YEASAYER
Interview by Patrick Albertson
Images by Asher Penn

On a temperate evening last June at Union Pool we were introduced early on to the widely hailed and critically embraced Brooklyn band, Yeasayer. The sounds that came off of the stage that night were not easy to stuff into a box and walk out with as there was no zip-tie label to put on the wrists of all that noise. The room that night was like a loaded, cocked pistol of anticipation and expectation, but when the band pulled the trigger, unleashing a tumult of comparisons, conjecture, I think’s and -isms, but all any one really knew was that the gun had gone off. And that is what we care about: music worth talking about. BANG!
Yeasayer’s four-piece lineup is an arsenal of multi-instrument chops, roundly possessive of an artful blending of the musical tools at their disposal (both comfortably analog and dizzyingly digital) which combine to create a soundscape that is at once traditional rock ‘n’ roll and a contemporary simulacrum of global folk themes. When first confronted with the global pastiche of All Hour Cymbals you may at times ask yourself where the hell these young men are from, and, if these songs can possibly be played live by four people. Well the story is a fairly simple one: the boys hale from the Baltimore Metro Region via Brooklyn (with a some serious time spent in the UK of late). They’ve got classical music training, boys choir experience (that’s where they learned those amazing harmonies), and of course, yes; they are a live performing rock band. Tried and true.
There have been a great many parallels between their music and world or neo-world or even Peter Gabriel. Other recent comparisons include Fleetwood Mac, Sabbath and TV on the Radio, but we think it’s best if you decide all that on your own. The one thing that stood out to us more than anything was obvious: Yeasayer’s music is something new and something worthwhile. It's good enough to make people scramble for comparisons and look high and low for a reference point to their catalogand shout about all the music that came before which is certainly a very interesting (albeit one-sided) conversation. However, what we found to be the most fun was just letting them tell their own stories and feeding them tacos.
‘SUP caught up the boys from Yeasayer last Fall, before all the references, before All Hour Cymbals was Other Music’s #1 Best Seller of 2008 - even before they had set foot in Europe. We were joined by the band Suckers, comrades and musicians in arms of the Brooklynscene. We all sat down had taco night on a rooftop in Williamsburg and let the conversation wander around music, segways, Judaism, wherever the tacos took us. It was a delicious experience to say the least, and what came out of it will help give you a new angle on Yeasayer. Enjoy.

How many of you are going to India?
Anand Wilder: Just me and Chris.
Chris Keating: We’re going for two weeks after London.
Anand: Because it’s on the way. And we’re going to film a music video.
Chris: Well, parts of a music video. We’re not going to be in it. There are going to be a lot of children and lots of waterfalls.
Anand: Lots of eunuchs. Ideally I want an old man band, like old Yogis playing and singing.
Chris: It’s going to be a video of them covering our songs.
Chris: Before London and after India is going to be a totally different vibe. We already recorded these songs. Anand’s Indian so he can get away with it, but I’m just really excited to say that these songs were inspired by India.
Anand: Say you recorded them in India.
Chris: I recorded them in India!

But the whole band is going to London? Are you going to tour all over –
Anand: All over London.
Chris: North Sea, South Sea, Chelsea, Battersea, Brighton, Trafalgar Square…
Anand: We have seven dates there. We’re playing five shows with Home Video from Brooklyn. They’re like Goth dance.
Chris: They’re like Sisters of Mercy. But not as big or on heroin or whatever. Sisters of Mercy are a band
I always forget to site as an influence.

How are you going to get all your shit to London?
Anand: I’m not bringing anything.

You’re not bringing anything at all? You’re not gonna bring pedals?
Anand: Maybe. Maybe I will bring a pedal, but I’m just going to keep calling this dude and asking him, ‘You got a reverb pedal? Oh, you can use my rack set up.’ I didn’t even ask for a keyboard and the guy told me he could get me a MIDI controller. I was like, ‘Thanks? Did I ask for that? Awesome.’
Chris: The only problem with that is that it’s all going to sound like disco rock. Nuh nuh nuh nah!
Anand: All the presets for this are terrible! And it all sounds like Franz Ferdinand. I think we’ll have enough gear there.
Chris: Ideally we’ll just be hitting play on a CD player and that way we can all dance.
Austin [from Suckers]: That’s how Kraftwerk blew it, the music started before they got back during the second encore.
Chris: Did they come out on Segways like Peter Gabriel?
Anand: Did he really?
Chris: Swear to God. Peter Gabriel in Paris, around the stage doing some ballet duet, he and his daughter.
Luke Fasano: We need Segways.
Chris: The last time I was in Paris, I saw a gang. Well I don’t know If they were a gang or what but there were two huge dudes, really tall, bald, muscular black guys, and they go by on Segways and I just thought they were the coolest guys ever. That’s when the third rolled up and I was just like, ‘Wow!’
Do you just plug those things in?
Anand: I thought it was just gyroscopes that spin infinitely.
Chris: There are, as of yet, no perpetual motion machines.
Anand: Oh, no? I thought you just pulled a string and it was like Vrrrrrooommm forever.
Austin: Apparently Kansas City has the biggest Segway population in the country.
Chris: This Segway makes me want to do a bunch of meth! They’re not actually Segways, they’re just those two-wheeled manual lawnmowers made up to look like Segways.

That’s great, I hope you guys are playing Kansas City soon.
Chris: That would be great. It would go right along with our Des Moines audience.
Anand: The only place we hate more than Kansas City is Des Moines. They called us rockstar douchebags.

What happened in Des Moines?
Chris: Well, our first tour, we played half the shows [laughter]. Our car broke down. Not just car trouble,
just trouble. A lot of misunderstanding and intraband tension.
Anand: It wasn’t so much a band breakdown as much as a breakdown of communication.

So what? You guys are just jerks?
Anand: No, no, just rockstar douchebags.
Austin: Well I heard that there were at least 50 people who were there to see you and you pissed them off [laughs].
Chris: There were not 50 people in town that night. John Mayer, who was playing down the street, was playing for 50 people. Everyone was there. The mayor was there, the sheriff –
Ira Wolf Tuton: Thanks for the tacos and the beer.

You’re welcome Ira.
Ira: And the Company.
Chris: Did you get that shirt in Baltimore?
Ira: This one? Yeah. How weird is that?
Chris: I don’t remember you buying that.
Ira: I bought this and my purple kippah.
Chris: Where is that kippah?
Ira: It’s in my van.
Anand: I thought you were going to wear that all the time.
Ira: Every time I wear it falls on the ground and I have
to kiss it all the time. I need to get some bobby pins. That shit
falls off my head all fuckin’ day.
Austin: What’s a kippah?
Anand: [mocking] What’s a kippah?
Ira: Pfff, what⥸