Interview: We Are Scientists

Cheers!

Hi Keith!
How’s it goin’ Al?

First up - why is your new album called Helter Seltzer?
That’s a good question. Well, there is a straight answer to it, which is that it was Chris’ idea, he pitched it to me and we liked that it kind of compartmentalised two aspects of We Are Scientists that have consistently been present in our music and presentation, especially on this album, which is sort of a combination of a light, effervescent poppy-ness and a weird chaotic, often fairly distressed idea. Similarly, even though our videos are always fun, they’re also kind of dark. We liked the whole Helter Seltzer as a shorthand for those two elements put together. And we really like seltzer water - a lot.

And therefore, it was the perfect album title?
Well, to be perfectly honest, on our last album we were sort of hoping that naming our album in French would help us in the French market, because we just wanna hang out in France a lot more. You know, I’m not sure that we saw a huge spike in album sales due to that, but this album has not even come out and we’ve already gotten a sponsorship from our favourite seltzer company, and they’re giving us a shitload of seltzer for our tour.

Amazing!
Already a tremendous result.

Seltzer water isn’t a thing in the UK, I don’t think.
I know; that was actually a huge consideration for us when we were titling the album...

You’ve kind of blocked out the whole UK there...
Yeah no-one over there even knows what the hell we’re talking about, but in that sense we also felt like we were doing a great service to Europe in general. You guys just have that crappy sparkling water.

When was the last time you were in Nottingham?
I’m not exactly sure, I know we did Rock City on the ‘TV en Français, sous la mer' tour, but I don’t remember, like, even what month. Certainly in the past two years.

Have you been to Derby?
We have been to Derby, I definitely don’t remember the last time we were in Derby. Our old product manager at EMI’s last name was Derbyshire, and we always celebrated every time we went to Derby - for her namesake, as we assumed it was named after her.

Obviously…
Although, despite apparently owning the town, she never really gave us huge results in Derby.

Do you prefer Nottingham or Derby? There is a fairly big regional rivalry over here.
Well…I don’t wanna make any qualitative distinction. But, simply as a quantitative thing, I know we’ve been to Nottingham way, way, way, way, way, way more times, so it seems safe to say that Nottingham likes us more than Derby does. But we would be more than happy to see Derby try to reclaim the title position above Nottingham.

They can try all they like.
Nottingham it is.

When I was sixteen -  I think around 2010 - I saw you guys at Rock City. You made your way into the crowd and I nearly touched your beautiful hair, which was quite a big thing for me as a sixteen-year-old who loves hair. Is this a regular thing for you?
I mean even total strangers on the street, I’ll often catch them sort of discreetly reaching out; maybe across public transport, waiting in lines. I’ll often feel what at first seems to be a wisp of breeze, but eventually I realise it’s fingers intertwined, curling in my hair, massaging my scalp. It’s actually a pretty frequent problem for me - I wear a lot of hats in public, to thwart inappropriate hair tousling.

What about when it’s too hot for hats - what do you do?
When it’s too hot for hats, I stay home. I just don’t go out.

For fear of fingers…
I wouldn’t call it fear, that seems like a much more crippling anxiety that I have, even though, I just described to you an anxiety that requires me to stay home on hot days. Yeah, I guess fear is the right word - I’m terrified.



Too Late is your most recent video, and although it was really fun to watch because it was bonkers, it also conveyed a message. Was the theme of the bee disappearance picked out of thin air or have you had a long lasting qualm with the issue?
I don’t want to undermine any dramatic importance that our videos have, but despite the lyrical resonance with the song, it’s not about the bees disappearing. Now, the video on the other hand clearly does expose some, at least subconscious, although in this case contextually quite in the forefront, fears we have about bee disappearance. Do we make any good points about how to take care of this issue? I don’t think we do. But if it gets people thinking even for three minutes about other ways to rescue our bees, then I think we’ve done our job.

And for the single Buckle you got to throw loads of food at Chris’ face. Out of ten, how fun that was?
It was a solid 10/10. The fact that it was also not in my apartment made it. Pure joy. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if he had been a worse sport about it. He was pretty sanguine about the whole thing, he wasn’t upset in any way. It would have been a little better if he had been in some demonstrated distress. That would have made it even more delicious…no pun intended.

One last question, what would your Desert Island Disc would be?
Damn it, I don’t know. I think either Weezer’s Blue album, or maybe Loaded by Velvet Underground. I’m also really obsessed with the Steppenwolf’s Greatest Hits. I don’t even really like Steppenwolf, to be honest. I don’t even know how it came into my possession, but I think it’s the vinyl that I listen to most in the world. It’s so good, I cannot recommend it enough. Do not let their having written Born to be Wild put you off. That’s definitely their worst song. I always skip Born to be Wild, fortunately, it’s the first song on the LP so it’s very easily skipped.

Hmmm…
It’s counter intuitive, you wouldn’t think you’d want to start with your worst song, but it makes it very convenient to skip. It keeps people from abandoning the album later on. That’s a lesson we’ve learnt, we always put the absolute shittiest song first…

…And then work upwards.
Exactly!

I was actually going to ask you earlier what the biggest lesson in music that you have learned is, and maybe that’s it.
Put the worst song first on the album…

Brilliant…
That’s how we know we’ve got our first song, when we write a song and we say, “That’s got to be the worst song we’ve ever written.”

Solid music advice. Cheers, Keith.

We Are Scientists are at Rescue Rooms on Monday 25 April 2016.

We Are Scientists website