Bandsplain - Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Jenny Eliscu

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Journalist Jenny Eliscu joins Yasi to talk all things Yeah Yeah Yeahs, from their wild early days in New York to their place as one of the most important bands of the 2000s. They discuss the term indie sleaze, debate whether the Yeah Yeah Yeahs deserve the crown as the era’s best band, break down why “Maps” remains an all-time classic, and explore the tensions that have shaped the band throughout its career. Plus, growing up in the spotlight, surviving the hype, and where the Yeah Yeah Yeahs fit in today’s music landscape. Episode PlaylistListen to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Playlist here. Subscribe on YouTube.Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuest: Jenny Eliscu @jennylsqProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bansplain. I am your host, Yossi Salick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about the Yeah Yeah's. We are starting a mini arc.

And for lack of a better word, I've come around actually, you guys. I will call it an indie sleigh's arc because you know what, we don't have another name. And I know, we'll talk about it. My guest today, who we're going to talk about this with, who has a different idea, is music journalist, an absolute legend, Jenny Elliskew. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you on. It's an honor. I know.

I understand because as a person who was also, like, marginally there, I mean, actually quite a bit there. Like, I did have the Janet from Three's Company haircut. I was wearing the American Apparel leggings, babe. Like, I had tip to tail whatever they're calling this. I was doing it. Deep V? Honey, Deep V. Oh, my God.

I'll honestly I wore a lot of American apparel. Like, beat up converse, like, the gamut, you know? But we didn't call it anything. And how do you refer to it now? Post. Like, there's just no name for it. Yeah. It's like we need a short hand.

It's a little bit annoying. I mean, I was reminded in, you know, refreshing my memory about stuff for this. Like it was, yeah, some people called it a garage rock revival, like, which was like the closest thing to, and it did sort of begin that way. Before it became, I guess, what they what they consider indie sleeves, because my understanding is that the kids think of indie sleeves a little bit more as the tail end of it. Yeah, a little more like leaning into when you're getting your like TV on the radios and walkmen, like a little more mid-aughts into later odds as opposed to that like 2000, 2001. to you. But I hate the name Indy Sleeze. I think it was just that I actually sat and thought about it one day. I was like, indie sleeves. And I was like, no, kind of accurate. It was, it was like, it was 90s indie, but so much sleazier. That's exactly kind of what it was. It was like slicker.

It was like more fucked up. Like there was the lame of it all, even the costuming of it all was like, it was Something. I don't know. I was just like, I was like, you know what, I'll allow it. This episode is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing. If you saw the band when they played at the bar or stopped mid-festable to look at the stars, then you're ready to embrace the haze with hazy little thing. Citrassy smooth and easy to drink, it pairs with nights that don't need a script. Brewed with the purest ingredients for finest quality, there's a reason it's America's best-selling hazy IPA. Embrace the Hays with Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing. Enjoy responsibly. I saw a journalist in a British publication that I can't remember maybe like Melody Maker or Emmy or something, call it trash rock, which actually I thought was also a good name. Yeah.

There's just like no way to refer to this period of time in a short – I mean, nobody likes a genre shorthand anyways. Like there's never been one. But I love it. I love a subgenre name. Do you? Do you? I love a slow core. Sure.

You know? Yeah. I feel like that's why I'm just sort of like, oh, I feel like I would say we as a society, like maybe could do better. But also, I defer to the young people. They came up with Indy Sleeze. It stuck. Who am I to say? I mean, I just feel like I def-

You're generally there at the birthplace of it. You can't see it when you're in. You midwifed. Not only were there, you midwifed the birth of Indy Slee's. So I think you can have quite a bit of input if you wanted to. I've surrendered to Indy Slees as being what you're. it's called. It's, it's, I don't think it's going anywhere. And hearing you say it actually, I see, it feels like it's growing on me. I'm maybe I'm just like coming around, you know,

I'm like, I'm just, maybe I'm just literally picturing myself in those coper snake photos and being like, not a bad name. Maybe I need to find more pride in my own sleasiness at that age, you know, it's like sort of, where I'm just like, was it really that sleazy? I guess I have this sort of like, um, it was kind of sleazy. I'm in sleaze denial. I'm in sleaze denial. I, okay, well, I can't wait to get into all this. I'm so glad to have you because like I said, you were there from day one. I have like an interesting relationship with this period of music because I'm just a tiny bit younger than you, but also I didn't get to New York to 2004. So like by the time I got to New York, in my mind, I was like everything's over. Not even thinking about this. I was like,

the 90s are over. So I was like, I missed everything. I don't care. And I was also like a little more at Max Fish with TV on the radio than at Cabin with the Strokes. So, like, obviously I was aware that the strokes were over there at Cabin. But it wasn't really my world as much as, like, the other part of it was. So I didn't have a lot of comings and goings

with it. And I don't know if you ever have this. Like, if something happens concurrently to my life, but I wasn't part of it, I don't have the mythologic, like, it's one thing to look up to, like, things that happened when I was 13.

and it was the 90s or things that I was like part of. But because I wasn't part of it and it was like right there, I kind of am like, oh, yeah, it's cool. Like when people are like, the strokes are the best band that ever lived? I'm like, are they? I mean, I like the strokes a lot, but it's like, I guess that's like I have just a bit of distance from it. But you are part of it. So I feel like you're going to have such great things to say. I hope so.

And I'm going to say something controversial right at the top because I was really happy. I'm really happy that I did yaya yas first because I think they're the best one. I think people don't actually talk about it enough. They don't get their flowers enough. I think Karen O. is up there in the mantle of our greatest female front women that are like, front people in general. Of course, I'm not trying to be gender. But I mean more like the way that like we would have a Mount Rushmore of like Chrissy Hind, you know, Courtney Love, like,

these incredible women that like inspired generations. Like Karen was right up there. And I sometimes think she doesn't get as much credit because she was a bit later. Do you ever feel that? Yeah. I mean, I think that the ecosystem of indie sleaze, because I'm just going to accept it and call it that. That's the term. We can make up a new one right here if you want.

Ooh, give me time. Give me the shots a latte. The ecosystem of it, it's your classic where the scene is only really great with all of it. Right. It's a multi-part organism. And not that I don't love my favorite bands and artists from that era I love with the burning fire in me, like the way I love the Beatles or the Kings or pavement or something. But, you know, I don't think of, for instance, pavement as being part of a scene, you know, even though they were, even though they were Silver Tute, and there were artists they were connected to. And I love the strokes and yeah, yeah, yeah, with that intensity.

But I think part of what made it all so exciting was that it was happening together and that you didn't just have the strokes in a bubble. You had the strokes and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and. and liars and TV on the radio and moldy peaches and long wave and interpol and they were all a little bit different and DFA and DFA and Electro Clash and the fact that they were all just different enough from each other but also decidedly part of like the same scene made all of them stronger for happening simultaneously so I think that's all right you know thank God we had yeah-ya-ya-ya's at the same time as the strokes, you know? I think it makes you love the strokes more. It makes you love yeah-a-ias more, all of them more, knowing that they weren't just an isolated event. Yeah. It was so special also because obviously the 90s had really turned the focus onto like Seattle, right? Like it was like everything was kind of about grunge and Seattle and bands were like picking up and moving there to make it. And the idea that, like, New York was dead as, as like a music desert is so interesting because it's, it had such a rich history.

And when did you move to New York City? Oh, I moved there when I came out of my mom's womb. Oh, you're from New York City? I am, yeah. I didn't know that, Jenny. Okay, so you've just been there. Yeah. So what, and you, obviously, a deep lover of music, what was your experience with what was happening in, like, actual New York City music?

like what was popping at the Mercury Lounge when you were like 14? Well, Mercury Lounge didn't exist yet when I was 14, but you're exactly right. I mean, there was, it's in retrospect, such a brief period of time that things felt dead. But if you were my age and just a little too young to have gotten into Sonic Youth when they were really happening, just a teensy bit in retrospect. And just a little bit before that, just a little bit too young for living color, right? and all of that great Black Rock Coalition and CBGB stuff from that era. And definitely too young for the earlier CB stuff. Of course.

Yeah, yeah. You're, you know, I was born in 1974. You're, you know, I'm like getting into indie music and stuff in my teens and high school. And hearing some like, you know, California punk rock descendants and shit like that. I love the descendants on this program. UK shit, lush and My Bloody Valentine. Yeah. The New England Dinosaur Jr. pavement kind of vibe.

And it was like, what is going on in New York? In 1990 to 1997, 1998, it felt like there was not much happening. Even though Sonic Youth were minted at that point and making great records, it was like... When was Pussy Goulor? So Pussy Goulor also is a little bit, like, a little bit before my time. Okay. And so it's just sort of like, but what's for, what's for us? And the first thing that came along was Jonathan Fireator.

Yes, perfect. I wanted to ask you about Jonathan Fireator. So did you, like, have a relationship with that band when you were younger? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I went to see them every time I could. I remember going to see them at the top of the World Trade Center. They did a show in the, where is it the rotating?

I believe it was the rotating, the room rotated at the top of the. Like the one at L. X. Oh, damn. Yeah. There's a restaurant that does them. Possibly the only time

I ever went up to the top of the World Trade Center, RIP, was to see Jonathan Fire Reader, which was a weird show. Also, I saw them

with brownies and other places, but I was working at CMJ at the time. This is, you know, when did their first EP came out, like, 97, I want to say,

something like that. I can actually tell you, I have it right here in my beautiful little notes. Not the major label. Yeah, DreamWorks. Pre-DreamWorks.

They had the EP. They had given me daughters on it. That would have been maybe like 96 or 95. Because 97 is when they signed. Yeah. So in that zone. Yeah. And how did you find out about them?

I mean, I was working at CMJ and we were just hearing. And actually props to my friend and former colleague, Cheryl Batchick, who we were office, my office was next to her office. And she was obsessed with Jonathan Fireator. She was friends with their manager. She was like talking about getting a Jonathan Fireator tattoo. she was obsessed and so I would hear it must have been that she was listening to you know somebody sent her a single or the EP and she was blasting it and I was like oh I fucking love this

yeah it's really good yeah I actually hadn't listened to it at all until doing this research and I was like okay um by the way the reason we're talking so much about Jonathan Fire Eater a band that you might not know about is because they were well again as Jenny was saying kind of like the first wave of like, they're from Jersey, right? They're from D.C. They're from D.C. Okay. But like kind of like establishing themselves as like a New York indie band and like getting

this sort of like hype going. And they inspired quite a few of the bands that we now are going to talk about in the indie sleazy. Although famous of the strokes were like we've never heard. We had never heard of that band. Yeah. And that tracks. But you know, and the Walkman was most, most of the members of Jonathan Fire Eater,

minus singer Stuart Lepton, R.I.P., who was still alive when the Walkman formed. Yes, he made his own side project. Exactly. But, you know, I think it's more so, well, one, you had the proximity. Jonathan Fireator were from D.C., but they were based in New York. They were a New York band. They had met as kids in D.C. And they brought Garage Rock Revival to New York, which was simultaneously happening in Detroit.

And that's where you had back. Like the Go, who were the predecessors to the White Stripes and other artists of that era. And I'm sure there were other cities probably like Austin and stuff where garage rock revival stuff was happening in 97, 98. You know, there was a, yeah, exactly, there was a Memphis contingent of oblivions and shit like that of garage rock revival. Yeah. It felt like Jonathan FireEater really brought in the Moog of it all and brought back. And this is also somewhat concurrent with the Nuggets box set. Mm-hmm.

And... This came up in our White Strap's episode. Sygeisty as hell moment of where you're just like, oh, Moog, Garage Rock, Syke, Slease. Yeah. And I think what I was really struck by with Jonathan Fire Eater is, like, the flamboyance. Which I think you don't, like, well, no, I wouldn't,

I wouldn't say the white strips were flamboyant at all. Like, I wouldn't say the oblivions were, I mean, they were crazy, but they weren't flamboyant. There was something very flamboyant about Stuart Leptin's, like, stage presence. And, like, you know, and Karen O will say it, and I think I have some quotes from her, but, like, she took a lot of her moves from him. You know, like, he was, he was rapping the mic chord, and he was, like, a very sexual performer, which is very interesting. They also, I was kind of interested in how, like, they were, like, kind of the first cautionary tale of, like, they got a bunch of hype. they signed this huge DreamWorks record deal and imploded. Like, it did not perform and the band fell apart.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and also just I'll say you mentioned Pussy Galore. Yeah. Credit to Pussy Goulore and John Spencer Blues Explosion, which again, like, if you're my age, whatever, it felt like a little bit like a little bit before my time just enough that I was like, I'm too late to jump on the blues explosion and wagon now. And that's, you know, I would think. that probably Stuart Leptin would have said

that things like that were inspirations. But yeah, it definitely felt like as a fan at that point of the nerdyer kind of indie rock, the pavements and stuff like that. Or even if you look at like Dinosaur Jr., you know, it was a don't look at me

kind of a thing or an ironically or ironically look at me. Negative charisma is what I call it. Yes, exactly. It's like a, you can't help but look at it, but it's like a black hole, like, do not perceive me. Yeah, exactly. And to have Jonathan Fireator as these, like, just super, yeah, charismatic, cute, incredible musicians.

I mean, Matt Barrett, obviously, is one of the best drummers of all time. They were all amazing. They really delivered live. They were really, really good live. And if you were a fan of theirs, it was annoying that they got backlash. It was really annoying. And then they signed a DreamWorks. DreamWorks was a new label at the time. And it and the back laugh and it was like that chatter around that killed them in a way that was so sad as a fan of theirs.

And to fast forward a little bit when the strokes came on the scene and know it all is in New York. And listen, I'm a fucking know it all and I hate myself for it. But you do actually know it all so it doesn't count. People would be like, oh, you really like the strokes. They're just Jonathan. Reuter Redux, and I'd be like, first of all, Jonathan Fire Rita were amazing and they were too good for this world. And then, like, yes, God bless if the strokes are like Jonathan Fireter, that's not a diss, first of all. Second of all, you don't know what you're talking about.

I hope those people are, like, really happy now knowing that, like, the strokes absolutely, like, proved the test of time and are, like, you know, still making albums and, like, moving hearts and minds. Jonathan Fireator is an important to start with. Okay, but let's start actually You know what I want to start with? I want to read two quotes from Carineau, if you don't mind. This is the first one. Do I think being a girl had anything to do with our outsider status as a band? I think it had everything to do with it.

This is the second one. We've always been coming from the position of being the underdog of the one female fronted outsider band. We came up when the strokes exploded. I remember playing a show with the strokes at Don Hills, and before we knew it, they were the band that saved rock and roll or whatever. Then we released Fever to Tell, and the white stripes released elephant at the same time.

We were like definitely always the underdog. And being the underdog is a great fucking position to be in, man. It's so good. For a little while I grapple with it, but I think that's why we're doing what we're doing. We're still around and people still care. It's like growing up not being incredibly good looking. If things don't come easily to you, you're always struggling,

you're always fighting. You never expect anyone to ever pay attention. It's such a through line in the AIAS as music and just career, this idea of being an underdog. And I don't want to say I don't want to get gender because it's impossible. It's impossible to not talk about gender, especially when you're talking about rock and roll, especially when like to this day in any scene, there's usually one band that has a female front person or women in it at all. And then they call it a girl band.

And then they call it a girl band. I will always remember, again, I was here in Southern California going to Cineaspace, you know, indulging in my own Indiesleys fantasies. But my best friend of the time was a girl named Rachel, who was half Korean, she was a musician. And I remember so starkly her being like, oh, fuck, well, I can't do it now. It wasn't, you know, like, it wasn't, oh, she's doing it so I can do it. That's not how people felt, you know. It was like, there's only room for one. Not just one woman, one Korean-American woman, you know, like.

And I thought that was so interesting. And it kind of is still true. It's like people talk a lot about like breaking down barriers, but like they still kind of only let you have one. Yeah. I mean, I remember like at the time, you know, when I was early days at Rolling Stone and covering like industry stuff and that sort of reporting. And it was like the PDs at the program directors at K Rock and stuff like that, like being quoted as acknowledging that once they had filled the. slot with your hole or your garbage or whatever, done. That's it.

Because they believed, and maybe they focused grouped it, and maybe it was true, that people would change the channel if they heard more than one woman. And this is just a quick sidebar to say that I get sometimes occasionally randos who hit me up because they hear me on Sirius XM. and they will complain men that I play too many female artists or they have some spin on it. And let me just say, we all play the same stuff all day. That's the way radio. It's programmed.

That's the way radio actually works. But because I am a woman speaking with a woman's voice, it is perceived that I am just like, ladies only. They're drowned in vagina and they can't. And so, and this is still in, you know, 20, 30 years later. So that must have been true, it's disturbing to think that that recently, that it was just like, oh yeah, listeners be like, another lady, get it. Yeah, changing the channel, man. What is this?

Okay, we're actually going to start our story with Nick Zinner. I get by you guys, we're not expecting that, but our story starts with Nick Zinner. We're going in age order. Well, yeah, I feel like because he was actually kind of the one making music first was immersed in the New York scene. He is a Sagittarius from Sharon Massachusetts, question mark. Couldn't actually get a full read on this, but Nixon or if you're listening, I did run into a Matthiasage show and told him that we were doing this episode. And he was like, uh-oh, and I was like, no, oh, it was great. We're going to celebrate you.

He grew up super into metal, is what I read. Slayer, Testament, and also once got thrown out of a Guns and Roses show because he was taping it. And he just grew up playing guitar and making four tracks of himself playing, McMars solos and stuff. Fucking cool. Went to Bard College to study photography, played in a band called the Boba Fett Experience, which later changed their name to Challenge of the Future. Did you ever see Challenge of the Future Play?

I don't believe so. Okay. So this is kind of the band. This is from the Bard Makes Noise website, which is a website about bands that went to Bard College. The five members originally met while attending Bard College in the early 1990s. Discovering a shared love of bands such as the fall, Can, Spaceman 3, and the birthday party.

They formed a group in 1993. So that's where Nick Senner's vibe was coming. And they were like, we're going to go to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and make it, babe. This is back when people did not move to William's. Brooklyn, I just want to point out. Even when I moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2004, it was like crickets. Nothing was happening. New York muffin, that sea town.

I'm trying to think of anything else. Mini market. I used to get cool clothes there. It's about all that was happening on Bedford Avenue. They broke up in 2001, which is a little, our time lens, a little iffy. But in 2000, while I believe that band was still happening, Nick Zinner met Karen O at Mars Bar. Did you go to Mars Bar a lot?

I tried not to. Why? What was the vibe at Mars Bar? Danger. A little bit of danger. But, you know, hey, it's indie sleaze. So, you know? It was, it was on the sleazier side of the options.

Of the spectrum of places you go to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's also cokeys. I mean, there's a lot that stayed until I was there. that you're like, are you like at sleazy, honey, lit? Right. Lit is a place where God does not exist.

I just want you to know that is a godless area. And then the dark room. The dark room. But yeah, lit came along as ever so slightly later. Mars Bar was there, I don't know. It was there when I started, you know, in the 90s when I started going into the East Village and, you know, not to go dark. But it's like, oh, I heard stories about that people having, you know, getting jumped outside.

You know, like, it was a little bit on the, like, sort of, careful at careful leaving Mars bar. Sure, no one's following you, leaving Mars bar. Like, that was sort of as a more, like, innocent, you know, I was just like, oh, God. And places like brownies were more kind of my orbit. But, you know, Nick Zinner, like, he was a seamster. Right. He was around. And I remember when I first heard about yeah, yeah, yeah,

maybe before I first saw them. And it was like, I don't even, I knew Nick's name was Nick because it was sort of like, in the scene, it was like, oh, yeah, that guy, Nick who like looks like Nick Cave. Totally, mini Nick Cave. Mini Nick Cave, yeah. And so it's like, ooh, I don't know that guy, but that guy is cool.

I know he you're talking about, oh, it's his band. So he was the one person I knew of him from the scene. when yeah, yeah, started playing. There was some great quote. Let me see if I can find it. Oh, from Mark Spitz. Okay, it's from Meet Me in the Bathroom. Thank you to Lizzie Goodman,

heavily relying on Meet Me in the Bathroom for this. He said around 97-98, there would be these parties in Brooklyn where it'd be artists living in full warehouse floors so you could have a whole band coming in play. And I can't tell you how many parties I went to where there was a keg, the Missy Elliott record playing, and then a shitty band with a lead singer with a beard.

The guitar player, those shitty bands always seemed to be Nick Sinner. So again, he was really, he was in the scene. He was around, but he always had, you know, he's always had this just beautiful, pure vibe that he has now where he, you know,

you rarely saw him speaking, you know? Like, and we weren't friends then, but it's like he had this aura of silence to him that was very like impressive. Right. You know. Mysterious and alluring. And he is, as we were saying, he's like

ageless and timeless. And he just has this beautiful, like he comes from someplace else. Just ethereal, incredible cheekbones. Good job, Exeter, whatever your skincare you're doing is working. Okay, so let's do a Karen O now, sidebar. Karen Lee or Zolic, born November 22nd, 1978, cusp of Scorpio and Sagittarius. So that makes a little scorp. There's a lot of sense.

Yeah, yeah. But also it makes a lot of sense, which we'll get into a lot with her sort of dual personality. Maybe not a dual personality, but her persona versus her personality that you see a lot with the stage, Karen, and then the, you know, lived experience, Karen. She was born in Seoul, Korea, the daughter of a Korean mother and a Polish American father. Her dad owned a clothing and jewelry manufacturing company, and her mom was a fashion trend consultant, why she's so fashionable, raised in England, New Jersey. She talked to Nylon in 2009 about how she was a little bit ostracized for her ethnicity. She said, if we were playing spin the bottle, all the boys would be pretty bummed to kiss the Haffee.

But as you grow up, you start to realize what an asset it is to have that as a part of you. It shapes you. There's also really great if you guys are interested conversation with her and Michelle's honor of Japanese breakfast that they did, I think, for Rolling Stone. to say Rolling Stone. That sounds right. Yeah, podcast, which is great, where they kind of bond about their experiences growing up, half Korean in America. She said her dad put her on to amazing music. She didn't say what, but I'm assuming, I'm just going to go ahead and assume there was probably a lot of, like, great Leslie Gore and, like, Duwop, because she is super into that, which we will talk about when we get into the music. She said she wrote her first song at age nine on the

piano. It was a corny girl group, duop, love song. I'm paraphrasing what she said. She also said she had like a best friend who was like, this is amazing. This is incredible. This is Mozart. And she was like, oh, my God, thank you. Like gave her the strength to keep going. I wish all of us to have a friend like that from the beginning. She also said the first record she bought was by the Doors.

Strange days, but when people are strange on it. It's so interesting. Have you done a Doors Band Splinter? Sure have. I'm a Doors truther. Okay, yeah. Because the strokes, too. Not for you?

I mean, it just was one. of those like The Dead where I just didn't, it just didn't as like little indie punk rock age that I happened to be. It was just sort of like not cool to like The Doors. And so I think I think you had to be a slightly bit younger than me to be like to give them a fair shot and I've never gone back around to be like, let's do it. The thing about The Doors, and I've said this on this podcast a million times and I'll say it a million more times, they were like kind of one of the earliest punk bands. Yeah.

Which I think is, like, really overlooked about them. And I don't think that's probably why the strokes like them. I think Julian is, like, such like a musical, you know, like, I picture him like a beautiful mind with the, or the meme with the lady who's like doing, like, that's how his music mind works. But, like, for a lot of other people, like, the posturing and the vibe of Jim Morrison was very punk. I mean, he inspired Iggy Pop, you know, to start making music.

Like, what's more, you know, punk than Iggy Pop? So, anyways, that's my door's. sidebar, but she also loved Carano Michael Jackson. It comes up a bunch of times. She was very inspired by Michael Jackson, which makes a lot of sense to me in terms of like, again, the flamboyance, the performance, the glove. She always wore that one glove. She said when I was young, it was more appropriate for girls to imitate Madonna, but I always wanted to be Michael Jackson. This episode of Bansplain is presented by Sierra Nevada. Life's about embracing the haze.

What does that mean? Living in the moment. Seeing where the night takes you. Being up for the adventure. And there's no better way to embrace it than with Hazy Little Thing by Sierra Nevada. Hazy, citrusy, smooth. Juicy but not sweet. Hoppy but not bitter.

America's best-selling Hazy IPA for good reason. Hazy Little Thing. Enjoy responsibly. she did sketch comedy in high school, which I thought was kind of cool. She said that it helped her pick up a sense of physicality. Okay. So I was like, oh, that makes a lot of, I mean, because she is such, like, an incredibly embodied performer. Definitely.

But she's quite shy, is that interesting, too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess taking sketch comedies will help you sort of break a little out of your shyness, right? It's got to because it's like there's nothing more. As someone who did sketch comedy and stand-up comedy, there's truly nothing more humiliating than standing on a stage and trying to be funny and trying to be like, please like me, you know?

Did you ever do stand-up comedy? I have not. Not yet. It's never too late, babe. You know what? It's never too late. You're young still. And then she got really into music, lots of bands that she lists. But one very important one, which we already just talked about,

was Jonathan Fireator. Yeah. Her friend took her to a concert, and she said about them, those guys had so much fucking Hutzpah sex appeal. They're kind of scrappy, skinny, effeminate dudes, but just so fucking sexual, just primal sex oozing out of their pores. It was fucking awesome.

And I associate that also. Like, when I think about indie sleighs, and I think about the New York of it all, I'm like, yeah, New York bands should be sexy, you know? Like, it's not Seattle, you know? It's not, like, the doldrums of rain and, like, it's such a different vibe. Like I love that idea of that kind of coming back into the water with these New York bands.

Karen also said she would go see the makeup and PJ Harvey. Oh yeah, the makeup. Yeah, that's pretty true. Yeah. Savonius, yeah. Savonius is how you say that. There's so much PJ Harvey for me and Carano. Do you feel that too?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And not just in Carano. In the, yeah, yeah. I hear a lot of it in the music as well, even though, obviously, PJ Harvey's had like multiple eras of types of music. But when I listen to a fever to tell,

I can hear quite a bit of PJ Harvey in there. Yeah. It's interesting, too, how much of the cure is in all of those. I mean, if you're just limiting it to the strokes, Interpol and yeah, yeah, yeah's, like over time, not in the more primordial, visceral earlier music, not so much, but if you think about the music they've made in more recent years heavy, I mean, yeah, yeah, as heavy cure sounds.

And the strokes, of course, you know, on the new abnormal and stuff like that. Like, yeah. I think the cure is one of the greatest bands that's ever existed, and every band today walks in their footsteps. And weirdly underrated somehow. Somehow, even though, like, so massive, but still somehow a little bit overrated. I mean, underrated. She goes to Oberlin College.

famously also Liz Ferrer went there. Then they both have great music careers from it. She said that they had a winter term, which is two months where you're supposed to take off because it's winter in Ohio is apparently just like miserable and you shouldn't even go outside. And so she decided to learn to play guitar. And she

said, a buddy of mine introduced me to Neil Young, who I have to say was extremely influential. He's got that super unconventional voice, but so much feeling so much heart. His voice and Jeff Mangum's from Neutral Milk Hotel, they were the two who got me thinking I could be a singer. I wanted to sing my heart out like those guys.

I loved that. I had never heard her say that. I'm a huge neutral milk hotel fan. And then I was like, oh, that makes so much chance. Because he does have such an unconventional voice. I also like that she did this because another hill that I love to go ahead and lay my corpse on is that they let men do that. They let men have unconventional singing voices.

But like women often are not given quite as much. grace around that. Yeah. And I love that Karen was like, I did it. I can fucking do it. Yeah. It's also interesting

when people who have like a genuinely beautiful singing voice regard themselves as having had like to work on it or something like that. And you're like, well, but you have the voice of an angel. Yeah. But I do.

I mean, I think I love Karen O's voice, but I see what she's saying. It's like a little, I don't know how to describe it, how I hear it to my ears. is like it's a little girlish and scratchy and like a little bit, yeah, it just has a lot of personality in it. She's not Ariana Grande.

Yeah. And there's this sort of flattening thing that when you mention Jeff Mangum, because obviously the Neil Young falsetto thing, we hear that. But like the thing she does when she's being more, when she's letting it rip a little bit more, or what Hamilton-Linehaser calls letting the dogs out. Like that. Who? Who? Like that. Okay. Exactly. When she, and it's the, it's the sort of the more funny comic voice that she does that's a little bit like, squit. It's like, I don't know if you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. It's sort of like things get kind of squished down in this way that's really like signature. Like a little compressed. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. I love when she screams. I love it. Because it is, it's so unique. Like we were talking about Courtney Love earlier. Like, that's a different scream. You know, even PJ Harvey Harvey. That's a different scream. You know. Even PJ Harvey, that's a different screen. Like, hers is like, you can absolutely pick it out of a lineup, an audio lineup. She said, the first song I ever learned on guitar was by Mazzie Star. Hell yeah.

As soon as I learned to play a little guitar, I started writing music. I didn't really care about really knowing how to play. I know pretty much as much now about playing guitar as I knew then. I'm dead serious. It's slightly embarrassing. From the four lessons I took when I was 18 years old, I've been able to write hundreds of songs. You don't need to know much to write a good song. It's not too late for us, Johnny.

No. if you've got the music in you, you know. She said then later she played some songs she wrote at a party and people were crying. And she was like, I didn't like it at Oberlin. So I moved to New York. I don't know if those two statements are related. They came one after another. I like to imagine that she was like, fuck this.

Yeah, I just remember after seeing Yayas play and then hearing that when she and Nick started playing together, that it was fokey, like cat power. sounding stuff. And I couldn't picture until I started to hear some of the slight, ever so slightly later, yeah, yeah stuff. I couldn't really picture it. And I was just like, oh, like Neil Young, Cat Power, Fokie Vots. I was like, wow, okay. Did you ever, did you not turn ever play out? That I couldn't get to the bottom of. Not that I noticed or not that caught my attention. I think it was, if I understand correctly, it was like, Karen and Nick met at Morris Bar. They, oh, I like this. I was like.

And they started playing together and they were doing that kind of a sounding thing initially. And I don't know if they, and they wrote the song now known as Our Time as a Unitarred song that I assume had a more cat powery fokey incarnation. But I don't know if they played shows in New York at all. I couldn't find any information about it. I know she was doing open mics at Sidewalk Cafe by herself pre-unitard. Yeah, that was a whole, I mean, that anti-exam. folk scene. That was a whole other. That's like the moldy peaches of it all. Yeah. Exactly. Um, is that I'm gonna be still there? I like really vividly can picture it in my mind.

It was until recently, but so I don't know if it still is. As an expat of New York. The idea of being really shy and then taking your guitar to Sidewalk Cafe, I mean like, I'm gonna play some songs. I would die. I feel like it was pretty low stakes, you know. It's like open mic, you know, still I would probably pass away. She also said, so she was enrolled in NYU, she was a film student, and every Sunday night, her and her friend, quote, a rockabilly Korean girl who only watched French New Wave films. Sounds like one of the coolest people alive. Yeah. Would go to shout, which was, did you go there?

Yeah. A mod dance party at Mar 13. Oh, yeah. What kind of music did they play? The jam and stuff? The jam and like, you know. The who? I don't want to say like 96 tears.

Right, right. Sure. That's not so fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting too because it, and, you know, it's like, because there was also the Smith's night at par 13 and there was a night at Vaughn and there was like. We had them, you know, I think about a lot actually that does that even exist anymore?

Because like when I was here as even like a pre-of-eat. age person, we had like Tiger Beat and these like 18 plus club nights that were like themed around a genre of music like we're talking about. Does that still happen? Yeah. They do. I mean, they do. It's Zebulon. They do a new wave dance party. Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So it's like, you know, it's like when you think about it. Shout out Shannon Corna. I think she did DJs at that. Yeah, that's true. I'm just like 44 years old. Exactly. I don't know what's kind of like where you're like, oh, this is what the version of wanting to hear 60s, you know, psych rock thing. You wave, damn, Friday sounds so fun.

I want to go. Right? I know. Sometimes I'll be to show at Zabulon that's like an early show because they're like going to clear out the olds and bring in the kids who want to hear New Wave. Yeah. I love New Wave, but I'm just, it's a different thing. But yeah, there were those sort of cooler more like retro garage rock kind of nights that then kind of pivoted into what was the Tiz was and the motherfucker. Sure.

And eventually your miss shapes and that kind of thing. Shout out Justine D, one of the coolest women to ever exist and still being extremely cool and gorgeous. I thought she hung the moon when I was living in New York. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Justine and I just went to Just Like Heaven Fest together. I saw your photos on Instagram. I was so jealous.

It was not in town. I was at Just Like Heaven, The Cure Show in Edinburgh. So I was having my own version of Just Like Heaven. Amazing. But yeah, I would have loved to see Justine. She probably doesn't remember who I am. I haven't seen her in 20 years, but... Well, it was funny because we met...

I was going to that kind of shit and stuff, but I hadn't met Justine, and I went to the UK with the Strokes in summer of 2001, writing about them for Rolling Stone and stuff, and they were playing at Reading and Leeds and Glasgow, and we were in, like, the VIP, like, at Reading. And I had bought, while I was in London, I had bought a small faces t-shirt.

Oh, yeah. And Ogden's Not Gone Flake. and I was introduced to this table of people. Justine was sat at and she was like, ooh, cool small faces shirt. Oh, you hadn't met her before that? I hadn't met her before that. And she was like, ooh, cool small faces shirt. And I was like, thanks.

And she's like, wait, you're not English. Where are you from? And I was like, I'm from Queens. And she's like, I'm from Queens. And we've been sisters ever since. So we celebrated our 25-year friend-aversary seeing this reunited for the strokes. I have been in Pasadena, California. Two girls from Queens.

That's really touching. Well, I don't know if Justine D. was at Shout at this mod dance party, but Carineau and her Korean friend who only watches French New A films were. And apparently she was like, I needed to do this persona there. She said, I'd have like seven cosmopolitans and be doing knee slides on the dance floor. Like she was like kind of honing or crafting. crafting sounds like an artifice letting the dogs out

of this side of her that hadn't really had the chance to breathe you know also that was really cute she said the first day she ever did her open mic at sidewalk cafe she was 21 and she said she was wearing a polka dot black and white dress that

she got at a thrift store and that day she got a tattoo because she wanted to commemorate the beginning of like her doing music and she was like really non-committal so she was like I'm getting a tattoo and it was of a beat on her shoulder. Oh.

Very sweet. Nick said, I felt the chemistry from the very first time we ever played music together. We were just hanging out in her old apartment above Odessa. I lived in Williamsburg and an illegal loft with ten other people. That's a cliche at this point I know. She was playing songs she'd written on acoustic guitar for me, and I was like, those are rad. Let me record them and play on them. I immediately knew I would be making music and be somehow involved with her for a while.

I felt it. Just whoosh, immediate connection. So we did this Unitar project. we don't know what it sounds like, but we can guess from our time. Right. Also, a lot of other, I'm, the YAs have like inside you, there are two wolves, and it's like the freak out amazing, more like electro-clashy disco-y. And then they have these like really beautiful, honestly kind of elevated doo-op songs. To me, that's, to my ear, like, that's what they sound like.

They're these girl group love songs, you know, but sort of brought to a different level with Nick's guitar and stuff. And so I'm like, oh, maybe that's sort of what those early songs sounded like, but stripped down, you know? We don't know. What we do know is that Nick Zinner said, New York, when I moved here, was awful because everyone was so serious and cool and into heroin. All the bands were dark and serious. We had our dark band, Unitar was super dark. But that lightness, that silliness was inside of us. And Karen was an expert in bringing it out and embodying it.

We really needed that and New York needed it too. Karen said, I was all about getting free and causing trouble. All I wanted to do was cause trouble. Like, if I had a night where I didn't cause trouble, I'd be really disappointed in myself. I lived for it. I love that. New York was fun. It was.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it is still now, too. It was just, again, it's so weird in retrospect when you think about, like, how time feels and now to think about, like, okay, so, I mean, late 2000 is when the strokes, did their Mercury Lounge residency. December of 2000 is when the strokes did their Mercury Lounge residency. That was how I first saw them. Brought the house, brought them all the attention.

Exactly. Less than one year later is 9-11. Insane. You know, 10 months later, and then everyone was real sad. So then it was like, it wasn't fun. It was fun, but it was fun. It was distracting yourself from fear

and trauma. in this way that, you know, obviously if you're like in your 20s or something, like, you're, you know, there's a little of that energy anyway where you're just, everything feels sort of dramatic and- Totally. You get fucked up to kind of just like cope with the angst of being 21 years old. Exactly. But the added layer of the horrors. When I think about it, sometimes I forget.

And then when I remember like, oh, yeah, from 9-11 on, we were all so traumatized. that it's impossible to separate, like, those choices for trying to go somewhere else and trying to distract yourself. And, you know, I remember the phrase that came up at the time was disaster sex, which was just sort of like, oh, after a disaster, you know, you have sex to distract yourself, which is different from disaster sex, obviously. Of course. And then there's disasterbation for those who don't have a partner. Of course. You want to be inclusive. Well, we're not at 9-11 yet, so we'll talk about the freedom prior.

So you mentioned earlier that you went to some of the earliest yay-a-as shows. So I guess what happened is at some point, Nick says that Karen turned to him and was like, we got to make a rock band. And he was like, ugh, why? This is cool, Unitar. And she was like, no, dude, trust me, dude. He said that she always said, dude, like every two. which as a woman of vocal fry experience, I absolutely relate.

Except I parlayed dude into bed. So she said, you know, let's do it. Come on. This is what I got to do. And he said, okay, and we started telling everyone, we're going to start a rock band. It's going to be fucking awesome. And so I guess they wrote a couple songs. They drank brass monkeys.

And in two hours, they wrote four songs. The first song they ever wrote was bang. and they were just like, you know, still at the bars being like, we got this cool rock band. And the name, they were at a bar and they heard, it's just someone saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, and they were like, mm-hmm, that's the name of our band. And then they bragged about it so much that someone was like,

okay, you open for the white stripes at Mercury Lounge, which in fairness, that wasn't like a very scary thing, right? Because the white stripes were not a known quantity at this time. but it was still a real show. Were you at that show by any chance? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw Yeya-Yaz was at Warsaw. Okay.

Down the line, there's a bigger Yeah-Yah-Yaz show where they headlined and TV on the radio opened for them. But they were, I want to say, first of three or something. And I don't, I truly, they erased my memory of anything that came after them. It was just, just phenomenal. It was, it actually made me happy, it made me smile. It made me feel better. It's like, I'm assuming it must have been post 9-11.

It must have been, or it could have been that summer right before, but it was just like Karen doing the thing, you know, pouring the beer all over. And she was just laughing. She was cracking herself up. I hadn't seen anything that was that much fun. Joyous and free. Yeah, I don't think I'd ever seen a young band.

And that was that much fun before that. That's so cool. Well, this show with the Whitestress was September 2000. And I think they were like first of four or something. And they didn't have a drummer. So Karen was like, well, I have a friend. I went to Oberlin with his name is Brian Chase. He'll a drum for us.

And he was like, okay. And they had one rehearsal. And then they went ahead and played this show. Nick Zinner said no one was there. one English guy and some of their friends. And the whitesripe stayed at Cairns afterwards. And then they started playing some shows and they made the demo, the Master EP. Now, you were working at this time.

I was at Rolling Stone. You were at Rolling Stone. I read that this Master EP, which was, again, not commercially released. It was just made to get them shows, started really making the fucking rounds. Did it get into your hands at Rolling Stone? Yeah, yeah. And now that I'm thinking about it again, the show. The Warsaw show would have been summer of 2001 because it was the night before the mermaid parade in Coney Island.

Right. So it would have been like July or something. So, I mean, yeah, they really, they had Brian on drums. That was the whole thing was, you know, they had been playing a little bit. I think the EP came around to me after I had seen them play. Right. Within a matter of days, weeks, you know. And it's actually my editor, Joe Levy, shout out.

Shout out. He's quoted in my doc. We'll hear from him. I believe it was, he called me into his office and he showed me the EP, I think. Somehow, someone had sent it to her and he was like, have you heard this band? And I was relieved to be able to say, I have. They're amazing. You're like, I'm on it.

I'm doing my job. It's called the Master AP, you guys, because it's just like a close-up shot of like Karen from lips down. And she was wearing this, like, sick, so fucking early 2000s thing, which is like this big nameplate necklace with like, like, Ryan Stones that says Master in all caps. So, like, such a fucking cool. I know they should have made merch of it. Maybe they did, actually.

So, yeah, so you were like, I know that band. So I was just like, yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I said they're great. I saw them at war, saw they're amazing. And luckily because at that point, the strokes, as much as as Yeyaz

might have been under dogs relatively the strokes had cracked it open just enough in mainstream media

for people's antenna to be up to not want to be too late on the next thing right because the strokes had proven

like oh shit like we we kind of heard about this and then like it was a thing yeah they were they were

like buzzworthy enough that it was you had to cover them you know or be seen as being

out of the loop and so when Yeya Yaz came along it was like there was and I was just really lucky

to be in the position I was in. Having gotten it right with the strokes, I had, it was like, I had built a trust that I was like, okay, I'd written about the white stripes and it was so it was like, okay. I like how you were being so humble. Jenny Elliskew really flew the flag of the strokes.

I feel like you helped a lot getting them the buzz that they had. Thank you. It was going to happen. You know, it's one of those where it's just like it was going to happen. Right, right. It was going to happen.

There was no stopping something like that. But right place, right time. That's important choice of words on. Being insistent enough that. Yeah. And pushing past people of an older generation being like, oh, you really, like I remember Joe would say like, oh, you really wish you had gotten to see the jam, don't you? When I would be barking about the strokes. And you're like, it's not this is new.

It's no. I'm not just reciting. You know, I was like trying to push through a little bit of the older guard, trying to dismiss. this new stuff as just being a poor facsimile of something older. And now I'm the person who has to remind myself when I'm being momentarily dismissive of some young thing that I'm just like, oh, it's no my bloody Valentine. Just be like, okay, let the kids have their. Listen, we've been reheating nachos since the dawn of time. That's part of the continuum of rock music.

And that's fine. It's baked in. Like, as Jim Jarmor said, it's not where you take it from. It's where you take it to, you know? We want to hear that. We want to hear a bit of the DNA of, you know, the earliest rock, you know, little Richard carried on through. That's what makes rock music cool. Yeah.

And then it just goes in all these, like, insane directions. Okay. So Master E.P. is floating around, you guys. Rob Sheffield said, where was Rob Sheffield writing up this time? At Rolling Stone. Yeah, he was there. He was into it. He was there.

Yeah, he said the AAS EP was really hard to find and should have been hard to find. and should have been hard to find because it sounded like crap. Nick once told me that it was on a cassette and he put it, he put his jeans in the laundry. So the tape went through the laundry and that's what they mastered it from. I was like, you know what, dude, I believe you. It sounds like it was recorded in a dumpster. The one we hear now is remastered, so I don't know if I could hear it the way it was originally heard, maybe on YouTube or something. Importantly, it got two places.

Well, besides Rolling Stone. It got into the hands of Asif Ahmed. Am I pronouncing his name, right? Asif, Asif, yeah. into hands of Asif Ahmed by the bartender at Odessa He said, people kept giving it to me At one point I found myself with nine copies

Of this fucking thing in my apartment I finally played it one night. Our time came on and I was like, fuck, this is a great song. My friend Rachel suggested I managed them. I'm like, I don't know. Brian looks like Eddie Munster. The other guy looks like Eugene Levy

and they're all really pretentious. Asap is a hilarious, one of the funniest roasters. He's a great roaster. And meet me in the bathroom. You can tell this person gave absolutely not one single solitary fuck. He was like, I'm just going to tell you what I think.

Here it is. And it made me laugh a lot. But he does become their manager. The demo also made its way. This is where I got like a real Bernstein-Barre's situation, but maybe you can help me. So the demo made its way to the vice offices and to search Alvey's hands, one of the founders of vice, who booked them for the vice five-year anniversary party at Spa. I remember Spa.

Justine D who managed that night said they were paid $400. Now here's my problem. Vice was founded in 1994. This show was in 2000. But it's a five-year anniversary party. Sometimes it takes a while to get your shit together. Because there's just no date on this party,

so I was like, wasn't a 99, but they didn't exist in it. And it was okay, so it was 2000. Did you go to this show? Do you remember? Don't recall. No. Apparently it was the biggest show they had played to date because before that they were most people playing brownies, I think, and that one Mercury Lawn show.

And like Lux on Grand Street. I never went there. No. Is it tiny? It was tiny. Yeah. So yeah, they were playing really small shows, but then that was kind of a big show. And then that paired, I mean, Vice was Vice in 2000, bro.

Like, come on, no. That was the heyday. Oh, my God, do's and don'ts off the chain. I know there's like, you. with some problematic situations around vice, but at that point, it was fucking cool. Like, we would rush to grab the vice from the fucking outside of the American Apparel

wherever you picked up your vice. And you would be like, oh my God, like, what's in it? Also said that then they played a huge show at Brownies in December, and that's when it was like the hype had like hit the fan. And there was managers, labels, like everyone trying to sign them. That may be the show for which you see. in the basement. We have to, we'll have to flash them.

Jenny just found this video on YouTube that's just like really funny handheld footage of backstage at our Brownie's show at the AIAs where Jenny is a gorgeous smiling faces there talking to Karen O and you see like everyone just kind of milling about and it's like so early on. It's very cool. Yeah. Well, do you know when? Because obviously touch and go ended up releasing.

Not until 2001. Not until 2001. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get like a formal release until 2001. So your old boss, Joe Levy, your old editor, said, I saw them three times at Brownies in that period, and they were three of the best shows I've ever seen.

Thanks to Jenny Ellis Q, telling you to go see them. All the things people talk about when they talk about Yayaas were there. Karen O grabbing three beers in her fist, drinking one and pouring the other two over herself and over the mic stand. You know all this unhinged, deeply hilarious, completely spontaneous behavior. At the first show was all girls in the front. They were all her friends.

They were giving her drinks. and there was a sense that there was something happening here and involved girls, all in on a secret that nobody else understood, which was completely exhilarating. Because 99.99% of the shows you go to, you're lucky if there's a single girl there, let alone the sense that girls are not just participating, but in control. I love that. Yeah, that's interesting. I had forgotten that, but totally true that, yeah, there was this. There was this. Like Karen gang.

And also, yeah, just the idea that Karen doing her thing gave girls. permission to it's that it's that eliminating the male gaze thing totally well it's like I mean won't I if you're a girl at a show there's a presumption like oh you're there because you're from the band's hot you want to fuck the band you know like and it's like that's kind of taken off the table again obviously there are gay people but like you know in a broader sense like okay like maybe you're just there to fucking have fun yeah and even just available to you even just like Erin doing that persona, it wasn't, it was, it didn't feel like something done for the male gaze, you know? It felt like, it felt like, you know, the way now people talk about like girlhood, you know, the memes about like girlhood.

It's like that sort of like girlhood, pure girlhood minus male gaze, even though there's like a sexiness to it. It's funny because I, like, was rereading the Rolling Stone piece I did on Ye'A. Yes. And there was this quote from Karen about how people at the time would be like, she's over sex. She's – and I didn't remember it. I don't remember that being a point of conversation because I guess in retrospect, I don't really think about – even listening to the music now, like, I don't really think about it as being like about sex or something. Although there were some pretty explicitly about sex songs. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, but I guess it did feel like there was a certain element of freedom from heteronormative bullshit. Right. You know? Yeah. Well, I was my pink pussy hatch back on my head. But I was like, yeah, like to like elaborate maybe from what I'm hearing from your point is like there was a lot of ugliness in a cool way, right? Like Karen O wasn't afraid to be ugly. Like it's not beautiful and sexy to pour beer on.

your foot head, you know? Some of those costumes were in war crimes. And she'll say it. She's like, oh, Christian, do I would make my costumes and she would try to make the ugliest thing possible. And I would like cry because I had to wear it. But I would just fucking wear it because it was like it was like an experiment. It was like an art project. Like what can like where can we push these boundaries? So it's like, yeah, in a sense it was like sexual. But in another sense it was like she wasn't afraid to show all these ugly parts of her. And I talked to Cody Critchlow, who we will, who's the fucking greatest. coolest artist.

But he did all of their first, all their first artwork and merch and stuff around the first album. And he was like, yeah, I remember it was so cool. Like, we would like go through photos and she would pick the ones where she looked the most busted. And I'm like, oh, it's so rad, you know? Like, it's such like, I don't think we see that that much anymore, you know? And I think part of it is because, like, we live in a post-social media world.

So it's like the obsession with being attractive and hot as, like, kind of trumped everything else. And I'm not immune to it. No one's immune to it. I mean, maybe some people were immune to it. But back then, it's like you were being perceived within a physical space most of the time and less on a two-dimensional screen. Like, it was like, yeah, you'd be in a magazine or whatever.

But, like, that gave this freedom to have because there is something really hot about being unhinged and being free like that without it being like a typical sexual presentation. Yeah, totally. And yeah, of course, there's no overestimating the absence of phone filming, you know, like we had digital cameras, obviously, but like no one was filming with her phone, so that frees you up a bit. But it's like the sense of fun, the sense that she was laughing her ass off and she was like messing up and laughing. And, you know, there's some of that in the strokes, too. I remember the early stroke shows where you're like, like Julian would fall down and you would just be like, well, and there's a sense of like, you know, or the

Libertines, which obviously different thing, but where you're just like, oh, it's falling apart in front of your very eyes. And to see a woman doing that where she's just like laughing and having fun and not just, yeah, like you said, like just sort of like posing and like contemplating how she looks all the time. It was so great. It was so rare, you know. I mean, it was a lot props to Kathleen Hannah. Totally. I mean, there, obviously there are, um, there. there are precedents for this. And PJ Harvey, like, when PJ Harvey went through her, like, drag era, like, that wasn't beautiful.

Right. You know, like, it's definitely, like, generationally, like, I did get see Bikini Kill at Mercury Lounge, and that was a similar thing. And there was very, like, girls to the front, boys were going to, you know, like, get out here. And Kathleen Hanna doing her thing, and it was fun and rebellious. So I guess that would be the one other thing that I personally was the right age to have seen before I saw Ye'AAS.

but in that vein of where you're just like, oh, thank God, we're having, we're just having fun. We're having the time. Yeah. And I think a lot of what I read was that Karen O was like, we didn't take it seriously. Like this was, it was just for fun. Like they had no aspirations to make it, you know, like in that beginning. They were just like, we're just like, it's a fun project to do something. I want to talk a little bit about that persona, though, like that, what we're talking about,

this expression of the Karen O onstage persona. So in early 2003, she did this interview and she was like, when I started piecing together the persona of Karen O, I was trying to do it in the most, let's see how much I can get away with. And let's put something out there that's basically untouchable and a parody of itself. So people can't take it that seriously. But everyone took it really seriously and have been taking it very seriously. It's been this inner conflict. It changes the nature of the way I conceived it, my persona, in the beginning, to be really lighthearted and punk rock and party. about it. And then everyone takes it with a lot of weight and it's a conflict because it's like,

should I be taking this more seriously? And I don't think I could exist if I took it more seriously. There's so much in there that I'm like so fascinated by it. It's like the idea of protecting yourself by making something that you're like, this is so silly and crazy that you, it's not me. You know, you can't take it seriously. It's so interesting. Like because that goes back to like her being shy. And then also she said it, and I think out a lot, like, the Yayas were kind of the most punk out of all of these bands. You know, the spirit was so punk. And you don't, I don't know, like, not that the strokes weren't, but they kind of weren't, you know. And like, Interpol, not really.

You know, like, maybe TV on the radio a little bit, but not even not really, you know, like. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that on that spectrum with this group of artists. Yeah. closest would be the white stripes, but the white stripes being a much more, very deliberate, very manicured, very the red and the white of it all. Yeah. But there's also the range of like what's art driven versus popularity, aspirational popularity driven, and the spectrum of that. where at one end of it you do have the strokes,

which was always this sort of like thing that was bound for a larger world. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, and the white stripes felt more like underground, you know, underground art music that didn't care if it got, it was happy to be indie, you know, it was perfectly happy to be indie. Yeah, I think that's totally right. Anyways, I love that.

I just, I guess as someone who like, I think a lot about persona because of the world we live in now, which is like, Karenow was like a role ahead of the game, but it's like we all, we are all now kind of floating personas because of social media and because of the internet. And it's like if you do a job like me or you, like that compounds it, you know, a million. Like there is a Yossi persona coming into your ears right now that is not necessarily me. It's not not me. You know, it's like kind of this like weird Venn diagram and hearing Karen talk about it as something that she sort of did both like intentionally but also because like she couldn't not it was like an exorcism almost

probably like it I really like I really like reading about it one more quote from your former editor Joe Levy but let me stress again that yes everyone had the sense that we were seeing something special but not important it was a fucking nobody rock man on Avenue A in New York City. There wasn't any chance it was going to turn out to be important. Did you feel that way?

No. No. You felt, you were like, oh yeah, this shit's going to pop. I don't know if I thought it was going to become kind of like mainstream or anything at all.

You know, and I don't know that I felt that way about the strokes or the white stripes or anything. But I felt that it was important. And I think that comes from having had that like little interlude where it didn't feel like New York was contributing timeless indie rock to this era when it's like, oh, we got pavement, we got Dinosaur Jr., we got superchunk, we got archers of, you know, like from the mid-90s up through, and then this stuff

started to happen, and it felt like, no, these are canon, this is canon, so it felt important. I don't know if I at that point was like cared. I don't think I cared. You know? About, yeah. About what, you know, it just felt like, okay, well, I know the difference between something from the indie world that is now going to make a permanent mark on what this generation contributed, you know. Right. Did it feel at all like what had happened with like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and stuff was sort of like a flash in the pan is not the right word, but like a Haley's comment. Like, okay, that happened one time.

Like, it's, the indie is not going to break over again like that. I, for me, just because, again, of my personal trajectory, like, Nirvana, you know, when I heard Nirvana, they already had gone from subpop to Geff and DGC. And never mind was blowing up. And that's how I heard Nirvana. And then I went and listened to Bleach and the beginning of my, like, getting into discovering indie rock. And then I was working at CMJ, which was this like, you know, music publication for college radio, but also had this like South by Southwesty event every year. And I was in college at the time.

And so I was super deep into indie shit. But I was also aware of all of the records that were coming out. And what DGC was doing post-Nirvana, that they signed Sonic Youth, you know, that Warner Brothers signed the flaming lips and built a spill. Right. You know, and Doug March famously negotiated to have Warner Brothers give him health insurance for his family, which was like groundbreaking thing because it was like the moment when they were all, it was a feeding frenzy post-Nirvana. They were like, oh, you have a guitar? As a fan of Flaming Lips and Bill to Spill and these things, I was like, huh, the major labels feel like in the music is bankable. So what is, that must be real.

Yeah. But I guess it is kind of important to point out that, like, in the time error we're talking about, those, the dream of that had been a bit supplanted by, at least like in mainstream, like MTV and stuff, by rap rock. Right? Like, by the tail end of the 90s, it was corn and it was limb biscuit and it was slip gnaw. And it was like, that's kind of the next thing that had risen to the top. in terms of like mainstream rock. It wasn't built to spell. Yeah, but it was sort of like,

it felt sort of like this layer had been created. Right. That was like, maybe they thought at first, if you're DGC, for instance, you're like, we need our next nirvana or something. But in the meantime, what's already, what are the kids already like? Right.

They like soul asylum, right? They like Sonic Youth. They like the flaming lips who've been around for a long time. And so this other layer that wasn't. middle class. Yeah, this sort of other liar of like big indie, you know, because at that time, you had artists like, well, Jimmy at World was, had fully blown up and made so much money. Those artists were selling, you know, 60,000 copies, like, you know, a big indie artist would be

selling like 60,000 copies of a record, like a Slater Kinney or like an Elliott Smith or something. And it didn't cost them a lot of money to do or invest in. If they just got one, you know, they just hedge. If they just got one, it paid for all the rest of them. Totally. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right. Well, let's, why don't we talk about the Mastery EP? Because now in our timeline, let's say it's released so that we're in summer of 2001. Bang?

Just as a song. I mean, I just like, it really took me back to being like, oh, if I had, if this demo had made its way into my hands and I put it on, that's the first song I heard, I would have been like, yes. Correct. I will absolutely follow this band until the end of the earth. Yeah, it is kind of a perfect EP And I'm curious to hear if you think there are any tracks that are like a little bit sub But Because the fact that it

The fact that it starts the way it starts and ends the way it ends You're just like, well, did it? How did it start that strong and then get better? Yeah, as it went. Yeah. I think on my first listen I found our time to be like Didn't belong there Because it was so

Such a different speed. But then obviously it's like one of the first listen. of the best songs on there. But like the, like the first three songs, like how like it pummles you with like bang, mystery girl arts, I really love art star. The screaming. Yeah, I just, I guess miles away is maybe the one that I'm like not like over the moon about, but I still like it. Miles away, it sounds like it could be something on show your bones in a way. They were playing those songs all the time at their shows. So it's like, I think probably by the time I heard the recorded versions, I had seen them play it. So I knew all the songs.

Right. And Art Star was, I mean, live was the most incredible part of the set. I mean, Art Star and Art Time, those were the things you waited for, I feel like, you know? I mean, for me, it's like, as a fuck son, you sucked? Repeated over and over again as a chorus. She is my Hillary Clinton. You were my president. But yeah, I mean, amazing.

Art Time is such a good song. But that Art Time was like felt. really like the song, the most, it felt like medicine in a post-9-11 context. Totally. And that was where, I mean, I remember I would cry during that song, like, routinely AAS shows. It's also, like, what an incredible, Karen O is such a brilliant lyricist. And another thing I just honestly don't think she gets enough credit for.

Like, she has so many lyrics that make my, like, arm hair stand up. And, like, it's the year to be hated is so, a, just genius on its own, but so prescient. You know, like how that came to be true about this, about this band, about the world that they were in. Couldn't have known. And so glad that we made it. So glad that we made it. But also, obviously, it's crimson and clover. I mean, the song is crimson and clover.

But in a way where, as you say, the reheated nachos where it's just like, who fucking cares? I love nachos. Yeah. Rehate them as many times as you want, Ben. It's delicious. It's the year. So glad. Again, I just like listening to it.

I can absolutely see why people were like, I got to go check this band out. So touch and go put it out, like we said, in America, and then Wichita, my guy, Welshmark, always at the scene of the crime in the best way, put it out in the UK. And it was produced by Jerry Teal, I think in real time in the beginning,

who was the former guitarist of Boss Hog, back to the John Spencer Blues Explosion of it all. In January, we're now in 2002. So 9-11 has happened. The strokes played Saturday Night Live for the first time. And Albert Hammond Jr. were a YAA as been... Were you about that Saturday Night Day thing? I was not.

No. I think it's very cool that they were supporting their compatriots. Because the YAS had opened for the strokes at like Don Hills or something. So they had developed a relationship before the strokes had gotten signed and gotten so big. And Albert is of strokes the most likely to do that kind of a booster is something. But on another band. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So in January of 2002, the strokes were like really on their way up, right? Like, this is it comes out that summer? Well, Isis it got pushed back because of 9-11. Right. They had to take NYC cops off. And so it was supposed to come out that very same week and it got or the week later or something. And it got pushed back to sometime in October. But, I mean, it was, you know, it came out over the summer in the UK with the

original cover with the glove ass iconic. Such a better cover with respect to whoever did the other cover, who I don't know. So yeah, by early 2002, they were, you know, minted for that world that they were in. A lot of albums and artists that had sort of like shift gears around 9-11 because of, like, Jimmy 8 World. I think it's like one of the most famous examples. Well, also, New Year's Eve. So the strokes played at the Apollo on New Year's Eve, 2001 into 2002. guided by voices open, David Cross did stand up.

I was that, that was amazing. Incredible stuff. I mean, we'll say it for the strokes episode, but one of my favorite things about the strokes is how much they love guided by voices. Oh, yeah. It's like one of the coolest things about them as a me died in the wool, guided by voices, truther.

Okay, so in March, the AIS, this is a Ristold in 2002, do their first tour opening for girls against boys. I assume that was a touch-and-go situation. And they hired Dave Sytech as their, is that how you pronounce his last name? I think it's Svite. Sittek. I cannot pronounce one single thing. It's incredible that I have a job where I talk for a living.

Dave Sitech, Polish-American, was their driver and roadie, because I think maybe he had a van. I'm not really sure how they robed him into the situation. He says that he saw them play at their second ever show at Don Hills, and he said there was probably about 60 people there. Brian and Nick came out on stage and started playing for a while, and I was like, this is pretty wild. Then Karen came out in a gold lame one piece covered in olive oil and saying as if there were a million people there. We were just shocked. That sounds so cool. I wanted to see them at Don Hills when she comes out in a gold thing made one piece with olive oil on her. I know the olive oil thing was a level up of stagecraft.

You know what? Like, shine it up, babe. Get sticky and shiny. I love it. It's like one of those things where when you hear about like how they make like a Carl's Jr. ad, like, no promo, how they make. like the food stylists or whatever yeah you're like they spray it with whatever one time i made my own blood um for a Halloween costume so the blood that they make for movies i think this is they use the same recipe it's quite easy it's corn syrup red dye and chocolate syrup to give it that more of like a maroon

and i was carry and i thought it was a really good idea i just made a whole bucket of it and then dumped it on my head yum it's so uncomfortable like the idea that she performed like that Also, maybe she didn't have corn syrup, but I got bruises on my arms because my arms kept sticking to my sides and I'd have to like, k-k-them off. Jesus. So all I'm saying is I have a lot of respect for Karen O and her commitment to being uncomfortable on stage for the look. So they do that tour, and on that tour they play South by Southwest. Did you go to the South by Southwest as part of your job as of music? Again, I don't. I do not recall.

You're like, I've been down 148 South by Southwest's, and I couldn't tell you. They played, the AIS played La Zona Rosa, and it sounds like it was a overwhelmingly amazing show. They went backstage, I guess, Clinic had played doing that band. Yeah, they played with Clinic. Yeah, sure. They broke into their backstage and stole their masks, and they were wearing Clinics masks. Yeah, Clinic would wear a dress of, like, surgeons or whatever. And then from this, a myth was formed that I have done journalism,

been busted. But the myth was that Karen O, who liked, you know, she liked to have a few drinks. People said that she got wasted and pushed Courtney Love, who was backstage into the crafty table. Right, which, I mean, I guess Karen herself said that she had done that. But, you know, the drinks, I don't

remember that, but people said they did. That's what everyone says. She's like, clearly was like, I was blacked out, if you say so. Right. But I asked Courtney Love and she said, that didn't happen. So, I think this was just... What is memory? You know, it's a funny. It's a funny What really happened and didn't happen.

And let's not let that get in the way of a good story, you know? You're funny little good for nothing, you know. It's a great story. It could have also, by the way, been Christian Joy. It could have been someone else. They were wearing masks. We all looked the same. Yeah.

Everyone had a similar haircut. I never had the bowl cut, but again, we all, I had so many questionable haircuts. It was our time to be hated for our bad haircuts. Yep, yep. Janet from Three's Company, babe. That was my head of mullet. Like it was like, I would get my hair Uco-straightened and then go to a woman named Athena and Silver Lake who would just like do whatever she wanted. And I would just walk out of there with some like asymmetrical, just like craze.

I don't know if it was the same and probably not the same South by Southwest in question. But I do remember a South by Southwest around that time where I was like leaving like the Driscoll or some hotel in the middle of the day. And I saw this like a dude with curly hair and chucks. And I was like, look at fucking everyone dressed in like a stroke now. And it was a stroke. It was literally Albert. Either Fab or Albert, I remember, it's just like fucking, everybody's dressed in like a stroke now. I'm like, oh, it's an actual stroke.

I'm in the strokes. Me, I am. Okay, so they're blowing the fuck up is what I'm saying. People are the hype is real. Nick said we were all pretty freaked out by the vultures descending. We were the It Band or whatever, and there was so much crazy hype. It felt good, but it also felt super weird. Weirdo label people were calling me at home and on my cell phone.

And I was like, how did you get this number? Mistrust, defense is up. but I also recognize how fortunate we were to have this happen because that shit never really does. It's so funny, right? It's like really like damned if you do, damned if you don't. Like I'm sure so many bands listening to this right now are like, okay, well, I would have liked to play eight shows and then have a major label calling my personal cell phone, you know, because that's just such like not going to happen now. Like that is a thing of a fucking past. But like I can also see how that would have been like you started a band as a joke with your friend where you poured poured olive oil on your face.

And then next thing, like things are getting really serious, really fast, like probably felt really scary. And they're like, I mean, Karen's what, like 22 years old? Wow, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Nick's a bit older, but I think Karen was 22, you know? Imagine being 22 and this is all happening. Karen also said much later in 2013 that one of her best friends died, right, as all this craziness was happening. I don't know exactly when.

And she said I like really The band really got me through it Like people asked why I kept doing it Even though it was like really hard and and like intense And she said I was totally traumatized and devastated and lost And if I didn't have the AAS taking me around the world I wouldn't have made it

They tour with a John Sonsor Blues explosion Alongside the Liars Great band Well also they were just like Karen and Angus Were just the coolest downtown indie it couple What an amazing. What an amazing couple. And Angus is so tall

and it was just like, you know, they just looked super cool. Is Karen tall? No, but. She reads us tall. You know how some people read as different heights? But like, then in photos when you see her, you're like, oh, you're like Nick Zinner's height.

So you're obviously not that tall. Yeah. She's like average height, I guess. Yeah. Karen said that she remembered being in the audience at a blues explosion show when she was younger. And she said, I was just psychically trying to send them a message.

Just look at me. me, just look at me. If he even glanced over in my direction, I would be like, yes. So when I finally met them, like when John and Christina were in the same place where I was, I felt legit. Like, I'm legit because they're here. They were really quite the near a couple of the 90s. It's interesting, taking on the mantle, Karen and Angus. John Spencer said, we toured with them in Australia, which was interesting and a bit embarrassing. It was at that time, it was some of the last tours we did with a promoter that we worked with for several years. And they were just being wind and dine and courted by labels and definitely by this promoter.

And we were just sort of along for the ride, even though they were our support act. That's got to feel, that's got to feel interesting. They, of course, start getting popular in the UK because what is, God bless, because God bless. Because God bless, because what is more classic? What would we even do without the UK? To tell us what we're supposed to like. To tell us what we're supposed to like, to re-import our own things back to us with their stamp of approval because they care more about art and rock music than we ever will.

I thought this line from the observer in summer of 2002 is really interesting just to put us in like the time. For the first time since the high times of 1997 in urban hymns and okay computer credible guitar music is hot. The scuzzy garagy sound of the vines, the strokes, the hibes, the white stripes and the yeah-a-ya's is jolting vitality back into rock, but not one of them is British. He didn't mention the libertines. Maybe they hadn't quite. Yeah, that would have been a, they were a couple of years.

Yeah, and then obviously then the Arctic monkeys will come to save the day in terms of British rock music. Okay, so they put out their second EP in November of 2002, Machine. Good stuff, Machine, Graveyard and the Pin remix. This is also on touch and go. And by the end of 2002, they had signed a deal. Do you remember people chattering about them signing to a major? I don't, not for the first album, no. I mean, the only thing I, honestly, that I remember,

comes up in between albums one and two, and I can save that if you want to wait. Yes, please. Okay, so, Awesome said, we almost, actually the stories about them signing is really funny. He said, we almost signed to Warner, but then we did a meeting with Seymour Stein, and he fell asleep in the dinner meeting we had later that month.

And then Carad said something totally innocently about him falling to sleep. and it got printed in New York magazine. So I believe that didn't, that according to also, that tanked the Warner's deal. Sirushalvi of Vice said, they had a fucking lunatic manager. He was basically telling all the label bosses to fuck off. It was bad. Craig at Atlantic really wanted EIAs and their managers throwing drinks in his face,

calling him a major label, corporate evil piece of shit. Awesome. We love you, Asso. I loved this. Well, I bet it made the majors, like, want them more. It's like, oh, this is so cool. And also, I guess what Awesome says, they didn't want to sign to a major.

They really wanted to sign to an indie. So it was all like, who cares? And he was just like, LOL town with these like, you know, people whining and dying in them, which is really funny. Yeah. I mean, it's also funny just the Seymour Stein of it all

because of his obviously legendary history. And then then also just the Bell and Sebastian song, Seymour Stein, which is like, if you want to know about Seymour Stein's vibe when it came to trying to sign indie bands in the 90s and beyond, just listen to that song.

Yeah. I mean, Seymorstein fan in broadly, but then maybe not granularly, but I didn't know him. I don't just, he brought a lot of great music into this world. I'll say that. Again, Auxif says in Meet Me in the Bathroom that they really just wanted to sign or stay with touch and go in Wichita. But then they got their first royalty statement back from Wichita Records, and it was for $32.

And Alsav said he called them and was just laughing hysterically on the phone. And they were like, why are you laugh? What's so funny? And he was like, you got a real issue statement for $32. And then they started laughing. And he said, Karen was like, okay, we'll call you back. Maybe two hours later she called me. She wasn't laughing at this point.

All right, we're going to do the major. This is his story. But, I mean, yeah, it's important to make a living. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Some context would be, if just the touch and go side of it. Sure. You know, touch and go was one of the coolest indie labels of leading up to that era. and they kind of started to wind down

once you got into the 2000s a bit, but like it might not read to contemporary ears, but touch and go, like, coming out of the 90s was like one of the coolest labels you could possibly be on. Totally. And the kind of label, a subpop, you know, or a Barsook or any of these, where your royalty split was so much better, and unless there was a situation where there was some just major accounting,

going on, like, you would be getting. It was a royalty for an EP that had just come out. You know, it's like I'm sure it was. Yeah, it's the tradeoff of that kind of a decision, and it is a similar conundrum now, you know, even now, like, where you're just like, are you going to take an advance that you may never earn back? Right. Or are you going to maybe get a nice 50-50 royalty split

and make the kind of money that you can make if you're that one Postal Service album on Subpop. You know what I mean? Yeah, just carrying Sub-Pop on its back for, for the past whatever, several decades. It also, I think it's important, the AAS said, and I believe them, I believe, I love the AAS, that they were actually most motivated about

more people hearing their music, which is, it's true, right? Like, this is pre, we got to a point maybe a bit after this, maybe mid-2000s where you did have massive acts coming off of indie labels, right? Adele was signed to Excel. The Arctic monkeys are on Domino.

You know, like, it became a thing where it was these, I presume it was probably the democratization that happened because of the internet. But like, indie labels became more able to blow up artists and get them into people's ears. That wasn't a thing yet. And I think from what they were saying is like,

we just wanted more people to hear our songs. We wrote songs that we wanted to be generational. We wanted, like, teenagers to hear them. And, like, less teenagers were probably going to hear a touch and go release than an interscope release, which is who they ended up signing with. And if you're in the recent history of, as we were saying, like with Nirvana and seeing what can happen in a best case scenario, you know, that feels good. And this is also importantly, this is the consolidation of major labels that was going on already. at the time, but has now ground down to where there's basically one company, you know, it's sort of like one label.

I mean, not really, but there's three, you know, this is where there are so consistent. There wasn't quite, you had more options. If you were being courted, you had more options for- Interscope was cool as hell, man, like 9-inch nails were on InterSold. There was like so much cool stuff coming out. Wasn't no doubt on Interscope? Yeah, there was cool stuff. Manson was on Interscope, Rock from the Crypt had signed to Interscope.

Yeah, it was, so I get it. I understand why they would do that. Nick said we went with Interscope because they were like, we like what you're doing fine. We wouldn't want to touch a thing. And we were like, we want that in writing. At the very beginning, we wanted to reach kids, teenagers. This is the time when music is the thing you identify with and identifies you and shapes your soul and your future self. And he's so right.

He is so right. I mean, I found Nirvana. Nirvana was like my gateway to all good music because they were on a major and I was 11 years old. You know, like, or whatever, 10 years old. Like I probably would have gotten there, but it would have taken longer. Yeah, because what they have, when they're recording you is we can get you on the radio. Yeah.

And they can. And they can. And they could and they can. And that's still the thing that moves the needle, you know? Yeah. Do you think it still today does move the needle? Yeah. Does it? I don't know much about that.

The only way you make money is if you're on terrestrial radio. Interesting. I mean, not the only way you make money, but it's, it's, if you're on terrestrial radio, you are making money. I don't remember the last time I've heard terrestrial radio. Yeah. I've been in the car bumping, serious. XM. Love you, Jan Alasku, but it's the Dave Matthews band radio station. Great, great. That's what we listen to in my car. You need to do a, you know, they have that show.

What would you play? That's the guest hosted. We need to get you a what would you play episode on DMB. On DMB? That would be my dream. If you're listening. I can work on that for you. Oh, God. I love it so much. Okay, well, let's talk about Feber to Tell. It is time to party. It's time to party on Febertoll. April 29th, 2003. I want to just say here's what's happening in the music space in 2003 before we get into this. So the same year the elephant by the white stripes comes out, kind of a major deal. It's a lot of hip hop is really popular at this point. Get Richard Diedrine, 50 cent.

That shit is. That is my New York. Like when I, I mean, I moved maybe a year later, but up in the club, babe. It's go shorty. It's your birthday. The best. Come Away With Me by Nora Jones A huge major album

Lincoln Park's Mediora The M&M Show Beyonce Dangerously in Love Black Eyed Peas Elefunk Elephant and Elefunk in the same year You know? You know really?

Spiritually connected albums if you actually think about it Evanescence fallen just shit is kind of weird but cool but weird and not a lot of I mean Jets Get Born was pretty big Yeah.

Yeah, but not a lot of big rock albums. Unless I'm forgetting something from 2003. I mean, I guess 2003, you are in the dying of new metal. Yeah, because like we said, Meteora. I mean, hell to the thief by Radiohead comes out, a lesser Radiohead album, if you ask me. Mews. We're kind of getting into like the rebirth of, I guess, arena rock in a, the Mars Volta.

Well, I guess the question for a more informed mind than mine is, is this the era that is the death, is that the death of rock as a mainstream commercial force? Because that's when hip hop became the dominant commercial force on the radio and in general. And because it is, you know, for a lot of us, the new metal thing, like, after. after you got that first sort of earliest corn stuff. The earliest corn stuff was great. The earliest corn stuff was like early 90s. Yeah, but I guess I mean like, yeah, that moment you were talking about earlier where it's like... Yeah, the Limpisket, the Stained.

It's like, it's stained. I'm not a perfect person. My first Rolling Stone cover story was stained. It's been a while. It's been a while. That was... Great song. I'm sorry, it's a great song.

That was... I mean, I feel like that was 2000 or 2001. So then after that, it's that start... Then you were getting shit like three doors down. I think that guy died. Ooh, sorry. I'm so sorry, may he rest in peace. But, you know, it's like nickel back, three doors down, like some, you know, some crappity crap is happening.

I think you're getting the early, like. I think this is how you remind me as one of the best songs of all time. And I will die on that help. No, that's a fact. Do you know that it's the most played song on the radio for the entire decade of 2000 to 2010? The number one most played song on terrestrial radio, was this is how you're reminding you my medical bag. Wow.

We got facts here. Yes. But to make it to go back to our point, rock is a little bit dead. And it has been supplanted by, it's been supplanted by hip hop, and that's great, you know. And it's a little bit also by pop, right? Like, by the end of the 90s, early 2000s, a lot of boy band stuff is happening and Britney Spears. And we start to have the sort of rise of the. female pop star again in like a more major way with the brittneys and the christina's and stuff um okay

fever to tell this album has no business being as um fucking good as it is i'll say it right here yeah it's perfect it's perfect it is yeah it's so crazy how fully formed it is considering it's like basically their first real collection of songs after like a four song EP and a two song EP. It sounds incredible. They produced it along with Dave Satek. Man, we used to be a proper. I don't know what else to say about it. It's phenomenal. Well, also just like that thing of like short songs that you're like it doesn't need, I mean, it doesn't need to be longer than that, you know? Sometimes you just need two minutes. Get in, get out. And you're like, like, yep, that was it and just keeps moving.

And the whole album is like 38 minutes or something. It's a real brevity is the soul of wit situation. Also, it has, we said earlier, the inside you, there's two wolves. Side A, Side B is like, it really, there's one kind of YAAAS, and it goes into a different kind of YAAS, and they're both awesome. Yeah. But it's interesting how it just completely kind of shifts when you get to that. I don't know if it's exactly Side A and Side B.

I don't have the vinyl in front of me. But it's really sort of, I feel like it's sort of just like only at the very end you get to like, I forget what track number, MAPS is. It's like the fourth to last. Fourth to last. Right. So yeah, I guess maybe that is, right? Because MAPS, why control modern romance for a song? Yeah, I mean, modern romance.

Like you're just like as if MAPS didn't fucking demolish you. Why control? Okay. You know what? Hold on. Let's take it from the top. Let's take you from the top with some of the making of this album. So here's what Kerenow said about Fever.

to tell later on in 2005. She said when we were all living in New York and we started the as I was 21. It was the peak of being completely absorbed in the New York night scene and the New York music scene and the social scene, although there wasn't much of a music scene at that point. But the whole hedonistic side of me was kind of trumping everything else. We were feeding off that manic street energy. It really did feel much dirtier and more antagonistic. And as the years have gone by, I think we're more removed from just being there. So we had to rely on other things that were inside of us. I think that's where the second half of Fever to Tell comes from. Why Control and Maps was this other side of us that started to get nurtured. We were relying more

on our motions and what was going on inside the inner turmoil rather than the outer turmoil. And I love that description. Like the first half of the album is like manic New York wildness, inks. And the second half is like, oh, we had to slow down and actually like write songs from another place. And this is our interiority. Yeah. I mean, I always, I still always wish I could hear some of like the songs that Karen was writing like in that Unitar, pre, like, you know, sad songs and like how much of that, you know, kind of carries through to what you hear when that's, we're like, oh, maybe A, yes, isn't just fun time, good time, Charlie kind of vibe. And like, it can, it can be, it can be both things at once. I feel like back when they were

doing those earlier shows and you would hear them do maps, like, It still, it didn't, you know, it tracks sort of sadder, like it's more of a melancholy moment on the album than it felt when they played it, but it was like that same thing that they do now when they play it where Karen would give the long intro and just be like, this is for my love, Angus at the time, you know, and just nix love and, you know,

would say this, would do this thing as they were doing this sort of vamp into the song. And so it was such an important part of their set, you know. And as I was saying, like this thing like Karen and Angus being this kind of like John and Christina-esque New York power couple thing. It just felt like it was part of like their brand. You know, that song felt and almost in a way that it wasn't until we got more music from them to see that there's always going to be with the AES, that two wolves thing you're talking about where it's like, oh yeah, we're always going to get some of the like devastating. I mean, when you think about the songs like that on fucking it's.

blitz, like not to skip over, show your bones, but there's so much of that on its blitz that you're just like, I can't. I had to take a break when I was re-listening to it because I was just like, this is too much. Yeah. And I guess it goes back to like everything Karen has said about herself as well. I know they all write the songs together, but like at least as the lyricist, you know, sort of setting the tone, like Karen contains within her, at least definitely in the beginning of this band, like this very outward persona and then this very shy and person that like comes out in some of these other songs. Yeah, it's it's great.

And I think maybe that's part of the reason that the Yayas became what they became. That they became a sort of major force in rock music because they weren't just one thing. You know, I don't know. I don't, I think the frenetic, amazing songs need the, the lower end of this like emotionally resonant stuff to ground it so that you can reach people on so many different. levels. And so when you throw that album on, you're not just getting like a jolt and a kick in the pants. You're also like really feeling your fucking feelings. For a teenager, that's all you need. Yeah. I mean, it's like you can you can even more so get away with boy, you're such a stupid

bitch and girl, you're just no good dick, you know, if you also have a maps or a modern romance or something. So they felt a lot of pressure apparently. I read this that like, you know, their EP had gotten all this hype, it had been floating around. for two years. Karen said, you know, our first EP had done so well, we had changed so much from who and what we were back then that I was nervous on how we were going to top it. But then Angus said, I don't think your EP is that good at all. I'm certain you can top it.

And I was pissed, but then I felt relieved. It's a good, tough love there. He's like, oh, I don't think that was that good at all. They were kind of going to fuck through it because famously they canceled their Reading show while they're making this album because Karen was like, absolutely the fuck not. I'm not getting on an airplane. Like, I'm tired. And I think it's really cool.

Like, I heard her talking to Michelle's honor about it in that Rolling Stone thing. And she's like, yeah, the best thing I ever did was start saying no. I'm struck, like, many times by Karen O's, like, self-preservation, but also, like, right-sizing of things. You know, it's like, she was like, yeah, like, I don't care. Like, there's more. There's enough. There's no scarcity. Or, like, I don't care about going to the Grammys.

You know, like, I think it would be easy for me at 22. I would be probably seduced by that. Like, don't you think you might be seduced by that? And she was just like, I don't care. Yeah, I think some of it, and I feel like maybe even in that Michelle's honor thing, she talks about this or alludes to it, it's like it's also just the social battery. I mean, if you're an introvert, like, you may be able to get up on stage and the olive oil and do the thing, but you're still an introvert whose social battery needs the power down time.

And it needs it to the extent that it becomes life or death, you know. Totally. Especially when you're in that position, everyone wants a piece of view. At every show, all the press, at the Graham, it's like, that's so much. Yeah. And it's, you know, in that conversation with Michelle's honor, she talks about this. Like, even now it's hard for public people to be able to assert their need for recharge time for their mental health. But the idea that everyone wants you to do stuff

and you're gonna, I mean, I don't even think anyone used the phrase mental health back then. You know what I'm saying? Like you'd be like, well, your mental health, for our mental health, you'd be like, get the fuck out there. Right. So she was definitely at the pioneer.

Yeah, a pioneer of just being like, no, as you say, being like, A, I don't care. I don't need to do that for my ego. And B, if I don't do it, I'm going to be sick. Right. And I won't be able to give you what you need. going forward. Let's talk about the art. I love this album art. I think a lot's been made about the album art and like people have said like, I don't know. So as I said earlier, Cody Critchlow did this.

He's incredible. Also a musical artist in his own right goes under the name Shun. I asked him, I was like, how did this happen? Because I was like, I didn't even know. I was just like in my Wikipedia and I was like, Art by Cody Critchlow. And he was like, I literally got into an arts program at Parsons for a year. They put 30 students in these private art studios, and I was going out every night, and I guess he was friends with the liars, and Angus introduced him to Karen, and he was like, I had a backpack of VHS tapes with my stop motion animation on it and gave her one. We used to be a proper country. And she was like, hey, you should just do all the art for our album. He was like, I was 19, and I didn't know how to use Photoshop. And he's like, that's why all the art

looks kind of bad because I didn't know how to use Photoshop. But I don't think it looks bad. When I look at the cover of Feberidge-Tel, I'm like, that's what it was like back then. Yeah. That looks like what it felt like back then. Like, that's what everything looked like. There was neon and it was messy and it was kind of cartoonish. And like, it reminds me so much of like a rap mixtape cover.

And Cody told me Karen was really into rap and wild style and stuff. And I was like, that makes so much sense. Like, I mean, don't you feel like that? When I look at that, I'm like at Sinisface. Like, that's what the inside of Sinisface look like to me is like those colors, this kind of cartoonish, like, the indie sleaze of it all.

That was the kind of tone and tenor of the time. Yeah. I mean, I feel like to me, it's not an iconic album cover, which is to say, I don't necessarily instantly picture it when I think of the album the way you do with the cover of Abbey Road or something like that.

Or like it splits even with the Earth Fisher. Right, exactly. And so... It's true. You know what I mean? But I love how of its time and honest it is as like a kind of portrait, a snapshot of that time. Like even though it's like I love that the strokes like hand on the butt. But that that album cover could have come out in 1976.

That album cover could have come out in 1991. Like it's not really of a time, right? It's just a cool image. This is fucking 2003. This is literally what 2003 looked like. this is a Scion commercial. You know, like, this is like, like, it's all of that stuff that I remember of that time.

Like, it gives it to me in that visual. Yeah, and it's cool, the Cody Critchlow of it all and the fact that, you know, the longevity of these artists and the fact that you're a 19-year-old, like, art school student, and you meet this band and you do their art, and then you're developing, and two years later, you're like, oh, now you're Cody Critchlow who makes all these, and still does work for you, yes,

but makes all these amazing visuals and videos and stuff. Rammy nominated for his perfume genius album art. Exactly. And so it's like, okay, well, some of what's so cool about it is just that it was this nascent kind of thing. They were all babies. Exactly. And hats off to Karen O for, you know, being like, this is cool. I want you to do it, even though it was like, again, kind of high stakes.

It was like your first album on a major label. I thought it was great. This album obviously did really well. People liked it. It hit 55 on the Billboard 2. which for, you know, an album that is coming kind of out of nowhere on a major. We'll get into it, but that really happened after Maps was released as a single, which was the third single.

Yeah, and it actually did get played on like alternative radio, which felt kind of mind-blowing at the time. Sure. Okay, let's go through the tracks. It really starts off strong. I'm rich like a hot noise. It's fucking perfect. Also, I love this, again, the persona game, right?

Like, Karen-No, was not rich when she wrote this song. I didn't have any money. There's something like that plays with like power dynamics in that song. I love it. Yeah. It's one of those songs. I mean, I guess maybe true of so many of the songs on that album where if you saw Yeh, yeah, yeah, as perform at that time.

You can picture Karen moving. You can picture her jumping and kicking. And it's like, it's like in the code. of the song when you listen to it, that you can, it feels like it has movement. It's such a also like a great album starter because it just starts with this bang. Like even the song is just like gets right into it. Day with the Night is just a fucking, to me, you're a perfect song. Yeah.

And also feels very like meta indie sleaze, you know, where it's just like that's, that's the theme song for what everyone's life was. You're doing it. you're using the term. I'm happy. All right, listen. It's too late. Also, to me, this is a very PJ Harvey-esque song in the sense that it's like a song about personal sexuality that's like not super overt,

but like it's definitely there. Right. I love that. Yeah, it's funny to imagine if you slowed down date with the night to down by the water pace. Yeah. It could be a PJ Harvey song. Yeah. And it kind of pommels you, right? This album like we were talking about, like the first, like, man, tick, black tongue, pin.

Black tongue is underrated as hell. It's really good. It's really, you can keep your black tongue. I found it at the mortuary. And it also has, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just let it be, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also so much of that stuff that was just like vocalizations that Karen would do like in black tongues like,

uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, ooh. Yeah. You know, it's like, you don't need to write, you know, other artists maybe try and make syllables of words to go with that. But it's like, no, this is, you know, it sort of reminds me of like flat duo jets or something like previous generation thing. But, yeah. Yeah, she was like a naturally gifted, for lack of a better word, scatter, whatever. But this is like a thing in some really good rock music.

And kind of does go back to like the little Richard and stuff that we were talking about. Like this is like, if you can do that well, it's like its own instrument. And then you called earlier, but this is the song that ends. Boy, you're just a stupid bitch. And girl, you're just a no good dick. It's so good. It's wonderful. Okay, MAPS.

We really should. Let's talk. Let's just speak about. Let's speak about MAPS. What do you think it is about MAPS that makes it such a classic, timeless song? I think it's, I mean, at the risk of over simple. is the combination of the words and the melody. But, you know, definitely there's no underestimating.

They just the actual melody is so that thing where you're like it feels familiar even though they made it and even though it was new and they invented it, you know. And I don't know if there's something psychological. Let's get Malcolm Gladwell on the horn to starting a thought with weight. It's really a hook, you know, because you're, you really. are going to listen after someone says, wait, what's going to come next? Brilliant, you know, I'd be curious to hear from Karen, too, just like in the evolution of that lyric where the weight came into it. Because if you just had almost any other words there before, they don't love you,

like I love you, it wouldn't. And I think that's what ultimately, the Ezra Caning tweet that led to the Beyonce song, it's so much of it is in the weight. It would be saccharin. Right. without the weight. The weight makes it human. And I know she's... Are you right? She said she took it from an email, like an actual email that she wrote Angus. And you can hear that for me also, again, as a woman often flagellated online for my...

The way I speak. I felt very seen by this song because I say wait before I start sentences so often. It's just like, wait, is this? No, no, no. Like, it's, it's, I'm not saying men don't say wait for they think. There's like a kind of a vocal tick that a lot of like Valley Girl type girls have. And I was like, I don't know if that's what had Karen put it in there, but we've already heard from Nick Zinner that that was kind of, she was a Valley Girl speaking type person. But yeah, you're right.

The weight is doing so much heavy lifting in this song to give it that just, it's unique. Yeah. And there's also, I feel like at the time, even though this scene was so small when I first saw them playing that song, this scene where it was so insular and it's like the Karen and Angus of it. And you knew that this song was about what their life was like, which was there in indie bands going on tour. But they're getting, but it's so tiny, but they are getting a lot of smoke blown up their asses. And they don't love you like, I love you like. Most people in their relationships with someone where you might have some jealousy or you might have some. There's not this they.

I think the they is also a part of it. It's like, for just civilians who are just, who's the they that don't love you like I love you. But if you're a person with an audience, it's, oh, the fans don't love you like I love you. You're out on tour. We're looking at the maps of where you are. The audience might think you're awesome, but they don't love you like I love you. It felt like it was, again, like a song for us. us the folks in the audience who knew that these bands had fans in the first place.

So I don't, it extends beyond that and it's a song for everyone and everyone loves it. But I'm intrigued about the context of it for everyone else, you know? Right. I think that's why it's so genius, right? Because it works on both levels. Like it absolutely works on a level of like they, your fans, they don't love you, like I love you. You're adoring fans, you know?

But also for, I think a normal person is just like everyone. Like, I love you more than anyone else ever will, you know? And I think people really can relate to that because that's like that sort of like very young adolescent love is so intense. And so like, it's like, no, like, I love you more than anyone ever will, you know. Yeah, it's got state, it's got some high stakes in it too. It's implied it's implied that you're trying to persuade someone to stay between the weight and the, you know what I mean? And it's sort of like something that's maybe slipping away. I think this is where you, for me, I really hear Karen's, like, love of Leslie Gore and of, of girl groups and the Shangri Laws and torch songs.

Like, this is a torch song, you know? Yeah. It's, it's like a, yeah, it's just so beautiful and sad. And then the video, man, fucking gutting, you know, watch this, like, close up of Karen and the, like, tears that. The other thing is, like, you believe, you really believe her, you know? It feels so real and authentic, which is interesting in contrast with this whole other persona that she's doing half the time. So maybe that's what made it so much more powerful, right? You have this sort of badass, silly, who gives a fuck persona, and then you're presented with this other side, which is, like, so vulnerable and so honest.

Yeah. I don't care what anyone says. This song has a perfect song. I think this song has done the same thing that don't speak has done, which is it's like, because it is so embedded in the culture. and because it became such like a VH1 song that my mom loves, you know, people have like started to diminish its value by being like, oh, that's just this like corny rate. And it's like, I will fucking stop you right there.

No, it's not. It's a masterpiece. Yeah. You might have heard it too many times. That doesn't make it not a masterpiece. It's also like, yeah, it's the, and similar to Don't Speak, it's like that category of like it's not a breakup. It's a pre-breakup.

It's almost a pre-breakup song. It's almost like you're like where we might break up. Right. It's a love song when you're, when you might be breaking up, it feels like so your feelings are so at the surface. Which is almost what makes it more heightened, right? Because it's like, at least with the breakup song, it's like, okay, the conclusion has foregone. You know, here it's like there's so much anxiety. Yeah.

Ugh, that's a jam. But I'm going to say something. My favorite yeah, yeah, yeah, song is Y Control. It's my number one. Mm-hmm. I cannot hear the. lyric, I wish I could buy back the woman you stole without having every ounce of feminism on God's good earth flow right back into my body. It is, what a brilliant lyric. What a gut punch.

And again, it can apply to anything, you know, any experience that you've had as a woman where you've been demeaned or assaulted or misjudged or, you know, insert fuck shit here. I wish I could buy back the woman you stole. I wanted to give props to this beautiful Kafka-esque Twitter person that I read the other day. I think this person was joking, but of course, like, you know, in every humor, there's large greens of truth. And I was like, wow, Angel, Angelila, dash YG, you captured most of the entirety of the female experience in one tweet.

Here's what it says. Top five female experiences. One, realizing you're kind of chopped. Two, getting called fat for the first time. Three, realizing it was essay. Four, developing an ED. Five, crashing out over a guy you never even dated. And I was like, I know.

are we joking, but you fucking nailed it. You knocked it out of the park. If a man never asked me what it's like to be a woman, I'm just going to send this tweet. I'll be like, it's like this. Yeah. Dragged my ass to hell over here with,

and amazing. Anyways, I've digressed. That's how white control makes me feel. That I think, and it's also like, there's something really melancholy about it, but also like it's a jam. Yeah. You know?

I used to play it all the time when I DJed. I think it's a really good. good song to DJ, like, because people get really into it, but also they get into it the same way, like, I used to love playing Laid by James when I would DJ, because, like, you're like, I'm sad, but I'm sad and I'm dancing. Like, it's, like, really that kind of song. It's embarrassing that I did that on camera, but I don't care. It was beautiful. Thank you so much. And then you're, you're a big modern romance, girly. It's beautiful. Well, I feel like modern romance gets overlooked because of maps, because it comes after maps and because maps is so. the song of that kind, like, in that pocket on that album. And, yeah, I feel like modern romance has been sort of lost history. And the precursor of, of, um, right, yeah, but also. That's what I kept thinking of when I was like. But also, like the tracks on its blitz, like, you know, soft shock and skeletons and stuff like that.

I love skeletons so much. She really, they really, all three of them really fucking snapped with this shit. one of the also the last song goes back it's like a pure duop song baby I'm scared of a lot but I ain't scared of loving you it's like really really lovely

that's right if you were to tell 10 out of 10 that's what we say for me personally it got an 85 out of 100 on Metacritic if we're aggregating but I think in time it was pretty

I mean you'll remember better than me but I think it was pretty lauded right I think so I think so I mean, there was so much buildup to it, because as you pointed out, it came out in 2003, and this is a couple of years of, you know, the buildup of Yayas Buzz kind of took a while for the album to come out, in, relatively speaking, to when the buzz started, you know, and then. And so it felt like, in my memory, it didn't feel like there needed to be as much of a push for that album because it had its own momentum. And so it was a success even before it came out. I felt like it wasn't like it didn't feel like what's going to happen with the album.

It felt like, oh yeah, this is they're off to the races. This band is off to the races. As compared to show your bones where in the cliche way that that kind of sophomore. Slump as they say. Although I don't, we'll get into, I mean, I don't think it's a strong of an album as people are to tell. But I don't think it's in any sense, like a disappointment or letdown. Yeah, I think the phrase, the phrase sophomore slump, it's like, I wish there was a phrase, hey, whoever invented Indy Slease, give us a new phrase.

It's not about the slump is the implied result, that the fact that it's a cliche is like, as if that's what always happens. It's not about whether that happens or not. In a similar way, you say, like, there are those of us who stand really hard for room on fire as being the better strokes album than is this it. But the slump is the result to the pressure.

I'm talking about the pressure. The lead up to the album coming out feels so high stakes. There's the line about like you have your whole life to write your first album and then only a year to write your second album. It's this, it's all of the voices outside. No, yeah, the slump is actually the perception.

It's not the actual quality of the work. it's kind of the overcorrection, especially when you had a huge first album. It is almost like clockwork because I obviously do this for a living. I see it every time. It's almost like the critics are embarrassed that they were so laudatory of an album and they have to be like, well, this one is not. Like it's a strange psychological thing and it happens all the time when someone has a knockout of the park first album. sometimes, sure, it's correct. Sometimes the second album is not very strong.

But sometimes, like, Room on Fire is a great example. And difficult to say it was Show Your Bones, because I think it has some really strong, strong songs. But it's true. It's not as good as if you were to tell. But it's not a bad album. No, not at all. They didn't, like, you know, blow it.

No, not at all. I mean, I think, yeah, it's interesting. I agree. I think there's an overcorrection. There's also a, like, you know, it's sort of like demoitis where, when you hear the demos too much, and then you hear the final version. Initially, you're not sure if you like it as much because you got so attached to the demo.

And if you got really attached to an artist's first album, you hear the second one, and you're confused, you've confused yourself, do I like this as much? Oh, no, you're worried. What if I don't like this as much? Maybe I don't like this as much. And it's just, it's like a mirage, you know, that you create for yourself. And, you know, I think now in critical circles, there's a little bit less of that tendency because I feel like nowadays media reinforces their own opinions to prove that they were right, you know, so they'll always, or the Grammys will give Grammys to the same people over and over again to be like, no, we got it right. We got it right last time.

But it seemed to me what I was thinking of earlier, I just remember when it was leading up to show your bones. that Interscope did these events to play the album for media, which had not happened for fever to tell. Right. And I loved it the first time I heard it, but significantly because they weren't Interscope and because the publicist for Ye'A. Yaz's At Interscope at that time was the legendary and wonderful Jenny Boddy,

who would come up with these really fun, she was the perfect publicist for them. So this is not a slight to her. She would come up with these fun, kooky ways of taking, like, Rolling Stone Journalists to hear an album, an exciting new album, and we wrote around Manhattan in a limo, me and some other Rolling Stone folks, listening to Show Your Bones. And the album sounded great and it was fun. Right. But that album to me, it is attached in my mind to this memory of, like, a major label taking me on a limo ride to listen to, you know, an art punk album. Totally. Yeah. It's really, also of all their albums, it's like the least,

limo ride album of all? Yeah, yeah. It was fun. It was fun and I loved the album, but I still think like, oh, yeah, that's the pressure cooker kind of that was going on, was that Interscope were like, oh, the yes new album is to go on a limo ride. It'll be fun. It'll be kooky and people will love it. Yeah, well, then that didn't happen. Well, before Show Your Bones comes out, there's a little while. It's three years. Karineau falls off stage in Australia. This is one major biographical point. The fall after fever to tell comes out. I mean, they're obviously touring pretty heavily. Karen said during the song Rich, I was on the edge of the stage, sort of draped over the monitor with my legs in the air, and I was really drunk. I flipped off head first, hit the guardrail, and landed on my back. Then the monitor fell on my head.

Security pulled me back up. I was limp, but I was still singing the fucking song. After I finished, I asked our tour manager to feel the bump on my head. Someone brought over a big bag of ice and a red cloth. I was wearing a red ensemble, so people in the audience thought it was all an act. I sang maps and then I said, I'm sorry, we have to end the show early. I have to go to the emergency room. She sang maps, though.

She made sure that they got their big songs. It was at Liquid Fest, Livid Festival in Sydney. So this was bad. Also, like, you know, there's a lot of talk about, like, again, they were going too hard, you know, even though Karen was starting to say no. Like, there was not maybe enough no. They were all partying. They were 25 years old, of course, you know. They're probably not feeling as healthy.

Karen was her stage persona was really wild and crazy and causing these situations and Christian Joyce said in Meet Me in the Bathroom after she fell off the stage in Australia she started to slow it down they turned down they did really turn down so much stuff like I guess they got off her science live off if you were to tell and they said no um Karen was supposed to be on the cover of Vanity Fair but she amazingly had a rule that if they're not all three of them on a cover she's not doing any of them which is actually really interesting because again they're on the same label as no doubt. And there was some interesting talk

where Karen, I think, saw what happened. I don't say it happened too, but what when Stefani experienced and then what her arc was, and she was like, I don't want that. Like, I don't want to be a solo. Like, I don't want to be separated from my band and be made into this, like, sort of token, you know,

pop star or whatever. Shirley Manson too They would always like blur out the other guys Yeah and you're like Please It's a band Excuse me that is Butch Vig Put some respect on his name

They got nominated for I think a couple of Grammys So that's on right to you The major one being best alternative Music album They lost to white stripes Who won for Elephant Interestingly setting off like a very Kind of make sense for their careers

Right Like Jack White really became more of like establishment rock you know again this is exactly what I'm saying yeah yes after that we're nominated for that same award three more times and have never won yeah and the white stripes and Jack White have won repeatedly since then he was like minted then either you fall into a black hole where it's like oopsies or you're or you're not to say over-recognized because I'm glad St. Vincent wins grannies you know but you know what I mean it's like yeah either they sleep they're just on you forever or they're just like, oh, yeah, we love Beck, you know?

Right. Totally. It's also like a chicken or the egg, right? Like, once you get one, it's like, then you start participating in different things on your career. Then you start doing things because you're a Grammy award-winning artist. Right. You can get, right. You can get morning show appearances that they're like, oh, they won a Grammy.

Cool. Exactly. Nick Zinner did say that Weird Al Yankovic came up to them and said he voted for them, though. So I said that was cool. Right around after the Grammys, Karen Omo moves to L.A., Ossif said in the book, Look, it turned, it turned when Karen moved to L.A. I mean, it's no secret that definitely had an impact on her approach. Everyone changed.

Karen said, I was just looking for a change, you know. I just felt if I didn't leave New York at that point, I probably never would. I came back pretty regularly to see my family and friends. But when I moved there, we're definitely large periods of time when the band didn't see each other. We kind of got on with the business of our own lives. She also said in the spin, I think it's this one. Oh, no, the one before the 2006. She said, moving to L.A. was like moving to the desert, and the desert is a mirror. It's brutal. You see a lot of things that you don't like, so you're forced to build confidence. And you get out of that knowing that you can do a million things and you can do them on your own. This is around the time she started doing Spike Jones. And getting Colonyx is what I read.

Oh. It's so, L.A. coincidence that those things happen. 2006, L.A. or 2004, Colonix. Popping out here. But yeah, I mean, dating, but going from dating Angus from liars, right, your scene mate, you know, like to dating someone as older and as famous and as Hollywood. Which is like Spike Jones is. Like, occupies both places, right? Because he was also like this, like very cool, like skate world director of pavement videos. But that's so many years prior.

That's true. Yeah. And then at this point, he had done being John Malkovich probably at this. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, it's a change. And listen, these changes do have some impact on the band, which we're going to get into. They tore a bunch, and then it's time to go into the next record.

This was a bad vibe, is what I read. Okay, so what I read was, I guess in September 2004, Karen had started to work on a solo project with, Sam Spiegel, who is Spike Jones' brother, who went under the name, Squeaky Clean. He had produced a song she had done called Hello Tomorrow. I don't know if that's a song. It's like some music for Spike Jones's Adidas commercial. This solo project, I couldn't figure it out. This never came out.

She does put out a solo album in 2014. I don't know if it's these songs. Couldn't make heads or tails. but whatever this is as it was intended to be never came up. But that's kind of how she got involved with Sam Spiegel. And again, it's interesting that she was working on her own music, given the quote about the desert being a mirror that shows you can do things on your own or whatever. But it was a big deal.

She told Spin in 2006 there was a huge revelation for me. I suddenly knew that all the suffering and conflict and frustration I'd been through with the as was not necessary to make art. Most artists just can't let go of the idea that you have to be sad to create something beautiful where the word is out. You don't. Meanwhile, Nick Zinner is touring with Bright Eyes. He had the head wound city.

Is that the name of the band there? So he's doing stuff as well. He played guitar on the soundtrack for the Fantastic Four movie. Didn't know about that. I don't think that song actually ever made it into the movie. And then they're like, okay, we need to actually make a Yayas album. This was not a happy time in the Yayas. I can go ahead and say it because they said it.

They didn't like each other. Well, Nick and Karen didn't like each other. It sounds like Brian was a bit of Switzerland. Here's what awesome said. There were creative differences on how to get the next record off the ground, following her move and the Spike thing. All of a sudden, Spike's Little Brothers, Squeaky Clean, became producer extraordinaire.

When I had Flood lined up, I had Steve Lillywhite. I had Stephen Street. The Smith's producer did blur. Steve Albini, people that would make better sense sonically. In the end, I will say the album sounds great. It was his first big record, and he did it. And I don't think Karen had ever written and recorded at the same time. So God bless her for taking that on.

But it took a toll on the band. Okay. So you can, no one really said anything. We can already imagine, like, there might be a little tension where someone's bringing their boyfriend's brother in who has not produced an album to produce our album. And you're also, like, trying to write the album and record simultaneously. I can't stop thinking about what a Steve Albini show your bones would have sounded like. Yeah, our flood, fuck.

Flood, man. Also, I'm a Steve Lily White truther. Of course, the DMB of it all. Brian said, I think Sam wanted to make a more computer-oriented L.A. DJ culture record. That's so exactly the 2004 of it all. Man, that's what Sinus Bay. That is, we are Steve A. Okay, Town.

You know, funky weird keyboard sounds, processing the vocals, there's a bunch of delay. But Nick and I didn't want that. I mean, we're still a gritty rock band from New York. Sam Spiegel said, I wanted to show your bones to have a timeless feeling to it. You can't place it anywhere. You can't say it sounds like downtown New York, 2005 dance punk hipster music.

I think Nick wanted to do a record that was like walking around on Ludlow Street at 4 in the morning and your friends are drunk and jumping on some car. Hell yeah, brother. I mean, I feel like they did, it does. He achieved that, I think. It does sound timely. It doesn't sound fashionable or it doesn't sound. I mean, to me, the album is more of a zooming out. And it works perfectly as a transitional album.

They did stand off a little of the sharp edges. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But like what works about it to me is that it refocuses on the songwriting itself. And it's less about some of the energy is tamped down in a way that is not as instantly appealing as like fever to tell. But the focus on like the song craft itself ends up being like, oh yeah, this. they're these are not this is not just like jumping around and pouring beer and going uh-huh

it's like the the melody and the lyrics and everything totally and listen in fairness carineau has said multiple times and i respect her for not like trying to fake it like she was like i i'm not a nanksy 21 year old anymore i like i'm not going to make the same music i'm a different person it's been five years you know and i think you hear that right this is like the album of a person, people, but specifically a front person that's matured into like a sort of way mellower different person. And so yeah, she's not going to be, you know, screaming about fucking and pouring beer on her head or whatever. That same spin profile is so, it's crazy that we'll never get this kind of stuff anymore because no one does press like this. It's all just

like hot chicken torture and here's my subway take. But, um, it's so awkward because it's so obvious they don't like each other. And they're like, there's a part where the interviewer's like, so is it fair to say that you and Nick aren't getting along? And Karen goes, I think that's obvious. It's just rough. Nice. They're just not being friends here.

Later in an interview with an Australian magazine called Rip It Up, Nick Zinner was like, that was like, right, like he was like, that was, you know, oversensationalized, very Hollywood eyes. Those quotes, you know, they make a sound that's not, it was just a turbulent writing process. And I was like, well, I think probably both could be true. Right. Like that day, you could have really hated each other and it came off, you know, in the thing. But I wonder, what I want to ask you is like, do you hear in the album that this is like something forged in the fires of like two people who are not agreeing on what they want to do and what they want the album to sound like?

I don't think so. I mean, show your bones and mosquito are my least listened to yeah, yeah, yes, albums in their catalog. And so, you know, listening for this was the first time I had in years that I'd listened to Show Your Bones all the way through. And yet, in addition to the fact that they play a lot of those songs still live, and so I've heard them since then, I remembered it way better than I thought I did,

which I was like, as a testament to how good the songs are because some of them I hadn't heard. heard in years, you know? And I remember that limo ride in thinking, like, that as someone who desperately wanted to like that album, because I loved the band so much, that I did really love it the first time I heard it. And I felt like, oh, thank God, it is. It's really good.

And I think it's, I think it's underrated more so, A, because it came in the shadow of such an impactful, phenomenal debut. And because, yeah, the production is less dynamic. You know, the production is a little more demo-e sounding than maybe if one of those other producers had made it or if they had taken more time or it doesn't, it wasn't until I was reading a little bit about it too that I was like, oh, was there tension? Like, I didn't remember that or it doesn't sound fraught by any means. But then I guess like, I guess reading about it, you kind of understand why it maybe like is neither here nor there. in terms of sound, you know, like, it's got some of the similar, like, qualities of fever to tell, but there's a little something, I don't want to say missing, because that's not exactly the right word,

but, like, it still, it didn't commit to a new direction. Exactly, yeah. But it didn't leave, it didn't do the old thing either. Like, it kind of, it's, like, exists in this, like, and again, I really like a lot of these songs. Like, I think it's cool. But it isn't interesting. Like, you said it earlier. This perfect word.

It's a transitional record. Like, it kind of lives in this, like, nether region between Fever to Tell and then what comes with, um, is it splits the next one. Yeah. Which is like, obviously, like, then it's like, they really figured out, oh, we want to do this now. Yeah. It's, it's, to me, yeah, it feels more like, show your bones to the album where this song crap, the songwriting thing, a little bit more of serious songwriting. and less of, like, kind of personality and just the fever to tell thing of where, yeah, the minimal ingredients with maximal impact, but then this sort of zooming out and just being like,

okay, what about working harder on the song craft itself and having that be the thing that carries? You know, like, it was an important thing they needed to do to get to. And so maybe they strip away some of their personality a little bit or some of the signature sound and personality. But then you can get to the albums that follow where it brings both of those things together. Yeah, I can just imagine, like, again, like Nick said, why was it so bad? I don't know. Karen and I hated each other. We didn't trust each other. I can imagine in that scenario, it's much easier to say I don't want to do.

It's much easier to say no than it is to say yes to something new, right? So like when there's not trust, you're sort of going to like negate some stuff and then carve out what you can from what's left. And I think that's kind of what you hear. That being said, I think some, okay, well, first of all, my second favorite yeah-a-ya song, which is not even on this album, it's a fucking B-side to Gold Lion, is let me know. I love, why was that album? Why was that song on this album? Yeah. I am a deep lover. If there's only one person in a room, what is that, you know, if there's a hundred people in a room, you know, I am the one who loves. Are you good ga? Are you giving me gaga? Exactly. I just, I think it's one of the best love songs ever written. I love how abruptly it ends. I love the lyrics. Like, I couldn't see. I couldn't hear it shut me off when you were near. Like really captures that sort of like, I'm going to press it up again. That like dizzy, like high, fucked up feeling you feel when you're like really into someone, you know?

And you almost are like, I'm going to fall off a cliff. And I love songs that feature the words I'm calling or I'm calling out your name or I'm calling out and it has that too. I just love that. I think it's a perfect song. And I don't understand why it didn't make it on the record. But again, it's the B-side to Gold Lion, which is also a classic yay-ya song. And I mean, cheated hearts is one of their greatest songs. Sometimes I think I'm bigger than the sound.

Bruv. It's, again, Kierno is really good at writing this kind of song. It's amazing. I mean, I don't know exactly what it's about, but like the lyrics take these rings and stow them safe away. It's like a little bit of like ambivalence, what about commitment, about marriage? Like, it's a really good song. And it's this thing that she has the ability to do of having a melody that is like a nursery rhyme. Right.

But it's also really original. It's like this, you know, obviously a lot of great pop music does this, but where you're like, this is so primordial. This is so elemental. But it's also new. And also what she does is she like buries the razor blade and the candy, you know? Like it is these like really familiar sounding melodies. And then you'll hear the lyrics and you're like, what? Yeah.

Like I wouldn't expect that that's what you're going to say. I also fucking love mysteries. She brought the screaming out on that one. She was like, fuck you, Nick's in her. No, I don't know if that was like, but I'm just imagining

maybe she got out in that booth. She was like, I don't know let it out. I just, I love how it starts as one thing and then devolves into this whole other, like screaming freak out. I like Warrior a lot.

I think this album actually has really good songs. Yeah. Obviously, Phenomena is a great tune, a great entry in the AAS catalog, and you've got to love a song that is like three layers deep of reheated nachos, you know, in a good way. Totally. Honestly, it was pretty not that poorly received critically.

Pitchwork maybe gave the lowest 6.8, but, you know, Entertainment Weekly gave it a minus. Los Angeles time gave it three and a half stars. The Guardian didn't like it, two stars. Rolling Stone, four stars. Did okay. Grammy nominated. Grammy nominated once again.

Hit a higher spot on the bill. board 200, which this always happens, right? When your first album just doesn't, it's like... They didn't know yet. They didn't know yet. And then people are anticipating this one. Didn't win the Grammy. And then I guess they were like, bye, fuck you never see you again.

I don't know. I have no idea. But I would imagine once you're done with that, you're like, I would love to not see your face. They do have a song in 2007 on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack. I don't know if I remember this. As you would at that time. Ceilings is what it's called.

And then they put out an EP. So this is what gets really interesting, right? They put out an EP in July of 2007, which is clearly what show me your bones might have sounded like if they had continued in the direction of fever to tell and not decided to leave that direction, right? Would you agree? Is is?

Yeah, with Downboy, yeah. Yeah, Downboy. rockers to swallow, Kiss Kiss, which I love. And then Isis? Isis or Isis? How do you pronounce the song name? Oh, yeah. I think it's Isis, but...

Yeah. That's one of the greatest, yeah, yeah, yeah, songs. It's amazing. But, yeah, this is, like, more in conversation with fever to tell. It's, like, almost like they went kind of back. And they did. It was, like, these were songs that were written

prior to... Prior to Show Your Bones. It's almost like they... took these rings and stowed them safe away so they could wear them on another rainy day. Another rainy day. What is notable about this EP besides Spatica, that's awesome, is that it's produced by Nick Lonnie, who he worked with Kate Bush on The Dreaming. He produced in excess Ganga For The Posey's Silver Chair.

And most importantly, public image limited flowers of romance, which Karen said was one of their favorite albums. And he is who produced its blitz. So that's how he gets in. They do a Q&A, and this is, it gets really funny in the mid-2000s, as you know, since you were a working journalist. It starts to get real, like, I have to go in the wayback machine and pull up a blog because that's what the press was back then.

So this is a Q&A and drowned in sound. Just one question from a fan that I wanted to read in their answer. I would like to know, along with a lot of other people, I suppose, why you are releasing older material as new rather than using some of the songs on Show Your Bones. I'd also like to know if your third album proper is going to be more of the same but even mellower or the complete freak-out cat-related concept album

you threatened last time. Oh, I forgot. There was like a joke going around that Show Your Bones was going to be a concept album about Carino's cat whose name was like Coco something. Remember this at all? Okay. That was a joke.

It didn't happen. Okay, so this is from a man named Duncan. Nick Zinner said, Hi, Duncan. It's not necessarily releasing older material as much as it is recording songs that have never been recorded. We've been playing some of these songs live for a while, and our fans have been asking us to record them, so we did. And they didn't really fit in with the last record. And Brian said, the songs on the EP were indeed written in between Fever to Tell and Show Your Bones. But for this project, they felt fresh as ever.

And then Karen said, before we record, they don't say the name, but it's splits. We wrote at this little bunker practice space in the city, we just went there. in spurt so it never felt like we were there for an extended period of time. Nick and I were just jamming and doing our thing and playing really unselfconsciously just being in the moment. That's how we did Fever to Tell us. We're talking about how they write it splits. And that's what comes out in 2009. Yeah. It's a long time away from, it's a long time away from 9-11. Yeah. To use a sort of marker of like when this band sort of, you know,

emerged really more 2000 but like we're really like hype so now we're like eight years in yeah

Obama's president Obama's president um Susan Boyle has a big album wow yeah sure you know

I'm just trying to place this in time the fame monster you mentioned cagah earlier comes out what do you remember about 2009

shit got weird is this is like we're not that this is how I'm placing myself but like when did hipster runoff start Well, yeah, it was around that time.

I mean, to your earlier point about sophomore albums doing better on the charts, in 2008, Empire Weekends Contra debuts at number one on the Billboard, which is their sophomore album. Yeah. And, you know, similar to any of these other artists, you know, the definitive album would be the self-titled debut album. Contra is a great album as well. But that was a major. That was the most commercially successful. and also debut moment from, and they were on Excel. They were truly an indie artist.

This is the phase you're talking about where not everyone's going to a major as quickly. They're saying, what can we do staying in the indie world? And that was huge. I mean, none of these other artists had ever achieved that commercial, like mainstream commercial success. So that's the era when you start to get this new sort of zone of blog rock and Mary Weather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective,

comes out in 2009. Yeah. In case you guys were wondering, Hipsuranov started in 2007. So this chapter of indie is in full swing, and it's like very like, and now even the fact that, you know, it's like if TV on the radio

or the Walkman had started a couple years later, you know, they would have done better commercially, probably, but they were just like a little bit too ahead of that curve in the same way that Sonic U, you know, TV on the radio being the Sonic U. youth of blog rock or something. But obviously you have all of the

Vampire Week and Post Vampire Week and Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, who Animal Collective, you know, had been around for a minute, but we're really on the ascent. This is like, I picture this time, it's like such a bizarre time, right? Because it's like the last gasps

of the monoculture, maybe even. And I'm just, I just picture like you would see a magazine cover with like, or maybe not a cover, a magazine spread where it's like Kanye West, Bethany Costantino, you know, like a guy from Animal Club. It was just such a strange landscape.

We love Best Coast on this program, as you guys know, did the theme song. But it's just like, like, Basker's a great example. You could still become kind of famous as like an indie rock band and have great success, which, you know, deserve it. But like a little, a few more years after, that kind of gets taken off the table, right? Because the monoculture starts to really die.

It's just such a strange era for music, in my humble opinion. Also, pitchfork is really king of the castle. Peak, peak, pitchfork, yeah, stereo gum, Brooklyn, Vegan, yeah. I think for a lot of indie artists, a frustrating time, if you're a newer indie artist in there, because there's this illusion that any, it's like if Vampire Weekend could have a number one debut for their weird album that was not commercial, than maybe that's just all for the grabbing. And it's like, well, it's not that easy. I mean, really the only, I guess the big, big one was Phoenix.

Yeah, that's, oh, the Wolfgangomedeus Phoenix was that same year. Yeah, 2009, I just had to Google because I didn't remember off the top of my head. But, like, other than that, it was like Paramore, who had already kind of, you know, laid some groundwork. But, like, there were huge, muse is still fucking dominating, which could I tell? Who won the alternative Grammy in 2010, 409? Let's see. I'm going to guess it's some Bjork album, I forgot, like, Volta or some. Volnerchura or whatever.

No, it was Phoenix. Oh, it was Phoenix. Okay. They won Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. The Open Door EP by Death Capricudia was nominated. That seems crazy. Wow. Not that it's not a good, but I don't know.

No, that's like trying to play cleanup because they hadn't nominated, like, plans or transatlanticism. Sounds of the Universe, Depeche Mode. It's an interesting one to put it. Anyways, yeah, Phoenix. Whatever, I just wanted to, I just love to, I just love to reminisce. I love to walk down memory lane. Same. Even though I famously hate this time, and I think it was very ugly and disgusting. It's just my take.

All of that sort of just ugly, ugly clothes, myself included, just bad clothes, bad haircuts. Just rough, rough stuff. Let's talk about it splits. It's a dance album. Yeah, I was surprised. I wasn't expecting them. to make that kind of album, I was so delighted by it. And

to me, Zero is, yeah, one of my top three all-time favorite songs. The video that's, it's so anthemic, it's so triumphant, it's so it's oh, perfect.

Again, what a great album opener. They're really good albumers. I mean, they think about it, it's like rich. Rich. Right. Yes, rich. And then, Gold Lion, they really do a good job opening. But yes, zero is incredible. Get your leather on? I mean, come on.

Come on. Nick's dinner said that they deliberately wanted to change the sound of the band, which, again, I think you can kind of hear the growing pains of that on Show Me Your Bones, but now it's like we've committed. He actually said in an article, it just seemed like there were too many mopey, whiny indie bands out there. What do you think he was talking about? I don't know.

It's hard to say in that time what that could have been. Shots fired as all. I'm saying. We won't. Do not come for Sufian. Do not come for Benjamin Gibbard on my program. I'm just kidding. I'm creating false Indiropi if it didn't exist.

I think more notably, Nick Zinner had gotten really into vintage synthesizers. Right. And he, they recorded this in Texas. Yeah, Sonic Ranch. Yeah, Sonic Ranch. And he brought this vintage ARP synthesizer. and I guess I read something that Karen was like, why don't you just not play the guitar for a couple days and see what happens?

Like you're so into these sense or whatever. And this is what happened. And we love it. And again, it sounds like they had healed, you know, they had healed their rift. So we're back on the same team. It's just fucking phenomenal, man. And Dave Satech is involved too. So they have two producers on this, which I also think does something cool because

Dave Satech is obviously a genius and is particularly, a studio genius. But I am so enamored by the old school producer vibe that were like, I do vibes. Like, Nicolone is like, I come in and I'm like, what if you? Like, I picture them all just being like, I'm pouring some red wine on the piano. How does that make you feel? Play from that space. Right. And I don't know if that's what Nicolone did, but whatever they did, they snapped, bitch, because this album is amazing. Do you think, where do you hold this next to Fever to Tell? I mean, that's the thing. It's just like, there's always that, like, iconic, like, fever to tell is iconic and definitive and all that stuff and perfect.

But then you have to ask, is its blitz actually a better album? You know, is it's Blitz the best yeah-a-yes album? Case could be made. You can have your emotional attachment to fever to tell, but if you're to play the whole catalog for, a new ear or just on some sort of you know what I mean

like on the bottom if you're like taking all of the boxes its blitz might be the one I think what's interesting is the back to the inside of them there's two wolves situation I think the emotional wolf

on fever to tell is stronger than the emotional wolf on its splits get out maps Y control and modern romance no but you're talking about soft shock skeletons. I love

skeletons. I love Soft Shock. I actually really like Dragon Queen featuring Tunday from TV on the radio. I love hysteric. Hysteric? Come on. These are great songs, but MAPS! White control!

I know, but Modern romance. I'm, yeah. Maybe it's just a personal preference thing. I just got so shrill. Yeah, it's not, I don't know. I truly like, I don't know. It's also a fool's

They're great. Maybe they're equally great. But I just think, like, for them to come back from show your bones, having some dark cloud around it or some doubts or some feeling of a little wobble or... Totally. It is such a great. I love that for Yeas. I love... It's such a fuck you.

It's just so good. I mean, Head Toll Role is their most stream song. Yeah. It's their most popular song. Well, because all the remixes and shit. Yeah. Well, even... Yeah.

The A-track remix obviously really... But, like, their number one most stream. song is the regular heads will roll 410 almost 411 million streams yeah that's crazy let's go i would have thought it would be maps but it's heads will roll yeah that's a god tier song that's why it is an absolute god tier song my uh my king richard ayade do you know him the british comedian he directed it the the video for it okay i learned that yesterday um made me really happy because i love him. It's the one where there's like a werewolf dancing in front of, they're like, they're kind of doing a lounge, they're doing like a lounge act kind of thing and then there's

just like a werewolf in a suit that's giving Michael Jackson dancing in front of them. It's a really cool video. Zero into Headswell rule is like a knock you out one to punch. Yeah. Of a start to an album. But yeah, you're right. Soft Shock, Skeletons. This is great. This is a wonderful album. Yeah. hysteric fall sweetly hang heavy

you suddenly complete me what I'm saying just my tears it did really well I think this might be their most highly reviewed album so yeah I guess to your point

like it probably is like the objective or like critical favorite as like this is the best yeah it's album well it's like yeah it's it's you know production-wise too. It's just so, it's so listenable. You know, it's so like you could introduce someone who doesn't

have like ears that are as art leaning to it and they would vibe to it without needing too much sort of like you had to be there type. Yeah. I think what's really cool too is that like it's not the kind of thing where like Dylan

goes electric. You know what I mean? Like it's so clear that in their DNA was already dance music from day one. So it's more of an evolution than it is like a departure. And I think that is a really cool thing. Again, I love a departure as well. But like I think it felt, I think it hits so hard because it felt so like, oh, they just enhanced this part that they had always had within themselves. Yeah. I mean, I think it's cool. Like, you know, obviously it's a classic thing for artists that

start off being very like stripped down and elemental and that kind of thing to be to add. to add some stuff. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, yeah, it's good to have room to add because then you can take the thing you were trying to do and make it, you know, not to say necessarily better, but like you can have it go farther into different areas or make it sound even more like what you were imagining

when you had fewer tools and or didn't know how to use those tools as well. You know, it's like, okay, maybe Nixon are just, hadn't spent the hours doing the synth if you plug that cable there which is one of those instruments that always whenever I see one I'm just like bleep bloop no no idea how can't even do it love it but love it for those you know what I mean it's just like okay well it just takes those 10,000 out or whatever the experience to be like oh no the this was always in us but we just didn't know how to use that gear yet and this is a testament also

to introscope and also to 2009 because they were given those 10,000 hours like actually um Nicolone pointed out in some interview that it was really unusual for a album to be written and created in the studio, like, because production budgets were usually cut back from that. That's a lot of studio time, you know, but they were given that room to do it. I mean, Interscope believed in them and bet on them, and also people were still buying CDs in 2009. Yeah, and I think hopefully, you know, at that point, you're getting good reviews. You've got Grammy nominations for the two albums you've done so far. you've earned a bit of, you know, slack. Yeah.

Hit 22 on the Billboard 200. Yeah, it did great. People love it. To this day, people love it. Definitive album cover. Earth Fisher photo of the egg. It's so cool. They played a Saturday Night Live finally.

It is notable that they did play maps. Got to. They were probably requested to. Oh, I think they were told to. I'm just speculating, but also zero. So very cool. And then they played Coachella. Did you go that year?

I did. Yeah. I did not go that year. They had that beautiful, like, whilst the sun is setting moment. Really great slot. Yeah. Just pre, you know, dusky vibe.

Yeah. In October of 2009, The Where the Wild Things Are movie came out. Carino and Spike Jones had broken up at this point, but she did the soundtrack. And Nick and Brian played on it too. And also Deer Hunters, Bradford Cox.

really underrated I gotta say I still to this day I'm like one of the most underrated musicians in bands of all time is Dear Hunter and other people from other bands

and then in 2010 I guess Nick and Karen were like simultaneously going through a really hard time like Nick was going through a breakup and Karen was really depressed and I think she was living in New York again and they just started jamming together with no like you know no intention and as Nick said we were just playing songs

because we needed to and it was very therapeutic and it felt really good to do and that was about a year and those jammings of a year is what turned into three years later the album mosquito I actually really like mosquito. I think mosquito, fair to say, kind of a maligned yeah-a-ya's album, right? Yeah, I mean, it has some good stuff on it,

for sure. I just love when people get weird. Yeah. Okay, do I return to it? Not that much. So that's a thing. But I think I was expecting to, like, put it on

and be like, oh, like, hard to listen to. No, not hard to listen to. No, not at all. I think it is interesting. I was when I was, when I was refreshing my memory I was like, oh yeah,

people really hated that album cover. It was like a whole thing online. It was like a whole thing online. It's cool. It's cool. Yeah. And also it's like a really cool artist. Like I get like it's this artist name.

I'm going to mispronounce. I'm sorry. It's a South Korean animator name. Bom sick shimbe shim, who goes by Shimbe. And I think it's I think it's so cool. But people thought it was like

bootleg garbage bill kids. Actually, I read that Karenow's favorite movie It was Garbage Pill Kids movie. I think it's fucking awesome. Is it because of the slimy? I don't even... Are they upset by the baby being? Not that this doesn't still exist,

but it's just like, there's too much dissection on the internet of things on the internet that were just like, is this really, there are blog posts about the reaction to the, like, I was just like, how was this? I don't remember, it didn't reach me that that was going on at the time. And I'm sorry, I look. I love these paths. I think it's a really cool and weird song.

Yeah. And you know what? You're fucking amazing for putting Dr. Octagon on a song. I love Dr. Octagon-A-Cologist. The album. Dr. Octagon a cologist? If you guys don't know, Dr. Octagon is an extraterrestrial time-traveling gynaecologist from Jupiter who treats chimpanzee acne and has a 208-year-old uncle with the skin of an alligator. Paging Dr. Octagon.

Cool. Keith, obviously the brilliant. One of the fucking best artists of my lifetime. Blue Flowers is a jam. I loved that album. And it's fucking sick as hell that they got Dr. Octagon on the horn on the James

Murphy produced track buried alive. It's fucking weird and it's cool and I respect it. Dr. Octagon Acologist is one of the best album titles of all time. It's a great album too, but also. Throw that shit on, you guys. Slap that shit on. It's so good. Yeah. That was like my friend

did that for Halloween one year. I thought it was an amazing costume. Oh, nice. The alien gynecologist. That's fucking Dan the Automator produced that album. Yeah. One of the greatest producers of all time. Don't give me start on Handsome Boy Modeling School. Honey, I will love to start with you on Handsome Boy Modeling School.

I still listen to that album. Well, the first one, all the time. The truth, the one with, the song with Mike Patton, one of the hottest songs of all time. Yeah. We used to be a proper as one of it. saying. But yes, okay, I understand why Mosquito is not the strongest point in the as discography. But I love that they were like, fuck it, let's be weird, you know? Yeah. The emotionally resonant songs are still good, but not as strong as on the other albums,

although wedding song is quite sweet. And I believe Karen sang that to her husband, Barnaby Clay, at their 2011 wedding reception, which is really sweet. I'm just happy we got to talk about Dr. Octagon, if I'm being honest. Okay, so that album kind of comes and goes. Also, again, it's fucking 2013. Like, this is Avici. I love that Avichie. But, like, Miley Cyrus is bangers, daf punk, random access memories.

This is when AM by Arctic Monkeys comes out. 2012, I believe, is when Spotify started. So we're kind of, we're not in. streaming music era yet, but we are post Napster, and we are in this sort of no man's land of like iTunes music downloads and stuff. Which unfortunately in retrospect was such a great time, and we didn't appreciate it while it lasted it from an artist's perspective. Right, because people actually paid money for it. People actually purchase things. But did they? I mean, people just ripped shit off the internet. That's why I did. Yeah. If I mean, if I worked,

if I keep you 100 with you. Yeah, but it worked out better than it works out now. That's true. And there was a reliable metric because you could keep track. You couldn't game how many downloads a song had system the way you can, how many streams it has. This whole shit's going to fucking implode. But at this point, not quite yet. But it is interesting that after Mosquito, they went away for a long time. Which is not to say that they're just like, ugh.

Do you think it was because of the negative feedback? No, I think just life and Karen had a baby and, you know, just then time passes. You're also 14 years into being in a band. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I love, I love when artists go away for a long time. Same. Oh, my God, it's the best. Go ahead, you know, live your life.

Especially when they come back and you're like, holy fucking shit. You still got it, which guess what? Spoiler alert is what happens with the AIS. Small biographical notes. Karen does put out a soul album. Beautiful. Crush songs, it's lovely. On Julian Cos of Long Business's label, cult records.

That's the year that she tells us. the enemy that yeah, as they're on a bit of a hiatus. And they were on a large hiatus. They did in 2018 cover Big Stars 13

for Spotify, which is actually one of my favorite covers of all time. It's so good. Like that was Karen Howe's voice. And then what was the year that she and Ezra did Moon Song? Oh, I don't remember.

That's good. They performed that on the Oscars and everything that was lovely. What movie was that for? It was a Spike Jones thing, wasn't it? It was for her? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Good one. Okay. And then in 2022, a smooth eight years later they put out cool it down

and guess what this album's fucking amazing yeah do you love when that happens oh yeah it's unusual I remember listening to an advance of that album because I wrote the bio for the you know the label bio

or whatever to go with it and I just cried instantly I mean they did it when the single came out spitting off the edge of the world with perfume genius I lost it

it. I was like, this is so beautiful. Also, guess who directed the video? Critchlow. Cody Critchlow. So sweet. What a beautiful arc. I love that song. I love that Karen O. took her like, because, you know, I think a lot of what happens and why people make a lot of late career work not being as good is because you're not, something that's so great about rock music is that taps into like really primal emotions that you just don't have as much anymore when you're like a mom and a wife not this isn't whatever an adult who pays taxes and is like you know to have a mortgage or whatever it's just like you know you have perspective and you're but I love that like that doesn't have to be true because you can tap into emotions about anything and kind of

take from that place and spitting off the edge of the world is about climate the climate crisis Yeah. Well, for one, Karen and like so many artists is just so sensitive, so emotional, really can take herself there, I think, at any time or place. She, in my interactions with her, often it feels like the emotions really are just below the surface. Right. And I think if you're that kind of person and also maybe in general, having a kid really brings it out. I mean, there's even the song on Cool It Down that where she talks about. You know, because there's these couple of spoken word moments that are really beautiful. Yeah. And she's describing asking her son, you know, to say what the moon looks like or something.

Yeah. And, you know, you see things through your child's eyes and it gives you this just profound feeling of newness to your own way of experience. And this high stakes thing about, especially with things like the climate crisis where you're like, this is my children's world and we're ruining it, you know. Totally. what it looked like to him. It's my favorite kind of late stage album because it's not trying to like recreate the past or like the youthful version of the IAS.

It's dealing with the concerns of maturity. You know, and I think that's where bands get it wrong. You know, like whenever like I hear a late stage album by a band, not whenever, but often, and I don't like it, it's because I feel they're trying to, like, kind of reheat their own nachos, if you will. And like that doesn't, it doesn't feel authentic. It doesn't work.

And I do think, like, or they're trying to chase youth, you know, like, and it's okay. I love when artists talk about, like, the last cure album, for example, which is, like, such a meditation on, like, mortality and, like, death. I know we might think the cure is always talking about death, but this is, like, really talking about, like, I'm in my 60s and, like, what is it? How much longer do I have? I love that kind of stuff, you know, or even like divorce or like things that are really like the meat of maturity. I think that makes much better art when you're at that life stage than trying to sort of like put on your old tight pants and create from that place.

Yeah. I mean, to me, Cool it down feels very much like a continuation of its blitz. And I mean, it's good in a lot of the same ways that its blitz is good. I mean, just it's good for a lot of the same reasons that its Blitz is so good. It's sort of another album like that in terms of having like poppiness and, you know, danciness and, yeah, those songs that have those dynamic shifts and are really big. And then also the sort of more delicate, like spoken wordy, like moody shit that they're so good at as well. I really, oh, I should mention Dave Sittick.

and Andrew Wyatt and Justin Raisin produced this album. But I really love fleas because it has the sort of elements of that ESG song Moody and Karen was like a big ESG person also I hear a lot of ESG in early I as it's like such a continuum and I'm like

I loved that nod back to like again it's a difference between a nod back to your roots and back to what inspired you as opposed to like trying to just be that again. Yeah. So it's a wonderful album. Yeah I mean the thing of like of like if we're going to extend

the nacho reheating metaphor it's like when you're like I'm putting it on for 30 seconds like you're just hard acknowledging it you know like she she does the thing in fleas where where she sings

that's where we dance like yes she first she goes she does the like this and then you're like oh wait what is that again and then she tells you she actually sings the lyric of you know very moody, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, oh, yeah, okay, you know, no, no. It's a direct nod. It's an interpolation. It's not a sort of like, if you know, you know. In the way that

phenomena has that, we're sort of like, we put the nachos are in there. We're putting it on for 30 seconds. We're not, we're not afraid to point the shining light at the thing, our influence in this song. Right. Right. Which, you know, it reminds me of like the vampire weekend song Step, which is like three layers of things they interpolate. that are just sort of like, we don't, we don't, we're not pretending that we didn't get something from something else that we're like messing around with. We're not hiding our influences. We're like actually embracing them and sort of showing them to you. Yeah, I mean, this is the best possible upswing of an ending.

This is kind of how we felt when we did the Madonna episodes, even though, had it come out yet. I don't think it had her last album, but it's like, oh, you really want, you really want. And the A. I, yeah, guys are not dead. It's not, I'm not saying this is their last ever album. But as far as we're concerned for our story, it is. And it's like, I love it when we go out on a high. Yeah. Also different today, it really slaps from that album.

Great. It's really great. I love that song. Yeah. I saw them play when they did, I'm sure you did too, when they did those, like, couple of underplays prior to this album coming out. It was just, it was so cool to just, like, be there again and see Carineau again and just hear the songs again. and she had this amazing costume on

and I was like, oh yeah. Yeah. Well, Jenny, we did it. We did it, Joe. We did it. We got to the end of the AAS story or the end for now. Thank you so much for joining me

to talk at length about the career of the AAS. And thank you for joining us. Please come back next week for a new episode of Bantzwein. If you liked what you heard today, Subscribe for more episodes of Bansplaine. Our guest today was Jenny LSCU. You can hear her on SiriusXM and also on her own podcast, LSQ,

wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jacob Harnett. Executive producers for Bansplaine are Gina Delvec and me, Yossi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino

and Jennifer Clayton. And graciously recorded by Carlos De LaGarza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our Producer Emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tepper Rupert, and also Sean Fennessey and DMB Radio on Sirius XM. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplaine on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Do you have a little Mohawk? I guess so much.

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