We were at a point for a while where more people were speaking out against something than speaking against something, and now we don’t even bother to have either stance.
I think people just want to hate. People on Brooklyn Vegan just want to hate.
Although Katt Williams says, if you have 6 haters, you need 8 haters by the weekend.
I hate to call you out on it, but that is such a labelistic way of looking at it.
That’s crazy that they have an inventory of their justifications.
I’ve been struggling with it because people just talk about this thing. They talk about hype, a buzz band, the ascension, the inevitable backlash. And the people that are those things read into it, and they assume that role because that’s the way they are supposed to be.
The same way people used to show that they got there first on the band, now they want to be the first to dislike it also.
Yeah, let’s dissect Pitchfork for a second. Pitchfork gets behind bands that they want to say they broke. Which is why it was amazing that they gave us such a good review, I mean I knew that they liked it, but I just thought that they would not give it a good review because we’ve already been getting a lot of publicity.
I also think that, having seen the way the media has gone in the past 10 years, there’s such a huge difference now that the influence is spread so low. You used to have four places where you would get art coverage, Rolling Stone, Spin, AP and Magnet. And that’s it. And now it’s so dispersed that the whole dynamic is so creative.
Why did Green Day get four out of five stars on Rolling Stone? They bought it, obviously.
They don’t even need to buy it. Rolling Stone needs Green Day and it needs the Jonas Bros. way more than those bands need Rolling Stone.
I just feel like the essence of this band is like the little kids in the room that everybody is looking at as the little kids in the room doing something that’s hip. And the kids need to show that they are not just doing something that’s hip, they’re trying to make something that is going to stand on it’s own. Very difficult. People are just saying “Hot Chip and MGMT.” Okay, well, if you need to describe us to someone, that’s fine, but are you fucking serious. You’re a music journalist and “Hot chip meets MGMT.”?!?!
You don’t even sound like any of those bands.
No fucking kidding. “Eyes as Candles” is Fleetwood Mac. “Little Secrets” is Pretty Young Thing. There are elements that recall other bands. The best artists are thieves and we stole from the right people. And the best people are not Hot Chip and MGMT. I could moan and bitch, but whatever people need to do to talk about us is fine. It’s tough.
How was it for you guys making [Manners]?
We made the record at Gigantic studios in New York. It was a very emotional period for me personally. The entire record was turbulent; it was a taxing, draining period. We were there working 12 to 14 hours a day in a horribly hectic city. We were living in the lower east side and I’d go in with no material written. So when I write it’s a building process and I essentially drive myself insane to get it finished. I knew that I would finish it, but it would have to be a very painful experience. We were broke, we couldn’t pay for food. We had to have the label front us money. I almost got arrested because I couldn’t pay for a cab to La Guardia. The producer had to come and bail me out. There’s a really interesting article that was written on it. It put into words what I don’t think we could ever have put into words. We were so emotionally immature and we were thrown into a situation where you really need to have your shit together to come out golden. We were not ready. But we did it. I don’t know how we did it. It was so hard. I think we did it the right way. It had to be fucked up.
Did that imprint itself on the record?
Absolutely. The entire record is about inner turmoil. There are so many bad reviews talking about love songs. No one really understands the lyrical content, which is upsetting for me. It’s all about essentially masking everything, hiding everything, blaming other people for things that are essentially your fault. It’s always about something related to problems that you’d never want to admit to having. I have some issues, a lot of people have issues. There was a point where [producer Chris] Zane locked the door, took all our computers, took all our cell phones, put them in another room and said “I’m gonna fucking kill you guys. You need to sit yourselves down and tell me what’s going on.” And of course we could barely explain ourselves, it was just Nate and I sitting there, drained and out of our minds, and eating McDonalds every day and drinking beer. It was awful, but I think the record totally represents that emotional image [of] hurting. The entire record is about that. It’s about taking a pretty, pop, jubilant, ecstatic, overwhelming sound which just sugarcoats the pain. That’s the whole point of the record. At the end of the day I would go out and have a fun time, but I would come home and inside, I would want to quit.
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