When it comes to We Are Scientists, almost everyone falls into one of two camps: you’ve either never heard of them, or they’re one of your all-time favorite bands. When lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Keith Murray met bassist and vocalist Chris Cain at Pomona College in 1997, I don’t think they knew they’d release six successful studio albums and a handful of fun EPs over the following 20 years. But they did. And they stole hearts along the way.
With a unique mix of catchy as hell garage-band sounds and an unparalleled sense of humor and onstage antics, Keith and Chris have amassed a following of fans who feel they’ve discovered the secret sauce that makes We Are Scientists so delectable. And now, the Brooklyn-based duo has released their newest effort Megaplex, immediately challenging that traditional sound with a more experimental approach. Lucky for them, the experiments paid off because it just might be their best record in over a decade.
Always wanting to stay fresh, Keith Murray crafted most of the record’s songs through a NYC-based songwriting collective that challenged each artist to write as many complete songs as they could in only eight hours. Chris Cain finally took charge on writing his own track and handled the vocals, too. Both of them also embraced assembling raw rock ‘n’ roll sounds through artificial means with synths and computers. Each experiment proved We Are Scientists’ ability to transform rich melodies and catchy guitar hooks into bonafide power pop hits.
On July 11th and 12th – just before the start of a two-day residency at Los Angeles’ Moroccan Lounge – Keith and Chris sat down with us to talk about the new record, how they approach live performances, and reveal the type of comedy that inspires them as naturally funny people. Like any great We Are Scientists’ show, the interview went off the rails a few times – for which we are eternally grateful.
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat today. I’m actually really excited – it’s so serendipitous that we’re having this talk here because the first time I saw We Are Scientists live was at the Wiltern in 2006 …
Keith: …with the Arctic Monkeys.
Yes! Arctic Monkeys.
Keith: That reminds me. I need to text Alex [Turner]. I’m going to start that text right now. I won’t write it right now, but I just need to do it.
Same, I do that all the time.
Keith: I keep forgetting. Okay go.
So, I’m wondering how did that first tour compare to the 10-year anniversary shows for With Love and Squalor last year.
Keith: I was going to say that support shows are never as good as road shows, but that tour was a lot of fun. We were in the UK with Arctic Monkeys before that, so we were really good friends with them. That was an unusually fun support slot. We kind of felt like we were a big gang. I’m not sure how [it was different]. We were a bit more scrappier. I feel like if I had to watch one of our shows then or now, I would rather watch one of our shows today.
So you feel like the more recent shows were a bit tighter.
Keith: We also just like used to break equipment all the time. And not like in a Pete Townsend way.
Not very rock ‘n’ roll.
Keith: Yeah yeah. Our shit would just break a lot. And part of it was, we’d rough house a lot. We weren’t trying to deliberately break our shit, but we would fall down on our guitars and break shit. So we fall down less than we used to.
I wanted to say that your new album Megaplex is honestly one of my favorite records of the year and I think it’s some of the best work you guys have ever done. I’m wondering: production-wise, did you guys approach it differently than you had in the past?
Keith: Production-wise, we did a lot more pre-production. Chris and I did leave those sessions and bring a lot of work home, which we normally don’t do. We normally go into the studio with a lot of ideas. We’ll make demos in our homes and stuff, but I think those times I feel we were much closer to the finished ideas of the songs before we started. And like I said, we took the studio versions home and messed around with them a lot. We were definitely a lot more hands-on production-wise this time. We were just a lot more thoughtful with our production this time around.
That’s really interesting. In terms of the songwriting, I feel like the anatomy of a We Are Scientists song is pretty much three components: namely, a super infectious hook, a catchy but less than obvious melody, and a beautiful harmony. Which one of those comes first in the process? Do you find yourself attaching yourself to a melody first, or is it something else?
Keith: Our songs definitely generally start with the hook. Sitting around and noodling like, Oh that’s an interesting thing. I’ll usually send Chris 40 demo songs and we usually like to go with the songs he responds to quickly, but often — by the time we’re recording, we often come across one we weren’t liking very much. But I do think we gravitate to songs that are most immediate. I think we feel most confident when we feel that – I immediately like that song so hopefully others will.
Is there a song on Megaplex that maybe you guys didn’t attach to immediately, but you came around to?
Keith: I think “KIT” which was initially a very different version. We sort of included it in the batch of songs, [but] we originally thought that half of Megaplex was originally going to be all acoustic bass guitars. I think it’s the only one that survived that thought process. There’s a b-side that made it. Oh, and “Properties of Perception” was earlier and much more acoustic. We got over that idea very quickly.
Very cool. That kind brings me to another point. I heard you on a podcast recently that you did with my really good friend Ken Grand-Pierre. And you mentioned something I thought was very interesting. You said you wanted to “get away from the idea of playing songs that immediately translated live.” I’m curious where that direction came from and do you feel you accomplished it on Megaplex?
Keith: Part of it is– we have, six? Yeah, six albums of songs to choose from and we definitely have a good 10 or so songs that we have to play at every show or people might be annoyed that we withheld a specific song or two. So, it kind of seems like we’d be pointlessly pursuing easily performed songs because we’re probably never going to play 5 of the songs that show up on Megaplex. So it just seems like that would be an ideal that’s pointless for us to pursue. So if a song is only ever going to exist in recorded form, it might as well exist as a song in it’s best version.
Gotcha. I’m curious: one of my favorite songs on the last record Helter Seltzer was “Don’t Blow It”…
Keith: That was actually on TV en Francais.
Oh God, it was on TV en Francais, yes, you’re right, right. But you guys never really played that live.
Keith: It’s pretty hard. It’s hard to do it justice. It sounds pretty straightforward, but the arrangement is pretty nuanced, and our general tendency is [that] when we take songs live, we make a more brutalist version of them. Or make them really high energy or generally louder. And “Don’t Blow It” generally doesn’t translate very well to that. So it always kind feels weirdly anemic when three guys do it live. It’s not as good of a version live.
And frankly, we’re just not that interested [in playing it]. (laughs) I really like it, but I’m never like, I want to play “Don’t Blow It,” but we simply can’t crack it. It’s more like, this one simply isn’t as fun to play live. And I think we played every other song live from TV en Francis. We don’t need to spend our time figuring out “Don’t Blow It.” Even though – actually, that does seem to be a song that people like a lot so maybe we should give it another go.
Yeah, maybe at another 10-year anniversary show. My favorite song on Megaplex that I hope you guys do play live though I’m now nervous because it seems complicated, but I love “You Failed.” What was the approach to that song? Where did it come from? I love everything about it.
Keith: That song started out as a keyboard, but not just a keyboard version or synthy. But I’ll let Chris tell you about it.
*Chris Cain enters the room*
Tell me about “You Failed,” my favorite song on Megaplex.
Chris: Uh, it’s very synth heavy. I like how I’m describing it as if you haven’t heard it. What do you want to know about it? It’s the first song I started that ended up on a We Are Scientists album.
Well honestly, it’s my favorite song.
Chris: I think [I’m] why.
That is why. I was like, Chris is all over this one. It’s just really fresh and futuristic, and sounds very much like We Are Scientists, but also sounds a bit like MGMT and other synth bands. I really like that. What was the direction? Where did that come from?
Chris: I think that came from Keith and I messing around a lot more with software and synthesizers over the last two or three years. And I think that one we felt more comfortable putting it in that extreme direction. Because it didn’t start with that, you know, “Keith Murphy Beginning.” It already felt weird as a We Are Scientists song. And I think we felt a little more comfortable letting it go off the reservation…to use what’s a dated term, I guess. We shouldn’t really say that anymore.
We can edit that out.
Chris: (laughs)
Keith: You mean, to go “No Reservations.”
Chris: Yes, yes, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations.
Another reference that maybe we shouldn’t…
Keith: Yeah, too soon. It’s raw.
Chris: Too soon, yeah. God, it’s hard to navigate.
Keith: But you are right, we’re not playing [“You Failed”].
Yeah, I figured. (laughs)
Chris: Cause even with songs like “One In, One Out” – live it becomes much more of a rock song than it is on the record. “You Failed” would require so much to be a rock song that it would essentially require an overhaul – it wouldn’t be that song anymore. But we’re dipping our toes with our live show. With every tour, we’ll get farther and farther into that world.
Keith: As long as we don’t have to bring a synth.
Chris: Yes, that’s what we’d like to avoid.
Keith: That’s the threshold. We’ll dip our toes in synths, but we’re not bringing one.
Well, just get a pedal. No one will tell the difference.
Chris: If we can — well we talked about it — Keith and I both have cool little synthesizers that we use called Controllers that we use with our laptops. We were both thinking we could do that a little bit live, but then people we know who’ve been in way more bands and who are way smarter about this thing cautioned us that that was a psychotic idea that would inevitably destroy our show and would be a failure on stage. If we ever figure out a portable or easy way to incorporate something like that…but for now, we’ve been told we’d need a keyboard player and all that.
Keith: Nope! We’re not getting a keyboard player.
Fair. Interesting that we’re talking about the live show because, for people who haven’t seen you live, they wouldn’t know that you guys’ show kind of doubles as, what I call “Musical Improv Theatre.” You’ve basically perfected in-between song banter where it’s effectively the whole show.
Chris: We’ve taken [banter] to the greatest place it’s been and maybe can go.
Keith: If there’s a greater place it can go, we’ll find it. Mankind can’t conceive of it.
Chris: No, not yet. It will be up to us, stumbling forth in the dark to lead mankind.
Keith: We’ll plunge into the Stargate of onstage banter.
That’s very true.
Keith: We’ll probably bring something back that we didn’t intend.
Chris: There’s a certain hubris involved in exploration even we are susceptible to.
Well, you guys might’ve already done it and traveled through time, but you wouldn’t know.
Chris: That is conceivable. Christopher Nolan pitched that idea to us at a show about a year ago. He said he thought there’s no way that people who had not yet left earth could’ve come up with this level of stage banter.
Keith: And he cautioned us. He says he suspects that other versions of us are trying to kill us right now.
Chris: We laughed him off and got him wasted. Calmed him down a bit.
That’s a bummer. Leonardo DiCaprio could’ve played one of you in a movie.
Keith: We have a “No DiCaprio”–
Chris: Yes, a “No DiCaprio” clause in all of our film options, of which there are a number we have licensed out. Yeah, there’s a “No DiCaprio” clause. There’s actually a lot of actors on the no-no list, that’s kind of what’s slowing things down.
Keith: Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas – those guys.
Chris: Yeah, anyone who’s come in contact with Leonardo DiCaprio – whether that’s been in a film with him, or has been in a photograph even – they can’t play either of us.
Good to know.
Chris: That narrows it down a lot.
That leads to a very related question actually. I know that you guys love the cinematic treasure that is BASEketball. Greatest movie of all time.
Keith: Yes, it is.
I’m curious what other comedies you guys really love, or comedians you like. Or just general funny people that you really love.
Chris: Great question. We really love Norm Macdonald. Him as the update host on SNL. Neil Hamburger is a favorite.
Keith: Oh, we should try to get Neil Hamburger to come tonight.
Chris: We should. Let’s tweet him. Tell him his name’s on the list for a $5 discount at the door.
Keith: (laughs)
Chris: I’m not sure it’s a guilty pleasure, but we really like Adam Sandler [even though] we know a lot of his work is very shitty. But his good stuff.
Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison…
Chris: [Don’t Mess With The] Zohan. I mean, come on. But even in those movies there’s long stretches of terrible stuff. Who else? We love Ricky Gervais for sure. Who else is good? I mean Tina Fey is one of the best things to happen to humor or entertainment.
Have you read her book?
Chris: Yeah, Bossypants.
The audiobook is even better.
Chris: We haven’t listened to that but she’s amazing. The Kimmy Schmidt show is incredible. Every actor on it is phenomenal. Ellie Kemper is a treasure. A treasure that must be taken care of. Our evil doppelgangers cannot be allowed to kill her. That’s what I’m saying.
Hopefully she’s never been in a photograph with Leonardo Dicaprio, otherwise…
Chris: I don’t think she has. She could still play one of us in a movie. It’s gonna be like her and Morgan Freeman.
Keith: Eh. I don’t know if he’s allowed in our productions.
That’s another thing we can edit out.
Keith: He has his own disqualifications.
Chris: Yeah, but I don’t think he violated the DiCaprio clause.
Keith: That’s true. So we might need to allow him in. We really painted ourselves into a corner.
Chris: There’s no one else.
So is there anything coming up on the horizon for the band that you guys are really excited about?
Chris: No.
Keith: Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Chris: Ah yes, I forgot about our extracurriculars. Our burgeoning extracurriculars.
Keith: We’re excited about that.
Chris: We’re really excited about making more music. Like writing new stuff and making new stuff. It’s kind of like always a question how much we dare burden our audience – how frequently we burden them with new things. But it does seem like people are becoming accustomed to a higher frequency of releases. And even to some degree a .rar quality. I think that aesthetic has firmly taken hold in hip hop. So I’d love to see that be more of a thing in rock, but I feel like there are a lot of younger bands who are doing that too. The recordings are not as polished and the people aren’t having a problem with it. We would love to crank out new recordings instantly. It would sound like shit, but…
Well, I think the We Are Scientists sound lends to that …
Keith: (deadpan) Yeah, lends to a shitty sound.
No no no, I mean it in a garage band kind of scrappy way!
Chris: (laughs) I agree, I don’t think our stuff needs to be super polished. I mean, our live shows are a great example of that. You could say we’ve not done the homework to make our live show polished, but I think we also don’t need it to be polished. It’s fun.
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This interview has been edited for clarity. We Are Scientists tour dates can be found here and Megaplex can be purchased here.
