We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they're not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn't want to be the millionth person to ask "Are you really scientists?", so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several conflicting accounts of the band's various areas of scientific expertise, I finally found the answer. A piece from the college magazine at Pomona, the California school where the band originally formed, revealed that guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain weren't actually science majors of any sort. Well played, guys.
Needless to say, We Are Scientists like to keep people guessing. They first broke out in the UK with 2005's formidable collection of indie-pop, With Love and Squalor.The 2008 follow-up, a less upbeat but more lyrically complex record called Brain Thrust Mastery, also climbed the British charts. A predictable band would stick with a major label and put out another album following the same formula. This is no predictable band.
We Are Scientists have left their label and decided to strike out on their own for their third full-length release, Barbara. They've changed drummers, as well, recording with ex-Razorlight member Andy Burrows and touring with Australian Danny Allen. What happens next is anyone's guess, but the catchy lead single, Rules Don't Stop, suggests that the new album will prove at least as strong as the previous two.
Chris Cain, W.A.S's notoriously witty bassist, answered some questions for SuicideGirls about the new album, the band's future plans, and his awesome mustache.
Jay Hathaway: Was SXSW your first live performance with Andy on drums? How did he do? Also, what's his background as a scientist?
Christopher Cain: SXSW was definitely not Andy's first live performance with us, for two reasons, and I don't know which is more important: (1) He played three shows in the US with us last summer, and a couple of shows in the UK in February; (2) He didn't play with us at SXSW. I know, I know: your head is spinning right now. Rightly so!
Here's the back story: Andy signed on to drum with us on the new record roughly a year ago. At the time, he was also in the beginning stages of planning a solo record. Both of these things our third album and his solo effort were nebulous, theoretical entities at the time. But like two cars that were built at the same time in factories in different countries, but that later end up going opposite directions on the same chunk of highway, and crash right into each other our record and his record are crashing right into each other.
As a result, Andy will often be unavailable for live dates. SXSW was one of many examples of his unavailability. Thankfully, we are rich beyond most bands' means, in terms of drummers: we have two. The other guy is Danny Allen, an Australian who kind of looks like Lemmy from Motorhead, kind of looks like a Beatle, and kind of looks like Hugh Jackman.
As far as I know, neither Andy nor Danny has any background in the sciences, but it doesn't really matter, since Keith and I more than make up for it with our weirdly extensive, discipline-spanning backgrounds in the sciences.
JH: After doing "Steve Wants His Money" for MTV in the UK, and now getting a British drummer, are you perhaps thinking about moving the band to London in the future?
CC: We will never move to London we love American health care too damn much to ever leave it.
JH: You've said you're called We Are Scientists because you are scientists, and that Brain Thrust Mastery didn't really mean anything, so why Barbara? Is there a story behind it, or did you just like the name?
CC: We just liked the name. We've retrofitted a whole song & dance about how Barbara is from the Latin word meaning "foreign woman", that it shares roots with "barbarian", that it's an insinuation about our occasional difficulty relating to/living peacefully with women, etc, etc. What a load of nonsense, though! Things couldn't be more frictionless between the sexes, as far as we can can tell!
JH: Tell me a bit about the new songs. I know you've said they sound more stripped down and more like songs on Love and Squalor could you elaborate on that a bit, or comment on the direction you took with the lyrics?
CC: Lyrically I think they occupy the same fraught territory the last two albums did (amorous/anxious, neurotic/flirtatious, lustful/considerate...). In terms of the songwriting, it's a refinement of past stuff it's better without being a big left turn. The arrangements are definitely closer to With Love & Squalor, in that they're written for three instruments (drums, bass, guitar), but there's a clear progression in songwriting from WL&S to Brain Thrust Mastery through to Barbara.
JH: I've read about how you used the names of classic video games as working titles on the previous album. Did you guys do anything like that for Barbara?
CC: For a while, before the songs had titles, we'd refer to them by their fairly distinctive drum openings. So we might say, during rehearsal, "Wanna play tacka tacka tacka?" Or, "What do you think about that part where I drop out in dooka-dook, dooka-dook, dooka-digga-dooka?" We got pretty attached to that system, but our management insisted that we use more traditional nomenclature for the release.
JH: Are any of you serious gamers? Video games? Tabletop? If so, what are you playing now?
CC: Both of us can easily spend a few hours on the couch with some beers and a friend or two and the old blob-with-buttons in hand. We're not very thorough about titles, though we pick up a grand total of two or three games a year. "Recent" purchases have included Call of Duty: World at War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, or "T-Clan" as we refer to it to save time.
JH: You've left your label what were the circumstances there, and who's putting out the new record?
CC: We got into a position with EMI in which we had the choice of whether to renew our contract with them (even though technically it was valid for several more records), and we decided to bail, largely because we're control freaks, and we thought it would be fun to put it out ourselves. Boy were we wrong! It's like having a real job, and less job security, and less overall ability to get your music out to people. On the plus side, we make all the decisions, which is something that pricks like us think they want.
Actually, it's going pretty well. We formed a label called Masterswan Recordings which may or may not, at some future time, put out something other than W.A.S. records and we've negotiated distribution through a couple of different partners in different territories. The long and short of it is that Barbara will come out June 14/15 worldwide (I write confidently; if you could hear me say it, you'd probably detect a slight quaver) and it's going to be an incredible amount of work even just to avoid total calamity, but if the next year goes okay then we'll be about the smuggest bastards in all of New York City, which would be significant.
JH: The Rules Don't Stop video has a pretty heavy Hall and Oates influence (awesome 'stache, by the way!), and there seems to be a real Hall and Oates revival happening this year. Any thoughts on everyone's sudden interest in Hall and Oates? Why now, and what's so awesome about them?
CC: This will sound a little arrogant, but I'm confident people are really into Hall & Oates lately because our last record, Brain Thrust Mastery, is heavily H&O-influenced (see closing track That's What Counts) and was a gigantic tastemaker record, even if it's sales were quite diminutive indeed. (Hey, Picasso only sold one copy of Guernica, but it changed everything. Right? Right, you guys?!?!?!)
JH: I actually considered trying to do an entire interview about facial hair, but I will limit it to this one question: if With Love and Squalor were a style of facial hair, what kind of beard or 'stache would it be? (I am going to assume that Barbara would be your current mustache, but feel free to correct me on that.)
CC: Well, With Love & Squalor featured a mustache, too, on my face, so I'm not sure presence or absence of mustache is a great way to differentiate between W.A.S. records. Although in those younger days, my mustache was significantly wispier and patchier, whereas today it is full and briery, so maybe the mustache will ultimately prove a useful analog for the music. As the mustache develops, reaching new levels of thickness and luster, thus shall the songs do (maybe in direct response).
JH: I also liked the cheeky OK GO reference in the description of the new video on YouTube. What do you think of OK GO? Video artists who happen to be a band, or a band who are also video artists?
CC: I like 'em. I think they're both video artists and a band, not either/or. As OKGO have made clear, the two are complementary, not contradictory.
JH: What are you reading these days?
CC: Sam Lipsyte's new one, The Ask, which is his best yet and which I recommend to lovers of profane, funny contemporary literature with a humanist overtone. I paused in my reading of Lipsyte for about two hours this weekend to barrel through Robert Crais's latest L.A. detective trifle, The First Rule, which is far from his best (his best is his first, The Monkey's Raincoat, and his worst has been his most recent since book 2, which was like ten books ago yet I can't break my habit).
During our recent SXSW trip, which included a handful of shows on the way back to NYC, I finally employed Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood, an impeccably reliable guide to delicious, usually cheap, food all over the U.S., with a focus on experiencing local specialities and a mandate of avoiding national chains. The guys from (now defunct) The Oxford Collapse had recommended this amoral bible for years, and I have to say they were very much on point.
JH: If We Are Scientists were going to officially endorse a product, what would it be?
Hollywood movies. Also Blenheim's Spicy Ginger Ale, Sauza "Hornitos" Tequila, Nudie Jeans, the Apple iPhone, mother nature's house cats, Shipley & Halmos clothing, and the detective novels of Lee Child these brands, like W.A.S. itself, connote attainable excellence.
JH: If you could write and record a new soundtrack for any film, which one would you pick?
Watching Avatar, I couldn't help thinking I'd have done a lot better with the score. Basically I'd have gotten a guy to wail on the didgeridoo the whole time it would've brought a connection to primitivism that was missing, and it would've upped the intensity a lot, as didge' scores always do (see Jaws, Heat, etc.).
Barabra from We Are Scientists will be available in June. Until then visit their website wearescientists.com for more information about the band.
Needless to say, We Are Scientists like to keep people guessing. They first broke out in the UK with 2005's formidable collection of indie-pop, With Love and Squalor.The 2008 follow-up, a less upbeat but more lyrically complex record called Brain Thrust Mastery, also climbed the British charts. A predictable band would stick with a major label and put out another album following the same formula. This is no predictable band.
We Are Scientists have left their label and decided to strike out on their own for their third full-length release, Barbara. They've changed drummers, as well, recording with ex-Razorlight member Andy Burrows and touring with Australian Danny Allen. What happens next is anyone's guess, but the catchy lead single, Rules Don't Stop, suggests that the new album will prove at least as strong as the previous two.
Chris Cain, W.A.S's notoriously witty bassist, answered some questions for SuicideGirls about the new album, the band's future plans, and his awesome mustache.
Jay Hathaway: Was SXSW your first live performance with Andy on drums? How did he do? Also, what's his background as a scientist?
Christopher Cain: SXSW was definitely not Andy's first live performance with us, for two reasons, and I don't know which is more important: (1) He played three shows in the US with us last summer, and a couple of shows in the UK in February; (2) He didn't play with us at SXSW. I know, I know: your head is spinning right now. Rightly so!
Here's the back story: Andy signed on to drum with us on the new record roughly a year ago. At the time, he was also in the beginning stages of planning a solo record. Both of these things our third album and his solo effort were nebulous, theoretical entities at the time. But like two cars that were built at the same time in factories in different countries, but that later end up going opposite directions on the same chunk of highway, and crash right into each other our record and his record are crashing right into each other.
As a result, Andy will often be unavailable for live dates. SXSW was one of many examples of his unavailability. Thankfully, we are rich beyond most bands' means, in terms of drummers: we have two. The other guy is Danny Allen, an Australian who kind of looks like Lemmy from Motorhead, kind of looks like a Beatle, and kind of looks like Hugh Jackman.
As far as I know, neither Andy nor Danny has any background in the sciences, but it doesn't really matter, since Keith and I more than make up for it with our weirdly extensive, discipline-spanning backgrounds in the sciences.
JH: After doing "Steve Wants His Money" for MTV in the UK, and now getting a British drummer, are you perhaps thinking about moving the band to London in the future?
CC: We will never move to London we love American health care too damn much to ever leave it.
JH: You've said you're called We Are Scientists because you are scientists, and that Brain Thrust Mastery didn't really mean anything, so why Barbara? Is there a story behind it, or did you just like the name?
CC: We just liked the name. We've retrofitted a whole song & dance about how Barbara is from the Latin word meaning "foreign woman", that it shares roots with "barbarian", that it's an insinuation about our occasional difficulty relating to/living peacefully with women, etc, etc. What a load of nonsense, though! Things couldn't be more frictionless between the sexes, as far as we can can tell!
JH: Tell me a bit about the new songs. I know you've said they sound more stripped down and more like songs on Love and Squalor could you elaborate on that a bit, or comment on the direction you took with the lyrics?
CC: Lyrically I think they occupy the same fraught territory the last two albums did (amorous/anxious, neurotic/flirtatious, lustful/considerate...). In terms of the songwriting, it's a refinement of past stuff it's better without being a big left turn. The arrangements are definitely closer to With Love & Squalor, in that they're written for three instruments (drums, bass, guitar), but there's a clear progression in songwriting from WL&S to Brain Thrust Mastery through to Barbara.
JH: I've read about how you used the names of classic video games as working titles on the previous album. Did you guys do anything like that for Barbara?
CC: For a while, before the songs had titles, we'd refer to them by their fairly distinctive drum openings. So we might say, during rehearsal, "Wanna play tacka tacka tacka?" Or, "What do you think about that part where I drop out in dooka-dook, dooka-dook, dooka-digga-dooka?" We got pretty attached to that system, but our management insisted that we use more traditional nomenclature for the release.
JH: Are any of you serious gamers? Video games? Tabletop? If so, what are you playing now?
CC: Both of us can easily spend a few hours on the couch with some beers and a friend or two and the old blob-with-buttons in hand. We're not very thorough about titles, though we pick up a grand total of two or three games a year. "Recent" purchases have included Call of Duty: World at War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, or "T-Clan" as we refer to it to save time.
JH: You've left your label what were the circumstances there, and who's putting out the new record?
CC: We got into a position with EMI in which we had the choice of whether to renew our contract with them (even though technically it was valid for several more records), and we decided to bail, largely because we're control freaks, and we thought it would be fun to put it out ourselves. Boy were we wrong! It's like having a real job, and less job security, and less overall ability to get your music out to people. On the plus side, we make all the decisions, which is something that pricks like us think they want.
Actually, it's going pretty well. We formed a label called Masterswan Recordings which may or may not, at some future time, put out something other than W.A.S. records and we've negotiated distribution through a couple of different partners in different territories. The long and short of it is that Barbara will come out June 14/15 worldwide (I write confidently; if you could hear me say it, you'd probably detect a slight quaver) and it's going to be an incredible amount of work even just to avoid total calamity, but if the next year goes okay then we'll be about the smuggest bastards in all of New York City, which would be significant.
JH: The Rules Don't Stop video has a pretty heavy Hall and Oates influence (awesome 'stache, by the way!), and there seems to be a real Hall and Oates revival happening this year. Any thoughts on everyone's sudden interest in Hall and Oates? Why now, and what's so awesome about them?
CC: This will sound a little arrogant, but I'm confident people are really into Hall & Oates lately because our last record, Brain Thrust Mastery, is heavily H&O-influenced (see closing track That's What Counts) and was a gigantic tastemaker record, even if it's sales were quite diminutive indeed. (Hey, Picasso only sold one copy of Guernica, but it changed everything. Right? Right, you guys?!?!?!)
JH: I actually considered trying to do an entire interview about facial hair, but I will limit it to this one question: if With Love and Squalor were a style of facial hair, what kind of beard or 'stache would it be? (I am going to assume that Barbara would be your current mustache, but feel free to correct me on that.)
CC: Well, With Love & Squalor featured a mustache, too, on my face, so I'm not sure presence or absence of mustache is a great way to differentiate between W.A.S. records. Although in those younger days, my mustache was significantly wispier and patchier, whereas today it is full and briery, so maybe the mustache will ultimately prove a useful analog for the music. As the mustache develops, reaching new levels of thickness and luster, thus shall the songs do (maybe in direct response).
JH: I also liked the cheeky OK GO reference in the description of the new video on YouTube. What do you think of OK GO? Video artists who happen to be a band, or a band who are also video artists?
CC: I like 'em. I think they're both video artists and a band, not either/or. As OKGO have made clear, the two are complementary, not contradictory.
JH: What are you reading these days?
CC: Sam Lipsyte's new one, The Ask, which is his best yet and which I recommend to lovers of profane, funny contemporary literature with a humanist overtone. I paused in my reading of Lipsyte for about two hours this weekend to barrel through Robert Crais's latest L.A. detective trifle, The First Rule, which is far from his best (his best is his first, The Monkey's Raincoat, and his worst has been his most recent since book 2, which was like ten books ago yet I can't break my habit).
During our recent SXSW trip, which included a handful of shows on the way back to NYC, I finally employed Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood, an impeccably reliable guide to delicious, usually cheap, food all over the U.S., with a focus on experiencing local specialities and a mandate of avoiding national chains. The guys from (now defunct) The Oxford Collapse had recommended this amoral bible for years, and I have to say they were very much on point.
JH: If We Are Scientists were going to officially endorse a product, what would it be?
Hollywood movies. Also Blenheim's Spicy Ginger Ale, Sauza "Hornitos" Tequila, Nudie Jeans, the Apple iPhone, mother nature's house cats, Shipley & Halmos clothing, and the detective novels of Lee Child these brands, like W.A.S. itself, connote attainable excellence.
JH: If you could write and record a new soundtrack for any film, which one would you pick?
Watching Avatar, I couldn't help thinking I'd have done a lot better with the score. Basically I'd have gotten a guy to wail on the didgeridoo the whole time it would've brought a connection to primitivism that was missing, and it would've upped the intensity a lot, as didge' scores always do (see Jaws, Heat, etc.).
Barabra from We Are Scientists will be available in June. Until then visit their website wearescientists.com for more information about the band.