What do I believe in? What is my relationship to my word, to the universe, whatever? So in that sense, it felt like kind of a good time for a change and for a break.

Yeah. Having a lineup change and a reason to pause, I don't know, I look back at it so necessarily and ultimately positive. Music Music