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We Are Scientists: Breaking the altimeter with their higher brains
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We Are Scientists with their ouster
When seeking out new music, some can fall into a dark pit of ignorance that shuns reasonable judgment from discovering quality artists.
I almost made one of these mistakes when I was sent out to interview We Are Scientists, a band everyone seemed to know about but me. I was scheduled to meet with the Scientists at their fifth show of the Kings of Leon Tour on October 15, at the Nokia Theater. Earlier that week I was stuck in a stagnant pool of my own ignorance listening to the same vinyl records and wishing I was born in a music generation that didn’t produce as much crap.
But my cynical and faithless viewpoint eventually flipped around after researching the track record of these two highly intelligent beings that seemed to lack the ability to fail.
Their recent record “Brain Thrust Mastery” which was released in March hit the U.K. top 11 list which accounted for a small piece of their success that was growing exponentially. They had recently come back from a tour in Europe with R.E.M. where they jammed alongside to various covers including one by Iggy and the Stooges during an encore in Spain. After touring with R.E.M, the Scientists joined The Stills for a mini-tour that would eventually connect with the Kings of Leon tour where my journey to enlightenment began.
Of course every great journey must take a couple unexpected turns along with a kick between the legs in order to see the light. For starters, no parking was reserved for any press that included a pee-on like me. I was forced to cough up the last of my money to park in a police den disguised as Holiday Inn parking. I escaped search and seizure only to be greeted by a frantic and misinformed Nokia security team which made my pre-arranged interview an arduous mission. Chris Cain, the bassist and backing vocals of We Are Scientists, had to give up his pass and finagle a burly security guard through tactful wit. Arguing with Chris Cain would be like arguing with divine intelligence which can render the opponent speechless.
I finally got to the dressing room of We Are Scientist and immediately began the interview……
With this being the fifth show of the Kings of Leon tour, how has it going so far and did you know Kings of Leon or The Stills prior to the tour?
Murray: “We had only met Kings of Leon and The Stills at the beginning of this tour and hung out with them in large crowds but not in any meaningful way.”
Cain: “I’ve seen a lot of pictures of them online and stored them on my personal hard drive. I also ordered some hard copies from their online merchandise store. I stored those on my hard-drive.”
The fact that the R.E.M. tour in Europe came prior to the current tour with Kings of Leon, how do you go from playing with legendary-rock-veterans to a modern-rock band?
Murray: “Up-starts!”
Cain: “I would say modern classics are what I consider Kings of Leon to be these days. We are kind of exploring our options to see what kind of band we want to be--a classic rock band or a modern up-star.”
Either way you guys have hit the top 11 in the UK.
Murray: “That is small potatoes.”
Well it might not be a big deal to you, but what’s the deal with the UK top 11 list? Does the UK have an advantage over the U.S. top 10 with their top 11 list?
Cain: “I think there is a bigger field in Europe. People have a bigger appetite for music and a smaller appetite for fast food.”
Murray: “I feel that rhetorically, Europe is more advanced than America. So they get away with saying things like number one and the top 10.
Murray: “I feel that rhetorically, Europe is more advanced than America. So they get away with saying things like number one and the top 10.
Cain: “So there is the number one and then after that comes the top ten.”
Murray: “So first, there is the number one. Then there is the top ten which makes us in the top 11.”
After reading Chris’s blog about England and the many in-store performances, you guys acquired a lot of movies. I noticed that the list online had a significant amount starring Steven Seagal. In what ways has Steven Seagal indirectly influenced you in the music realm?
Cain: “As song writers, We Are Scientists are like Steven Seagull in the sense that we are slow to anger but once you tick us off we take no prisoners. It might take us a couple of years to get started on an album but once we do every last song is going to be a pop hit.”
Well done. Now band names usually serve purposes that vary across the board with different bands. Are there people that ask about your band name with the assumption that both of your college backgrounds may play a part to it? What purpose does a band name serve anyways?
Cain: “People do ask with an understandable frequency whether we really are scientists.”
Murray: “I suppose out of context it would be understandable. To me that is very similar to going into The Stills dressing room and asking them if they are really still or just produce alcohol.”
Cain: “It’s not a very plausible state for a person to be in, where as being a scientist is a reasonable claim.”
We Are Scientists began as a trio and eventually went through some line up changes, but…
Murray: “There was an ouster.”
An ouster?
Murray: “A person that is forcibly removed from office or status; in this case drummer status?”
What is with drummers? I play drums myself, and I often wonder if my will to cause problems was destined when I chose the instrument.
Murray: “Well our empirical evidence is limited to a single subject, so we really don’t know.”
Well the change has not affected your success in any significant way.
Cain: “I think it provide a little boost.”
Who is in the line-up now?
Cain: “Both Max and Adam from the High Speed Scene have been picked up.”
Murray: “Yeah we had been circling them like sharks and they finally took the bait.”
Cain: “We noticed both of them when they opened for The Futureheads. We had seen the High Speed Scene perform on the east coast and said to our selves, ‘this is a talent less little group.”
Murray: “The spark wasn’t there.”
Cain: “There were elements that could be salvaged.”
In closing, what is the next step for you guys?
Murray: “At the end of this tour, we are going to stop and work on the next record. So we are crossing our fingers that this current tour doesn’t launch us into anything else, because we can use some time off.”
Click.
The End
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