Music Entry
Interview: Brian From The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
To kick off our SXSW, we had Carrie Schupper get to chatting with the very charming Brian Chase of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs yesterday afternoon. The tete-a-tete with the drummer of one of New York's and the world's favorite bands has some intersting notions about "Super Status Stardom", Indian cooking and of course, music.
Carrie Schupper: Where are you?
Brian Chase: I'm in New York.
CS: I'm in New York, too.
BC: Get out of here! No way!
CS: Yes way! I thought you’d be somewhere exotic, tropical - like calling me from a beach somewhere.
BC: Yeah, I'm at the pool.
CS:Cocktail in hand. So, you’re new album comes out at the end of this month. And it’s only your second studio album? Is that correct?
BC: Yeah, second full length.
CS: You guys have a had few EPs out as well, right...
So, do you feel like that you’ve grown a lot as aband over the last three years or so?
BC: Yeah. (laughs) .
CS: What do you feel like you do as band to keep that groove happening, so things don’t get stale?
BC: Well, things are constantly changing around us as time goes by. There’s no real conscious effort on our part, focusing on things we need to do to grow as a band or as people. It’s more about finding healthy ways to deal with situations that are the bigger challenge. You know there’s a lots happened to us since the record was released. We’re definitely in a different situation as band and career wise, musically.
CS:So, you let your life naturally inspire the growth?
BC: Yeah. Occasionally, we run into life’s landmarks that give you a chance to look back over the recent past and say, "Oh wow... This is what’s different about me", but usually you don’t really see it.
CS: Is there one specific moment you can pinpoint where you realizied you guys had made it?
BC: Made a record?
CS: That you made it to "Super Stardom Status"?
BC: "Super Stardom Status"? That’s a hard thing to say. Well... "Super Stardom Status"... Yeah, it's more like an external thing at least for us, because we’re right in the middle of it. It’s hard to get a prespecive where we’re at in terms of celebrity or popularity. We're just doing what we want to do. It’s our job. You know, thinking of oneself as a celebrity… it doesn’t feel productive or natural even to think of yourself as celebrity. Well, it’s perfectly natural, but it’s more of a vice.
CS: Do you think they’ll ever come a moment when you’ll be like, “Yes! I’ve totally made it,” or what would be a thing that would happen that would make you feel that?
BC: When you make it, it imples that you’ve accomplished something and that you can stop. I don’t think that we'll ever feel like we can stop. And we shouldn’t you know. Once you feel like that, that’s when things are over. You look at people who think to themselves, “I’ve made it” and that means they can stop, it signals that they’vee stopped in their mind.
CS: You always want to keep going?
BC: Not always keep going. It’s like anything. You say, I want to play music. I consider music something that’s been an interest... I’m going to do for my whole life. The searching process is never ging to stop. I’m never going to make it. I’m never going to stop growing.
CS: How about the significance to the name of the band’s name?
BC: Yeah. You know, it’s one of the New York things that you hear around you all the time. It’s better than no, no, no.
CS: Besides New York do you have a favorite city to play?
BC: It kinda goes back and forth between Chicago and San Francisco. Nationally. Internationally Japan is pretty fun. It’s just a great crowd.
CS:
Do you have any side projects?
BC:I have another band called the
"http://www.planbmag.com/content/view/162/40/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: underline">Seconds and we have our record coming out on the 21st of this month.
CS: So, I read on you’re My Space page that you’re learning to cook Indian food ois that a new hobby of yours?
BC: My Space Page… That’s very unofficial... It’s true. I’ve been learning to cook Indian food over the last year.
CS: Is that a Tabla I hear in the background?
BC:Yeah it was actually. I found this one amaxing cookbook – Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Coookbook. That’s actually the best book out there that I’ve found.
CS: I was reading that you’re curating a day at All Tomorrow Parties. How did you work on picking those bands? Was it a collaborative effort?
BC:It was really difficult cause we couldn’t agree on who to pick. The three of us have very different taste. It was tough. We had to make it very democratic. We had to pick 11 bands. So, we figured that since there are three of us, we each get three individual uncontested picks and there’ll be two bands picks left over.
CS: What was one of your picks?
BC: One was Oneida. They’re from Brooklyn. They’re just really awesome.
CS: Do you ever feel like the press that surrounds the band is too personal, and not enough about the music? That invades too much into your personal life?
BC: I feel like a lot of times it’s not about the music. I think they focus a lot more on the superficial aspects of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That sstuff stays on the surface. They [the press} never really are able to see past themselves. I know Karen has some people who like to talk about her personal life, but I don’t know. It's not that rough. I’m sure she’d have a different answer.
CS: Is there something particular you miss about home when you’re on the road?
BC: My girlfriend.
CS: Do you have spiritual rituals or something you have to do before you go on stage?
BC: I read.
CS:Now my James Lipton moment. What sound turns you on?
BC:What sound turns me on?
CS: You've never seen Inside The Actor's Studio? It's a good show.
BC: Really? I'll have to check it out. Sound... A purely tuned three over two.
CS: Nice answer.
BC: Thanks. Nice talking to you.
Go check out and pre-order the YYY's new album. Show Your Bones.
RANDOM TANGENT:
Send to a Friend : Subscribe : Chat Back
|
Make some noise! |
