An Evening With We Are Scientists (Starland Ballroom)

Sounds of Thunder: Your newest release, With Love and Squalor, has already hit the shelves in the UK, and will be making its way to record stores across the US in January. Is it true that it will be released here as a dual disc CD/DVD, with a DVD full of videos for each track on the record?

Chris Cain: Well, actually the dual disc format has been abandoned by man and record company alike, which we all know isn’t man. The record will be released on January 10th 2006 as a single disc. We will also be releasing a deluxe edition of the album. Depending on sales of the first release, it will be release a month after, or a day after. But no later than a month. We will be selling just the DVD on tour for fuckers who already bought the album and don’t want to get ripped off.

Keith Murray: Ohhh… you guys started without me? That’s it, we’re out of here. Let’s go.

CC: Oh, we were just talking about the dual disc.

KM: Ah, the dual disc, well, what’s there to say? Virgin is only doing the single disc for now. We only got one copy of it each.

SoT: Man. Has Virgin been treating you well?

CC: Yeah, we like it. Better than having to do all this shit ourselves.

SoT: Do you miss playing the smaller venues on your own and not opening for larger bands at larger places?

CC: Well, it’s nice playing to larger crowds. I remember, like, going to Columbus, Ohio once, and we literally played to Bishop Allen. And the trip to Columbus is no short order.

SoT: Will you guys ever play with Bishop Allen on tour again? Or is that out of the question now you’re on Virgin?

CC & KM: *Laughter*

KM: No, never… Probably.

CC: Well, we’ll be back in the area on tour in mid to late January. And I think that Bishop Allen have a few dates they’re working around. And as we all know, Bishop Allen doesn’t cancel shows. So, this time, it’ll probably be without them. But I’m sure we’ll play with them in the future.

KM: It’s nice playing the larger shows like tonight. Thank God for Hot Hot Heat.

SoT: Speaking of Hot Hot Heat, you’ve been likened to them musically every once in a while. Is it sort of weird opening for them?

KM: It’s very odd. It’s very like alpha-male. Everyone is kind of sizing each other up. Who’s gonna have total domination of this sound tonight? Sometimes it’s us, once it was Hot Hot Heat.

CC: I think the weirdest thing for me was the first night, when I watched their bass player, Dustin, at how he treated those songs, our songs, the songs we all play. Because there are a couple of differences, I mean it takes a bass player to know the difference. He insists it’s the same bass line. It isn’t. It’s a difference of feel

KM: There’s a certain personality to the way he kinda hits, the way he does that up. He picks upwards on that one. And you go down for that one hit.

CC: You know what it is? He wears athletic shoes. And I don’t wear athletic shoes.

KM: You wouldn’t. So the bands are quite different, if only in that respect.

SoT: So, I know you’ve heard this before…

KM: Yeah, we’ve heard it all before. Don’t feel bad.

SoT: You were kind of “discovered” in England, after a British DJ saw you guys at SxSW last year, and you’ve been touring there extensively since. Is it strange that you’re more well known in England than you are here?

KM: It’s weird because everything is upside down. Very odd.

CC: In England you write with your eraser, you uh… you know. When you fire a gun, you die. Inevitably.

KM: You use your food to eat your utensils. It’s insane.

CC: But once you get used to it, it’s kind of fun. It’s kind of kooky.

KM: When We Are Scientists shows up at a show, so do bands. It’s all backwards. It’s all exactly the opposite of the USA.

CC: Loopy.

SoT: So, at the risk of angering you guys, I was going to ask about some of the older stuff.

CC: It’s a little late to worry about that, my friend.

KM: Ask away!

SoT: First, Ode to Star L23.

KM: Rest in Peace.

CC: Not a song! Different band! Ahhh!

SoT: Is there a Star L23? I’ve done my research; haven’t been able to find anything.

KM: So then, why are you asking? You, one of the world’s foremost astronomers. Why would you ask us?

CC: When you say you did your research, do you mean you actually checked the skies for Star L23?

SoT: Yes.

KM: You’re very thorough, you’re very thorough. We recant. Our mistake, our mistake.

SoT: What was the whole obsession with Mothra? I mean, Mothra’s cool, but why was…

KM: The obsession with Mothra. I hardly think that one song is an obsession. It’s a healthy curiosity.

SoT: Weren’t there two? “Mothra Under the Sea” and “Mothra vs. We Are Scientists”.

KM: Well… let’s be honest, that was the same song. Just two different flavahs.

SoT: Like “Callbacks” now.

KM: Exactly. You could ask, “what’s our obsession with ‘Callbacks’?” Well, that’s an obsession, I’ll be honest.

SoT: Why is it that you guys don’t play any of the older material on tour anymore? I miss the days when I could go see you guys and you would play “Bomb Inside the Bomb” or “Selective Memory”.

KM: Well, that’s the thing. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. We’re very spiteful. We’re very spiteful fellows. There’s nothing we relish more than taking the stage, and watching tears stream from a man’s eyes as we near the end of the set, and we didn’t play “Bomb Inside the Bomb”.

CC: Fuck ‘em. Fuck them.

KM: God. Seriously, such power you’ve never known.

CC: Unlimited.

KM: It’s really unlimited power. But it grows stronger with every song we write and then abandon.

CC: Then how is it unlimited if it keeps growing? Unknown.

KM: It’s a paradox.

SoT: Will we every hear these songs again?

CC: You’ll have to travel. I vow that we will play a reunion fucking set in Claremont someday. And you will have to travel. And you will. You want it that bad.

KM: So either you’ll have to travel to Claremont or travel through time.

CC: Yeah, which will be easier.

KM: Actually, what this is, is our bid at trying to bolster everyone’s ambition towards developing time travel. We really would love to travel through time. We don’t have the knowledge. So what we need to do is write a bunch of songs we then abandon to get scientists craaazy to get back there.

CC: It’s like how George Bush encourages the space program by cutting NASA’s budget. It’s the same idea. The same principle. We learn from him. Everyday actually.

KM: He encourages space travel by making the earth almost totally uninhabitable.

*Raucous laughter*

CC: Negative reinforcement in other words. Negative reinforcement.

SoT: Alright, so now we spoke a little about the dual disc already. But, about the videos. In the video for one of your new singles, “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt”, who is in the bear suit? Is it a real bear? Is there a person in it?

KM: Are you asking if there’s a real bear in the bear suit? Yes. Yes there is.

SoT: How were you picked to be eaten? Did you draw the short straw?

KM: Hey, that’s nature’s way, my friend. Survival of the fittest.

CC: Yeah, exactly. Did the duck-billed platypus draw the short straw? I mean, I dunno, in a sense, yeah. But that’s just what happens. The way nature decided things should be. Now putting the bear in a bear suit, which I think was genius, was our way of dodging PETA, which can be really nasty about putting animals in videos. You have to have handlers on set, to make sure the animals aren’t abused. We didn’t have the budget. But we did have $110 to rent a bear suit to put on this California Brown Bear. So that’s exactly what we did. He handled it well. He sweated like a motherfucker, all day.

KM: We were stuffing salmon under the fold of the suit. He was a good sport.

CC: We put herring through the eye holes.

KM: He went nuts for it. And I think he started loving that by the end. I think we converted him to herring. Actually, at the end of the shoot we all got together, put cash in a hat and bought him a fucking flight to Denmark. And I think he’s going to be one happy bear.

SoT: So, to digress, Chris, how long did it take you to grow such a wonderful moustache?

CC: Well, I’ll be honest. It wasn’t until about a month that it looked anything approaching respectable. But it wasn’t until I finally understood Einstein’s theory of relativity that it started to look like Tom Sellek’s moustache. I don’t know what the connection is. I don’t know if there is one. But was it a coincidence? It was, they coincided. So, there you go.

SoT: I know that your album hasn’t even come out here yet, but you’ve had some down time. You know, you’ve had most of the material written and recorded. Some of the songs are from the Wolf’s Hour EP. Are we going to see any new material any time soon?

KM: Never. Never ever ever ever.

CC: I’ll be honest. If these songs don’t make us 100 million dollars, then I’ll bite my own head off. It’s impossible, either way. So you see what I’m saying? Why would we write more songs¸ when we have more money than we’ll ever need guaranteed to us?

KM: We don’t do this because we like it. We do this because we want 100 million dollars.

CC: To split three ways, with 15% for our manager.

KM: After everyone gets their piece, we’re looking at a tidy hundred thou’ each. That’s when we buy an island, I guess.

CC: That’s going straight into my grandchildren’s college fund.

KM: Yeah, they’ll never have to work.

CC: Never have to work again, through their way through college. Semantically that was a tough sentence, but you know what I mean.

SoT: I know Tapper’s not here, but…

KM: How do you know that? How can you be so sure?

SoT: He could be, but I don’t physically see him.

KM: Alright, fair enough.

SoT: Who were your musically influences?

KM: Well, let’s list Tapper’s first.

CC: Mariah Carey, Hall & Oates, he’s always loved all the hair metal from the 80’s, Poison, Motley Crue, up to Guns and Roses.

KM: We got here, I don’t know if you saw the sign outside said “Metal Mania” was a couple days ago, featuring Janie Lane of Warrant, Don Dokken of Dokken, Kip Winger of Winger. He walked in, and saw the set list featuring all of those illustrious names. The reason Tapper’s not here is because he’s sobbing into a towel in the dressing room that we missed it.

CC: He put a giant pancake splat right into his boxer shorts. And let’s be honest, that’s our poetic way of putting it. He loves hair metal.

SoT: What about you guys?

KM: We like Judas Priest, that’s about it.

CC: Yeah, I honestly can’t think of another musical influence.

SoT: When you were wee little Chris and Keith, who did you listen to?

CC: The first concert I went to was Def Leppard, which I undeniably enjoyed.

KM: Bon Jovi, undeniably enjoyed.

CC: I saw the Slippery When Wet tour. That was my second concert.

KM: Wow, I think I only saw, I think New Jersey was my first one. You got me.

CC: I was 12 or something. I think my sister took me.

SoT: Alright, I think that about wraps up the scheduled questions. Thanks so much for indulging us.