We Are Scientists

California-based campus-rock aficionados We Are Scientists first broke onto the UK scene in 2008 with the chart success of their album Brain Thrust Mastery. Music News caught up with them to discuss their forthcoming 6th Album.


We Are Scientists Interview:



> How are you finding your first time at Tramlines?

“Pretty good. We’re on the Nando’s new music stage later on and we just walked around and checked the whole place out - it’s got quite a crowd!”

As a band - you’re very much the archetypal US Campus Rock band. How do you think the US scene compares to the UK scene for rock?

“The UK scene is a lot more Scuzzy. Thats the only difference.”

> Scuzzy.

“Yep. Scuzzy.”

> Scuzzy...

“Yeah...I mean you can tell when a band sounds English or sounds American but I’m not sure how you quantify what that difference is. Maybe it’s the accent.”

> How does playing up-and-coming festivals like this compare to playing mainstream events?

“We get to be toward the top of the bill here. It's practically degrading playing the likes of Reading and leeds, way down the roster with all these bands above you.”

> You’ve played in various different international locations - do different crowds react differently to your music?

“Yeah but I’m not sure if it’s to do with different manners on the part of the locals as much as just different levels of popularity for us. I mean if we play in Italy we’re not a big band there, so people are... polite... but not frenzied the way they are in some English towns”

> On the mainstream scene there’s been a lot of genre mashing. Will the indie / campus rock scene eventually show signs of that?

“I guess individual bands are always going to experiment with new sounds - probably out of boredom - but I guess in the near future as long as bands want to push the guitar led thing it’ll stay strong. Still, perhaps in ten years time there will be nothing but dubstep. And Skrillex will be king”

> You had a spin-off comedy TV series, Steve Wants His Money. How did that come about?


We talked to MTV for a while about doing something and there were various projects that never got off the ground - which is the fate of 99 % of TV projects, but, well this one worked. So Steve Wants His Money was a very last minute thing. The producers told us they had like £4000 to give us to make these mini episode things that they were gonna use during commercial breaks and I think several other teams were gonna be involved as well. So 8 episodes, as kind of TV- shorts. It was very sudden - we wrote it while we were recording Barbara - our last record, and we came to London and shot it for 3 days and it was aired pretty much straight away after that.

> Do you feel the script writing experience had an effect on your songwriting in any way?

“Not really. We certainly don’t write songs with a video in mind. “

> Are there plans to do more TV based stuff going forward?

Yeah i think we are - we're sort of always in the middle of some kind of development with the TV stuff - you get through one gate and there's another gate. I think on this next record we're also gonna try and do a kind of self-shot youtube-shared video. I guess we'll work with a production company a bit - so someone can hold the camera and someone knows how to light - at the moment we're restricted to filming between noon and 2 with good cloud cover. Its tough.

> As a band you guys have gone through a few different drummers - for a band, does that help add new talent and energy into production or does it foster trust issues?

I think it’s nicer it to be a coherent band where everyone’s on the same level if that’s possible which is where we got back to with our latest drummer, Andy. It wasn’t nightmarish to work with hired guys, but, I would say one important thing with Andy is that he’s the drummer on the record, so he’s out touring and playing out songs for which he wrote the drums - and that personal ownership really comes through on the song - whereas the last two guys, whilst awesome - didn’t have that feeling of responsibility.

> What’s the plan for We Are Scientists now?

We’re almost done with our record - we’ve got to finalise vocals, get it out next year. We’re talking to people this week about that. If we don’t find a label for that - then we'll self release it - like the last record. Its definitely more work - promotion, etc, but its more rewarding. It can be profitable too - it depends on the success of the record. So anyway, March seems like as good a guess as any for the release date.

> Is Spring a good time for new music then?

I mean, there are good times and bad times to release records. Yeah - Spring for us because the fall I’d pass unless you’re really big . Fall I guess is the most desirable time overall - people are buying for Christmas - but as a smaller band you’re competing against the big guns - and they put out their records Autumn until November. Jan is the dead time as everyone’s spent all their money.

> What artists do you rate?

Lots of people - Chew Lips, Tall Ships, The Virals, the recent Gossip record. Blood Orange’s new record is fantastic.

>What advice would you give to bands starting out? I feel we arrived during the end of a certain period - I think we got to a certain level before the internet was the way to do things - it seems like people create a following using social media; we don’t really know how to do that - so maybe we're out of date! It’s pretty old school but my advice from our experience is go for a major label. Splurge - drop money on PR. Spend money to make money. But, I’m not sure if that’d work now!

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We Are Scientists' album is due out Spring 2013. For further info, visit - www. wearescientists.com