Interview - Vampire Weekend

Brooklyn based kids Vampire Weekend have been setting heart's and ears alight since they broke onto the US scene last year with their self-titled African-inflected take on pop. Now braving the European mainland for their first proper tour there - which finishes with the quartet touching down in Oz to play Splendour in the Grass in August (tix on sale this Thursday kids!) - we struggled with bad reception, dying phones and the autobahn, to bring you this chat with bass player Chris Baio.

Hey Chris. Where abouts are you?

Right now we're in Germany. We played in Cologne last night and we're playing in Paris tonight so we're just driving to Paris.

You're touring pretty constantly between now and when you're coming to Australia. How are you handling it so far?

I think you get into a rhythm with all the touring at this point. We're used to being in the car together definitely and you know, one thing is we're going to a bunch of new places with all this touring so that keeps it interesting. I know we're all psyched to be playing Australia.

Are you getting much time to check places out or is it just venue and van, venue and van?

It's way more venue and van because we have to drive (each) morning. So we get to a venue at like 4pm and we have two or three hours maybe to walk around the city and then do soundcheck. You never get to see as much of the city as you'd like. So that can be kind of frustrating but at least it's nice to be able to get to go to these places.

Are you getting a sense that when you are on stage that people are into it? People are soaking it up?

Yeah definitely. We just finished up about a two and a half week run in the UK and the audiences were definitely amazing every night. That was one of our best tours we've done. You can tell. People are dancing, they're singing along. The reception has been really good on this tour so far. I mean last night the crowd in Cologne was going crazy! We were getting a little worried. I was watching little girls getting crushed in the front.

You're turning into one of those nu-metal bands where everyone gets angry at the front and starts doing circle work.

Yeah definitely. I think we can cross-over into nu-metal territory.

You're playing almost every day before you make it to Australia...have any of you been here before?

No none of us have ever been. We're excited to play at the festival...but that's August in your winter. What's the weather like then?

It's not too bad because where you're playing is almost tropical.

Oh great!

Are you a bit surprised about how nuts everyone's gone for you over the last little while? I mean it's only been about a year since you were sending your demo around, and all of a sudden you're playing festivals like Glastonbury in the UK and touring constantly. Is it still making sense to you?

Well at least at this point I'm surprised at how well the album's done. You know we've sold way more than I ever would've expected. Which is an exciting thing. But at the same time we're doing this tour day by day, so it's not like an insane lifestyle. We're sitting in the van for 6 hours every day and then playing a show and it's one day at a time. Since it's incremental it doesn't feel insane. Like at this point it's kind of like a normal way of going about life for us.

But it must feel odd when you step out on stage at places like Coachella and Glastonbury. Do you find you have to adapt to do those things or does it comes fairly naturally?

I think it comes fairly naturally. I mean for me growing up all I ever wanted to do - and what my dream was - was to play music. And you know, now we've been doing that for a couple months and anything beyond - playing Glastonbury - is just a bonus.

With the success lately of bands like you and say, Born Ruffians and even Spoon with their last record - they're  more lighthearted than the 'heavier' sort've stuff that came recently with say, the Arcade Fire and TV on the Radio and that sort've thing. Do you wonder if people are looking to have a bit more 'fun' now?

I don't think we view our music as being a reaction against y'know, certain movements or trends that came before us. I definitely see some similarities - Born Ruffians are a band we really like and are going to play with us at the Central Park Summer Stage (in New York) - and we did consciously strive to avoid certain, y'know, drumbeats or guitar sounds that had been overdone when the band was starting. But as far as analysing it in terms of bigger trends I don't know if I really can. I don't know if I think about us in those terms really.

I suppose I didn't mean so much your perception as the popularity of those kind've bands at the moment.

I think that all those bands you listed definitely have an interest in making pop music and songs with strong hooks. Which is something that has been an interest of ours from the outset.

Have you started tinkering with new stuff at all yet?

Yeah definitely. We have sketches for a bunch of songs that we've been working on in soundcheck or whenever we get the chance to. And we have two more fully fleshed out songs that we've been playing live that will probably be on the next album. So that's sort've where we are now. I think we might start recording when we get little week breaks from touring and then I think we kind of wrap up all this touring in November. And then we'll sit down and make the next album.

(Pic: Tim Sorter)


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