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Beat this!
‘THE SCENE WE WERE IN WAS JUST US'
They came to notice more for their declared influences than their songs but David Pollock argues that Vampire Weekend are easily more than a sum of their parts
he Paul Simon revival. inexplicably. just might start here. Preppy .\'ew York quartet Vampire Weekend horrow elements of their sound from
Afroheat. post-punk and new wave. but the fact of
four well—off white kids co-opting African rhythms can't fail to draw comparisons with rock's most famous musical tourist. In years to come they might also call it ‘doing a Damon Alharn’.
‘lt isn‘t to say that we want to make difficult music. hccatise we like the catchiness. the immediate appeal of pop music.‘ says the band‘s guitarist and singer li/ra Koenig. 'But it was important for us. if we were going to he playing rock instruments. not to Lise the same rhythms. the same styles of playing that so much rock has used. It hecomes kind of horing.‘
‘lt's when you hear the same drumheat in five songs that are really popular.’ continues drummer (‘hris 'l‘omson. 'I wouldn‘t say there was a particular hand we would accuse of this. it's jtist an idea of something that we want to he different to.‘ No. he definitely wouldn‘t say there was a particular hand. but after being pressed the whole group take The Strokes‘ name in vain.
l’ormed when they were all at (‘olumhia l'niversity in early zooo (the hand are completed by drummer (‘hris Baio and keyboard player and producer Rostam Batmanglijl. Vampire Weekend convened their musical style over a (‘l) of traditional songs from Madagascar. which the hand all liked. That‘s not your typical starting point fora rock group. but perhaps the fact that VW sprang from such a specific scene accounts for their individuality.
68 THE LIST 0-1 [NJ ‘1 Via.
‘I would say our scene was all just playing for our
friends at parties. hecause (‘olumhia's quite far up north in Manhattan] says 'l‘omson. 'lt's not really close to the Downtown area or Brooklyn. where all the clubs are. so for the first six or seven months as a hand we didn‘t play anywhere off-campus. It was kind of like hanging out at school. where we were the only hand and the scene we were in was just us.‘
Starting off in such a scholastic environment and - by their estimate — taking several months to sharpen
their set while slowly encroaching on the venues of
New York at large has given Vampire Weekend personality. The gentle idiosyncrasies of singles 'Mansard Roof' and ‘A-l’unk’. and of the eponymous dehut alhum. have drawn accusations that they are too niche. too tiuflily. dryly intellectual. In which case. it seems alright to go thinking of the hand as a kind of young musical equivalent of Woody Allen.
‘lt’s really hard to say what‘s going to be successful.‘ counters Koenig. ‘We just can't think about what somebody else says. there are so many factors which go into it [success] that all we can do is write good songs. I think most people. if you explain to them that our music includes these elements of African guitar music. they wouldn‘t even he familiar with it. Where music comes from is not what they react to. People react to music hopefully in a more visceral way. a less intellectual way. or at least you really hope they do.’
Vampire Weekend play the Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Sat 3 May; ABC, Glasgow, Sun 4 May.
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