ChrisCainfromWeAreScientists
comically inclined We Are Scientists have been praised not only for their energetic performances but their ability to tickle their audience’s collective funny bones. Off the strength of their highly praised new album, Barbara, We Are Scientists hopes to gain as much popularity in America as they have in the UK. The Mass Media was lucky enough to have a conversation with the cool-as-acucumber Chris Cain, bassist for We Are Scientists, before his show at the Middle East in July. Mass Media: You sound a little tired, are you alright? Chris Cane: uh I am; I’m great. MM: The first question has to be what did you have for breakfast? CC: I had… so far half of an egg and cheese on a roll. MM: Am I interrupting that? CC: oh no, no. I’m rationing it out. MM: Good, because I’d feel terrible if I was. Did you do anything extraordinarily American for the 4th of July? CC: Hung out with my family. Let’s see, I went to a beach club on the New Jersey shore. That’s pretty… pretty American. MM: I read in a review that you are “Unfathomably” more popular in the UK then in the US. Is that true? CC: I would say it’s fathomable. (Laughter) CC: We are more popular over there. MM: Is there a reason why? CC: Yea well I think you can chalk it up to a number of things. Of course, we will never know which one is correct but I can give you some options. MM: Yea well as long as you keep chalking. CC: Well for one thing we started to gain a small amount of popularity in the UK before we did here, largely by virtue of a DJ at Radio One, a guy named Steve Lamock, he started playing the song ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ and this was before the CD was out or anything. So we got a great slot supporting Editors. We did two weeks touring the UK, it went really well and we kind of never really stopped touring that year, this was 2005. We came home for a couple weeks to finish selling the album (Love and Squalor) to Virgin. We spent the rest of the year touring the UK over and over and over again. Each time we would gain popularity and new fans. I think to some degree the US may have suffered from…. MM: A lack of We Are Scientists? CC: Negligence yeah. We sort of focused on the UK cause things kicked off there first. Otherwise I think you have to speculate about the style of music we play. Maybe it’s a little more mainstream over there then it is here. I think it is…. People appreciate our style of personality in the UK whereas here we prefer, you know, Lindsay Lohan and Ke$ha… MM: Yes, well they certainly are artists in their own right… CC: I’m not sure I’m very…. Very undecided about Ke$ha. MM: Really?! CC: I just read an interview with her and she’s clearly not a fool. She acts like a fool and she acts very ridiculous but… MM: That’s the whole thing, that’s how she draws you in. That’s the shtick. CC: Yeah I guess. Yeah she’s sort of a party girl or whatever, that’s her gimmick right? She seems very smart. She seems like someone if you met her at a party and started talking to her it would actually be a perfectly enjoyable conversation. So I kind of think it really is just a shtick, that she’s really not a total goofball that she comes off as in her SNL appearances etc. MM: Yeah … but I don’t think that makes up for her terrible music. CC: Hmm… that’s true. I mean it… I wouldn’t say it’s the worst music on the radio. MM: Oh sure it’s not the worst but it’s certainly not the best. CC: Yea it’s down there, in the lower echelon along with a lot of other junk. I mean she’s not single handily responsible for that garbage that’s the only thing I would say in her defense. MM: Well there’s her defense it’s not all her fault… I guess. CC: (laughter) Yea exactly. MM: So is there a reason the new record is called Barbara? CC: There is but it doesn’t make for a very satisfying interview answer. MM: I’ll be very dissatisfied. CC: I mean it’s not completely by chance that its named Barbara in other words, but there’s no good story. We came up with that title and about 50 others in the 6 months leading up to the moment we had to name it. Barbara was one that just sat on the list for a long time and made it to the finals. We just liked it but it isn’t really named after anyone. I mean we do like what it is and what it does, like the fact that it’s a women’s name. I don’t mean to imply that any of the connotations that come with it is unintentional but we were certainly aware of what we would be putting in peoples head if we named it that. We didn’t name it that as a tribute to Barbra Walters for example. MM: Well I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did; she is an amazing woman. CC: No, and that’s, you know… we went in to this knowing that some people would probably assume this was a Barbra Walters tribute album and we’re fine with that. MM: I can really see that now that I hear it. Looking at the track list I can totally see a Barbara Walters concept album. CC: Yea absolutely. It does that job. MM: What’s the writing process like for you guys? CC: We definitely don’t do the writing in the studio… we’re far too cheap for that. MM: It’s a downturn economy so you have to save somehow. CC: Exactly. We try to have the songs essentially finished when we get into the studio. So, that the only thing we’re doing in the studio is finding really good sounds and making sure that the amps are mic’ed correctly and that we like what we’re hearing. Certainty no song writing is left in the studio. Our process starts with Keith fiddling around on his acoustic guitar for a couple months generating initial ideas – sort-ofsongs I guess. Then he emails me really terrible recordings of them. Then I try to imagine what it would sound like if it were music. Then we discuss different possibilities for different songs. By the time we have 15 songs that we’re excited about working on further we then start working on them as a full band, by which I mean we need a drummer in the room. Then we just work out what the three instruments, the three basic instruments for our music, are going to be playing. Then well make a really shitty- sounding demo and start talking to our producer. The very last thing that happens is the lyrics, which Keith tends to write in the day or two before we have to record that song. That’s not to say he doesn’t chip away at them in the weeks and months leading up to it. He’s just a procrastinator in terms of finishing lyrics; I will have never heard the lyrics until he sings them to record. MM: Why is the tour named The American Barbarian tour? CC: Um… well if you look closely you will see a common etymology between the words Barbara and barbarian. MM: I did notice that actually. (Laughter) CC: So there’s that and the America thing is largely a reference to the territory where the tour is taking place. MM: Ah fair enough. It’s all very scientific of you. Is there anything specifically your looking forward to on the tour? A specific city or any process you guys go through? CC: I’m looking forward to a lot of the cities. In fact it would be much easier for me to name the cities I’m not looking forward to. That’s probably bad business. (Laughter) MM: Yea that sounds like a terrible idea, I won’t make you do that. CC: More than anything I’m just really looking forward to touring the US. It’s a very different experience here for us than it is overseas. MM: How so? CC: We’re very streamlined here. We take our own van and trailer and we take a sound guy and a tech and that’s it. We kind of tour manage the thing ourselves, which we wouldn’t really be able to do overseas just because the scale is a little bigger. It’s a lot of fun to have it at that manageable scale where you still have everything in control – in your own hands I suppose. MM: How do you work out the driving schedule? CC: Oh there’s never any lack of available drivers, I mean all five of us are capable of driving. Keith (lead guitarist/singer) and I both really like putting in a few hours behind the wheel. Generally speaking it’s not really a problem. The only time it’s a problem if there’s a really long drive like Salt Lake to Seattle and maybe the band has decided they’re going to fly to Seattle. So the other two guys have to drive the entire thing themselves, that kind of sucks…. Not that we’d ever do that. MM: No, no you’d never. What do you do in your free time while on tour? CC: We really love going to the cinema; getting salty popcorn and an icy Coke.by. Days off without fail we go to the movies, no matter where we are in the world. MM: Who gets to decide which movie? What if there’s no consensus? CC: That’s never happened. The thing is the main reason we want to go to the movies is to see the moving pictures up on the screen. Plot doesn’t really matter. It’s a combination of the moving pictures the surround sound, whether it be THX or Dolby, and the icy cola and popcorn. That’s the experience sitting in the cave and watching the images flicker. MM: And you get the AC when it’s hot… CC: The AC when it’s hot or when it’s freezing outside, it doesn’t really matter. I think part of it when we’re abroad is that movies really do feel like a way to spend two hours in American culture. Not to say we walk around pining for America but you still do, in the back of your head, miss home. It’s always thrilling to watch The Incredible Hulk take back Phoenix… where you once played a show. We Are Scientists is currently touring Europe
