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 It’s not easy being in the band of the moment, as evidenced by VAMPIRE WEEKEND drummer CHRIS TOMSON opting against conducting this interview on an empty stomach. MICHAEL PINCOTT wishes him godspeed in making it to breakfast on time.
Tomson is unnecessarily apologetic when he calls back ten minutes later.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to get in before the free hotel breakfast closed.”
Tomson is in Hamburg, Germany, his band on a four-week European stint – two weeks in the UK, two weeks everywhere else.
“We sold out last night which was good; the last time we played in Hamburg the audience was much smaller. Today we’re off to Berlin.”
The difference in numbers can be attributed to the New York indie rock four-piece’s self-titled record being released early this year. The live audiences the band now play to appear to be picking up the album pretty well.
“The places we’re playing are small enough that all the people who come are ones who’ve heard the album,” Tomson says. “It’s an exciting thing, to be in a country where English isn’t the dominant language, but people still sing along. That’s pretty cool.”
Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut has been the subject of much critical acclaim and has thrust the band directly into the spotlight and also onto the Splendour In The Grass bill. Tomson is very happy with how the album has been received.
“It’s been very exciting, we worked on it for a year and a half before it came out and I guess we all liked it and thought it was good, but you have no idea, especially when it’s your first thing, how people will react to it. I don’t know about reviews, but it’s great when people come to shows and are enjoying it and want to sing along. They cheer when they hear certain songs they like.”
Tomson says that A-Punk appears to be a particular favourite so far because of radio exposure, but realistically any track he suggested could be a viable contender, such is the consistency and breadth of the album.
The aspect of Vampire Weekend most talked about is their worldly – specifically African – influences. On first listen it may not be obvious: the extra brightness in the rhythms or the underlying fluidity in the drumming, or even the odd vocal stylings of frontman Ezra Koenig. It’s the result of indie rock coming together with African pop, also known as afropop or afrobeat, and it’s this unique fusion that have made Vampire Weekend stand out amongst a myriad of similarly good-looking indie rock bands. I ask Tomson how the band originally became interested in African pop music.
“I think it came about in different ways for different members of the band. When I was in high school I stumbled upon a concert in New York by an afrobeat band and I really enjoyed it. I talked to them afterwards and found out about artists like Fela Kuti and researched and found out about other artists and heard more CDs and that’s where it started for me. It happened to be one kind of sound that we all enjoyed.”
Vampire Weekend coined their very own fake genre to describe their music, which to the band’s amusement has been taken a little too seriously. The name of the genre? ‘Upper West Side Soweto.’
“It’s pretty much meaningless, we made up a number of fake genres for our MySpace page. Soweto is a style of music and also a district in South Africa, and Upper West Side is part of Manhattan. Some people just enjoyed putting more stock into it than it deserved. It’s just about modern artists making modern choices using instruments from anywhere.”
Interestingly the creation of the album wasn’t at all focused on making a particular kind of music, but rather avoiding particular stylistic elements in an attempt to craft something undisputedly their own. Or is it?
“We didn’t want any distortion or guitar heavy stuff, and there were also certain rock & roll drum beats that we felt we’d heard a lot and didn’t seem very exciting,” Tomson reflects. Funnily enough, Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox – merchant of guitar distortion – has shown a particular disdain for the band, citing them in a rant against modern indie rock. ‘When I think of indie rock recently I think of sort of bands whose names I won’t mention appropriating African music.’
Islands’ Nick Thorburn had similar thoughts, viewing the album as a deliberate mining of the ideas on Paul Simon’s Graceland, the closest thing to a contemporary album reveling in African music (until now).
Whether their criticisms are justified is up for debate, but this perceived appropriation has been the defining aspect of the band’s success. Fans of the band view Vampire Weekend’s sound as something fresh and interesting, detractors feel they’re simply ripping it off in a calculated attempt to distinguish themselves. It may be that people are irritated that four white New York college boys (a demographic that couldn’t be further removed from the ideals of African music) are making it their own. But in the end, one of the wonderful things about music is the way that the lines of not just genre but also culture can be blurred, and that is exactly what Vampire Weekend have been successful in doing.
Tomson plays down the actual formation of the band, mildly stating, “No epiphany moment, just four friends who wanted to play a gig, and maybe some parties.”
More intriguing were the creative outlets of frontman Koenig, two of which flowed directly into what is now Vampire Weekend.
One of these accounts for both the name of the band and a song on the record called Walcott: a pseudo-attempt at making a film about … you’ll never guess … vampires.
“That was actually a movie made by Ezra and his childhood friend Wes Miles, who ended up as the lead singer of Ra-Ra-Riot, and that happened about two years before either band was formed. It was something done in a bored, college summer sort of way, Ezra had seen Lost Boys with Kiefer Sutherland and felt inspired to make a movie about vampires on the East Coast. They spent two days mucking around, it didn’t get very far. He happened to put the footage he took into a trailer right around the time the band was starting so it was just something that was there as a creative source. Calling it a film is probably more than it wants to be called,” Tomson jokes.
The song Walcott reflects the opposite of the plot of the film, the character of Walcott trying to get out of Cape Cod instead of trying to break in.
The other was from a ‘comedy’ rap group formed by Ezra and Tomson called ‘L’homme Run’.
“That was a trio with Ezra and our friend Andrew doing vocals and beat stuff and I was more the live addition to the group. The first couple of shows I worked the PA and the beats and eventually started playing bass and guitar over and under the beat.”
Despite the difference in genre, Tomson sees L’homme Run as a precursor to the band he’s now enjoying so much success with.
“It was similar in spirit and certainly in musical ideas to some extent to Vampire Weekend. It’s not so much comedy rap as just rap that doesn’t take itself seriously. But once in a while I’ll hear one of the songs and I still think they’re pretty good.”
Leaving DIY film trailers, rap trios and now a very successful debut album in their wake, Vampire Weekend have continued to prove themselves (to at least some people) by living up to the insurmountable blog-driven hype that has been built around them. So will they be able to prove themselves to Australians? We’ll have to wait for the weekend to find out.
Catch VAMPIRE WEEKEND at this weekend’s completely sold out Splendour In The Grass Festival at Belongil Fields, Byron Bay, August 2 & 3. The band’s self-titled album is available through Remote Control.
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