modern We are the world would not hit the same because you know God bless autotune it it's it's it saves us you think we've but you think we've evolved as everybody everybody's voice sounds the same the autotune it's not going to have it's not going to be the same and millions will die because of this do you understand what I'm saying where do we start there's a lot I want to talk to you about and I was thinking about this album a lot since
I've been enjoying it and I've really enjoying it oh glad to hear that your albums always have somewhat of a conceptual feeling to them at least I feel you know the concept even if you don't elaborately you know explain it to
people you know um but this one is really in an architecture like it's in a it feels like it's in a time in a place that's been updated Through Your Eyes today but definitely like kind of almost wish I was born in that time Vibes and
you get a chance to kind of live vicariously through that experience through this artwork that's been beautifully collected and been sitting waiting for someone to be inspired by it I mean what a unique experience to be
able to write and and create and build through that lens and be so open about it cu the lens is awesome yeah we got lucky finding you know sometimes it's hard enough to find one image that feels appropriate but then to find a whole batch of images and then
footage all from this one guy step seagull and it all you know my understanding is he would didn't become a a photographer or a filmmaker as his main profession but even the stuff he was doing as a young guy he clearly had
an artist's eye you know so he both captured a time and a place you know funky New York in the 80s but also with this touch of surrealism that's what made it really special did it feel like you were writing for a film at times or
creating you know almost a soundtrack to to your own band in a way by using these images in such an inspiring way in some ways it was just uh it was it it made it us just you know that much more ambitious we're always pretty ambitious
but I just like the idea of trying to make sure that the music lived up to the imagery I remember being young and I'll get real disappointed I'd see some like freaky 60s and 70s covers and then the music didn't sound didn't sound good I
was actually very disappointed by psychedelic music in general when I was young I don't want to name names all this music has grown on me but I was a kid and I saw this psychedelic imagery and these crazy covers and I listened to
it and I was like this just isn't that crazy it's not what I expected maybe they were using the art to like ramp up maybe they knew maybe they're listening back to their mixes like man we didn't live up to our own expectations here we
need some kickass artwork in order to make this thing fly at times I mean we've all been guilty yeah true you but look they're both important they're both important it does live up um and I and I think there'll be there'll be uh
probably some kind of incentive to want to dial into into the into the detail of the photos and when listening to the record and and and draw comparisons to bands and artists and time frames and everything else but I just I hear it in
the like drum sound you know what I mean I hear it in the use of the instruments that you've chosen in particular on connect when the double bass kicks in I'm like people don't often connect double bass with New York it's a big
part of the New York sound for me that double bass sound or that that I mean yeah it's it's it's Jazz and obvious New York Jazz oh and it's tribe too yeah no totally I think on some of these songs me areel talked about tribe Beasty
Boys Wang you know all the the the greats yeah but you're right yeah double double base is a upright is it's it's a hard instrument you know and it and it's interesting because it it can live in both the orchestral World Jazz hip-hop
it's true who played it on the record it's a mix some of it um there's a guy Nam miles MO Ley Who Ariel went to high school with at the famous Hamilton High School I don't know what this High School is why is it famous you know and
again I didn't grow up in La my understand it's kind of like the fame it's the Performing Arts High School of La so you know you get kids busing in from all over the city because they're interested in um music or it's one of the music high schools and this one in particular um I know kamasi Washington went there um among Ariel and so anyway he has he's at this network since uh and some of his friends Jesse shatkin who's a also well-known
producer um so I think he's had this network from from a young age of uh kind of like these born and raised laog music types and and a lot of them are still in touch with each other and you can pull on these people to to to help you build
out this record and and give it the texture and the feeling that you're searching for and yet you're still a band and I wonder kind of how that how how and when you came to that conclusion as the three of you now because we still
consider Vampire Weekend to be almost a sort of archetype or early 2000s sort of band likey we're out on the road we you know we're rocking out here as a band and yet you've got Mars Mosley on the double base and you've got people coming
in all the time and you've got this kind of more revolving door policy to the band now and I wonder kind of how that when did you sort of realize that that's that that's okay that could be the DNA of Vampire Weekend now going forward
even in the early days there was always an aspect to the band that felt like a bit of a studio project in the early days working on stuff often would be uh me and rosom sitting in front of a computer but the first album though it
did have this spark of kind of like band type inspiration and like you know I always think our biggest song a punk that came from it started out had this riff start playing it with CT the other guys come out you know so we had songs
like that but still there was like a very Studio Centric Vibe so we already had that kind of Duality even on the first album by the time you get to the second album Contra it be it seemed very obvious that for us to stay creatively inspired there couldn't be any rules so on Contra you have a song like cousins which that's you know that's classic like starting in sound check I'm like next thing I C you know just guys playing us songs like
that and then you had uh you know what a song like giving up the gun which is very started with like a beat I'd made years before in um Fruity Loops or um taxi cab that starts with like Roston mocking up uh kind of a synth sound and
a drum Groove you know no no band so already on Contra it was kind of obvious like we have to have different modes and then by the you get through the next few records and and so already this thing was established where yes you it'd be
reasonable to say what does it mean to be a band and I don't you know there are times where that question was easier to answer than others but I for me I always knew there's something mean meaningful about it I always appreciated the faith the
other guys have had in me and the freedom they've given me over the years to kind of pursue however I want to work in the studio whoever I want to work with and yet I've Al I've also always known that vampire would never quite be
one of those bands that where it's a it's kind of like a solo project called a band because there is something too meaningful about the way that we come together as an organization as a live act yeah it's there's something nice
about on this record the fact that like a song like Gen X cops it's a demo me and CT started years and years ago and it's also a reminder it's like you know what this band can be anything it's held together by the three original
members but you know arel is a huge part of it other musicians can be a huge part of it we have these different modes and I think now that we've been doing it long enough it just it all just feels kind of right it's how you build it it's it's how you see it and own it and and even when I watched the video for Capricorn which is a faithful um creative example of the collaboration between you and Steph seagull coming together the film footage
coming together we really get a sense of of the smells and the tastes and the touches of this record by watching that video yeah but at the end it's just the three of you in in that Hall and that reveals really I found it really
powerful I I I don't know how you felt when you saw it in the edit for the first time but I was quite God man it's so strange to acknowledge this it probably wasn't meant to do this but I felt quite moving because that's nice
because because it was like wow the three of you still there it's such a simple image the three of you just with with your back to the audience playing together I was like man through all of this mad creativity it is still that is
still the hot of the band there is something really meaningful about it like the you know even you're were talking about the the the the album feeling like there's a concept or there's something behind it and of course I put a lot of thought into it but
I've uh I've always really relied on um other people's opinions for sequencing sometimes I have strong feelings this album had a strong feeling about track one and the final track but you know Bao's always been really good about
throwing out interesting ideas for sequencing and he's great with set lists too and I also realized like he threw out an idea about you know what track two should be all all these things were at first I was like okay okay and then I
thought about it and then and then I actually felt the meaning afterwards I started to be like yeah right that tells the story I see it now it's so important to have long-term collaborators I mean it's also you know it's pretty basic but
it's just kind of like when you get older you also realize it's great to meet new people in life but there's also no substitute for old friends and I feel like that's really where you found yourself in this one on the last album
there was a lot of new people coming into your life there was great collaborators all over that people you known for a long time but we hadn't heard on the record as openly like you know Daniel of course Steve Lacy played a really Ro on some of the key fan favorite moments on their record this felt and I don't know I haven't seen the full track listing in terms of who showed up and who didn't you might just know I know that mil miles Mosley's on
the record but I just found that out yeah you know it does feel like it's you and Ariel and and and the two Chris's kind of coming together and holding this down how how much wider did it go because it's a wide sounding record well
you definitely going to get some other musicians but yeah everything about this felt like Tighter and also you know that's look my number one favorite thing um I I love music like everybody but if I had to Define my my specific way in
some people they get into music through live music some people they get into it because they love like singles I've always been interested in discographies like I'm the person you know like a lot of people they they go
to a celebrity's Wikipedia page they're beining it for a personal life cuz they want to find they have kids they get divorced all me I'd be I'd be lying for discography before I even read about the history of the band yeah because I
that's that's the story that's the form I'm interested in like you know it I'm pretty laid-back person but if somebody ever asks friends say like which came out first born in the USA or Nebraska you would get you go I I'll have to be a
little bit like red up come on yeah are you for real yeah yeah like was it yeus or My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy be like come on yeah I'll I'll do the bomb sound effect anyway that's just like these are the things that and many music
nerds can relate I'm not unique in this but that's that's our way in yeah so also it's to be able to tell a story through albums there needs to be tension and release so if I look back on the on the last album that was our big wide
genre experimentation guests for the first time like proper guests and you're hearing Danielle's voice and you're hearing Steve Lacy's voice and you're getting this um kind of like amazing mix of producers and collaborators and it's
18 tracks it's our double album and then it's like after that I don't want to make a triple album I want to make a 10 song focused album and uh we can't help it we're going to have there's going to be fun things like Dev Hines plays songs on uh plays drums on the song called Prep School gangsters total coincidence he stopped by the studio I love stuff like that I'm not I'm not I'm never going to make a rule it's like no it has
to only be the crew but it's a it's a smaller crew you know and that and that feels right for now but you kept some of the essence of of the last album in terms of the the willingness to to let the song Take you wherever it needs to
take you like before that was an overarching kind of communal experience I feel like in my head I'm sure this wasn't the case but father was made all of you living together on a commune somewhere out in Ohio you know that's
what it feels like to me you know when it's done it's done I think guys I think it might be done and it's like you know let's take this thing on the road this one as you say feels it's more it's tighter it's more focused it's more in
line with the inspiration that we see not just here but the song there's seven minute plus song on there there's songs like you know when I first heard connect I was like oh this is going to be this is almost My Tribe by the by the end of
it I'm like I couldn't have been more wrong that song took me everywhere right and so I feel like you found yourself in a pretty Progressive space just not so much from a sort of commun and ohigh more from every song has taken you on want its own Journey no totally you got out of the way of every one of them and I'm a big believer in that you know the uh or I've come to be be a big believer in that I do you know I used to think [Music]
um you know well you make every little decision and it's all about you know what do you and as the artist think and how do you want it to be whereas now I believe that the uh that that the human beings are are are uh Delivery Systems for IDE and
ideas use you mhm you know like Rick Ruben's book when he talks about like Source or something like that I'm like right right yeah source that that is you're not you're not built to do that coming out of college because in college
it's all learned everything's like here's the curriculum here's what you need to learn to past to move on and do whatever you got to do wherever you coming out of whatever institution that you've kind of been put into with with
your peers to just survive right right it takes a long time I think or or for most people at least to figure out that really it's what you don't know that's going to give you the best results exactly and especially that's where
you're going it's going to feel fresh and I think a huge element for that is time you know which is a weird concept some people call it a construct I've heard I've heard it's not real that's that's above my pay grade but I will say
in my experience time is great because when you're bashing your head against the wall trying to figure out how to use your brain to solve a problem and when you learn how to let go a little bit time sometimes just does its
thing and you figure it out or you find the right album cover that takes you there or you suddenly are just walking around um listening to a demo that you've had for two years and then you realize oh my God it's just got to be
acoustic guitar the more the more the more I get on my life the more I try to connect time to feeling I I honestly feel that I get the most out of my time when it's connected to a feeling that it is to a job or a goal or an ambition
right that's when I feel like oh that was the best use of my time and it could be on my own it could be listening to a record it could be going to a show it could be being with my family whatever is Conjuring up feeling
yeah that's when I really lose all comprehension of what time actually is doing for me yeah that's how that's how you're supposed to be in the flow what do they call that flow State Flow State right and truly you know Different Strokes for different
folks that so I look at people who release one or two records a year it's so alien to me and yet I see people who do it well because that's the path they're on that's like the timeline they're on the ideas come to them quickly
and again I feel like I don't want to fight it like I think at this phase our our band was put on this Earth to release a records probably every five years maybe I'll be surprised and there'll be a follow-up in a year but again I've realized that that's not up
to me and you're okay with that was there a time in the band's history where you felt that perhaps you were in danger of losing something whatever that thing may be because you couldn't keep up oh yeah of course I was like kind of
classic like overthinking neurotic person worried about like oh God what if this all goes away whatever and and especially when you're young it really feels important like get that get that followup going pretty soon you know and
it felt like when I think about how much pressure uh we put on ourselves or I put on myself for Contra I wanted that to I was obsessed with the idea that our first album was 08 Contra got to be 09 M looking back like who cares but whatever
that was important then at the last M the label was like how about January 2010 I just like oh my God all right all right and so when that felt yeah they Dropped a Bomb on Me and that felt like a a big deal at the time
because it's it's also was all I thought about um and then I've also realized you know whether you take six five years between records whatever once the record's out it's as if the time vanishes anyway so you might as well make it good I thought
about that the other day because I mean it's felt like quite a long time in between how act being active with Vampire Weekend and now I mean it's not album came out what like 2019 just before father the BR 2019 yeah
and then you know you toured it Faithfully when you could and so it's really been probably like what a couple of years give or take that that you haven't necessarily been as far as we're concerned as fans active yeah Empire weekend that's another thing right when you do the math the first year doesn't count when when you release your last record because you're busy and then well we had Co you know between these but but let's say first year
doesn't count cuz you're busy maybe the first year and a half then let's say you want to take 6 months to a year to live some life chill live some life then you start working work for a year and a half two years writing recording taking breaks to
make kick the tires and then you got to get into the end phase mixing and mastering and teeing everything up which could easily take six to n months then you pick a song and next thing know you're sitting in the bleaches at a
football game watching Luton with Rob Stringer and Harry starles and it's like that whole time just disappeared that's right you know next thing it's just like here he is right there at a football game just you know in the box with the
chairman I mean I would have done that even if you know I probably wouldn't have been in London at that time if we didn't have an album out so yeah it leads that ultimately I release music so that I get to go to Loon you you would
have concealed yourself better and this is the thing I really admire about you and I want to talk about your ability to conceal yourself when you don't want to be noticed you're very good at it not everybody some people choose not to be well I wasn't always I mean you know also getting older like you said was always how did I feel about time passing between records I used to be neurotic about it I used to think there's times where I also I'd feel
like even working on Father the bride when's a bit younger like you know ARL might be busy for a week or two I know how to do stuff on my own I write right on my own but there's a part of me it's like no no but I want to work on that
right now and and I would feel kind of like agitated and I think it's very important as you get older to learn how to kind of do nothing and I really got better at it yeah sometimes if I'm really thrashy the concept of sitting
still terrifies me right so how did you well I'm not saying you have to sit still you could take a walk too but but you can't I'm saying but you can't really like work I guess because there's times where you where you can't work and
and whatever Al also to look at that as a gift because on the one hand to do something like music it it's so amazing you know it's it's it's such a it's to me it's like you get I get to do essentially a hobby for as a job and you
have to remind yourself like I remember what it was like to have a real job I taught 8ighth grade in Brooklyn for a year and I was like you know how old was I 22 23 I was waking up at 75 every morning was insane tough grade too it
was tough grade yeah I mean that's an identity forming grade I mean that's that's a moment when kids are testing every boundary they can from inside their home to inside their classroom I have a pretty good sense of humor so
they never hurt my feelings but they tried to were you much of a were you a disciplinarian or were you pretty pretty chill you know I know how to like raise my voice and stuff but you damn I've never heard that before me raising my
voice well I guess you've never had a reason to I mean I've never asked you that question trying think what question I would ask Ezra now to make him raise his voice no but even even then I wouldn't like be yelling and just be
like sit down you know just would be whatever like you just got to be heard sometime but I'm just saying that that was that was a real job and it was and it's high stakes and um and it was uh stressful and I was tired all the time
oh with respect to the teaching Community I mean it is to me the the great unsung occupation of the on on this planet I yeah no it's a hard job and and it's it's it's hard for the kids it's like it's it's it's that it it
really is difficult and I'm just saying like that's that's a real job so if I ever feel like I have a little too much free time now I have to remind myself could have been teaching those eighth grade kids teaching was harder than this my parents
and grandparents jobs were a lot harder than what I'm doing so anyway I try to embrace that and kind of have you know be grateful for the free time and then also just kind of like yeah just realizing how to divide up the day and
and on and on this album there were these times where my family was like living abroad so which turned out to be great because I just couldn't work on the album for a few months like Ariel came and met me we were in London for a
while we were in Tokyo for a while oh cool places to be but again it's one one thing to visit these places for like a couple weeks when you're few thousand miles away from your closest collaborators and your wife's working
all day and your kids in school you know you got to know how to you got to know how to spend the day so what were you doing in in Japan on the days when you know the family is is off doing family stuff they're all occupied and you're
like okay yeah I'm an out of work I'm an out of work rock star right now you know meditate go to the gym I would walk to a a classical music Cafe called lion which is a is very old school been there really long time it's a very long walk I
would just hoof it there sit down have a coffee read a book listen to they play classical records there and then you know sometimes to be there two hours and be like oh look at the time I got to now I got to walk 90
minutes back I just like you know just do stuff like that I mean if you're not living in a city where there's a a cool classical music C 0 minute walk away but look sometimes you just got to be like I'm going to walk to that point on the
map and I'm going to walk back I love a walk I you know when I was a kid I used to walk so much in fact I would choose to walk to work even though it was an hour and 20 minutes every day I would choose to do it because I don't know
dude I just I love putting music on I love absorbing I love seeing the life go on around me I I do it less but what is it about LA and walking why is anyone so scared to walk here I've done some really long walks and I mean it's uh you
know the the Sun is is a bit intense can be intense for a long walk and it's not the most shaded City yeah it's not the shade you know it's look it's a classic suffering for fashion kind of uh situation if you want an iconic tree to
Define your city like the palm tree but it's one of the the skinniest little tree on Earth that literally cannot provide shade for one person yeah which is ironic because London but it's worth it it's like sometimes you know people
want to wear like painful high heels or you got to like squeeze yourself in like you know we all got to suffer for fashion you I mean you can do both right now I would say you were dressed for both today you are very high-end
beautiful tactile quality linen going on I love Lin very nice feeling I touched it before very nice to touch but also breathing got it's got a good feel I feel like it's it's seasonally adaptive I mean there's there's some people
getting some weird mystical stuff about Fabrics I'm into it you know the the Bible says you're not supposed to combine two different Fabrics I don't know about that but so the Canadians got it right what what do they do Canadian tuxedo oh right yeah
exactly the they're living by the words of the Bible doing God work but there is but it is there is something true sometimes about like I do as much as people love athleisure and stuff I just think like make sure you put on
some cotton and linen at some point too you don't want to be wearing all all plastic and and uh you know all weird kind of science experiment Fabrics all the time like the like I I was watching the Patriots documentary the other day
and the coaches wear these tops I've never seen them before they look like plastic bags but they're branded and logoed have you seen these things it's like they're wearing the like the inside of an industrial like bin bag yeah but
it's like got Patriots logos and on it I'm like the it looks like it's like bad latex loose latex plastic tops but only the coaches wear them it's a very strange thing is it breathable no it looks very unbreathable although we
are living in a day and age now where I feel like coaches are getting hotter you know how the coaches used to just be like yeah out of control off the scale they're just eating bad like it was just a it was a sub a day right just eating
subs yeah I feel like the coaches now are kind of looking it's almost taking that English soccer type mentality of like yeah I noticed that with the the coach of luden is very handsome guy he's real real sharp wearing kind of like shifted yeah I don't know I mean it's kind of like I always I always really respect when when you get a haircut from a a male hair stylist and they're bald yes and and and and now some people now some people would say
well there's one one school of thought that would say well well sir you don't have to worry about your hair so so you know what are you bring to the table and I say well that's right do you want the guy cutting your hair to be a pretty boy
preoccupied with his own hair or or a man who has forsaken living vicariously through your head of hair somewhat living vicariously vicariously through your head vicariously no because also it's like it's like being a monk it's
like yeah no distractions I'm focused on doing something I don't want to be looking at you don't want that guy looking at the mirror and being like no man you got a job to do people don't worry about the boldness so much when you're hot from the neck down they're like man look look at the way that guy carries himself without his hit or hair they live viously through you in every capacity of course all these things all these things are
true hotness attractiveness you know it's it it really does come from within that's no joke do you feel hot when you're on stage do you when you're on stage with a Vampire Weekend you guys are just ripping you're just ripping
through a variation of a song and are you like man I am feeling myself right now it happens sometimes I mean the truth is unfortunately I do feel more at home in the studio so it's like every few years it takes a while to get back
to that to get back to that place but I feel I feel very comfortable like with the people we're with on stage and we always have a sense of humor to bring it back to sports from the out of shape in shape there was a swap I feel like where
the more time you spent in the studio MH the more confident you got in the studio the broader The Sounds you were creating and the and the landscape for a Vampire Weekend audio experience kind of almost replaced that kid who was on stage at
reading festival at 5 in the afternoon with sunglasses on slick it's like was the opposite of the football analogy you started hot and handsome and now you're like quite happy to just cruise with the band ride it out not saying you're still not handsome you look great but you know what I'm saying you were one cigarette shy from Rockstar behavior when you were doing aunk on stage back then it was like all right we're going to do it one
two three a a little bit a little bit posturing going on but also the truth is there's never been a version of Vampire Weekend that really hit the middle of like the cool cool place and and and I'm not fundamentally dis no but I'm not I
don't have uh impostor syndrome I don't think I know you're not quoting for sympathy but I just disagree with all I'm saying is part of Vampire Weekend was always looking at what was supposed to be cool and doing something slightly
different so you know like the most basic level the um when we came out like those early songs they weren't the guitar tone was pretty clean you know referencing Paul Simon or something was not exactly rock and roll even though he's amazing and even the
clothes were not rock and roll they were kind of clean cut so you know I understood that even with these these earliest ideas of Vampire Weekend some people would find it fresh and some people would find it uh dorky and that's
the place that it's a place I like to go to sometimes because also what somebody finds dorky one year they might find cool the next year I don't know sometimes I I talk about with the guys like we always need to have an amateur quality to really be us there needs to be a slight awkward quality I don't know it's it's a it's a duality there needs to be confidence and awkwardness at the same time which is exactly what this album is it is like equal
parts Beasty Boys The Clash New York early days that beautiful transition that only a big Metropolitan City can give you of like starles and genres coming together and just merging pressure right pressure creating these new things and I hear that on this record the way that you've like I said the way the Rhythm Section separates itself but it's so gelled together and and the harshness of some of these stabs and horns and strings that just smash
you out of control um but then you've also leaned back into a place which we haven't really heard from you in a while which is this kind of um almost Baroque piano like you know I'm willing to to to to to play a scale like a real scale on
here um that's kind of up to me the studio side of the band I suppose just to be really simplistic about it yeah totally we we're we're as ambitious and interested in complex music I think as anybody but our music was NE but we've
never been like like jazz fusion shredders you know so again yeah like on a song like connect or something we try to write a a complicated piano part with probably more sophisticated chords than um some of our other songs but then for instance
I probably played it once or twice at Ariel studio and we never changed the recording and there cuz there's a couple of bum notes which are beautiful we pit shifted it and also that's why I'm very lucky to have Ariel as a collaborator
because he this guy can edit all day you know like left to his own devices he can edit forever he would even when I by the time I was checked out he wanted to re-record the drums on Gen X cops just to get it a little Vier and and have the feel a
little more right and he's he's almost like the in some ways like the musical conscience of the band because you know when we talk about references or something you know to really look at say like what made this cool like what
actually it's it's one thing to say like oh yeah like wuang like like rizab beats okay what but what what what do you really like about it what was he sampling how did he sample it how much noise is there on the you know on the
snare how much hiss is there and how is it compressed and stuff and those are the things that give I would say 20th century music life and you can make great music that doesn't have any of those qualities you can make great music
that's just the cleanest trap Loop downloaded off YouTube and rap over it I'm not saying that that music can't be amazing and have its own sense of Vitality but again but if you're referencing these classic records that
for you have a have a feeling of grit and life sometimes you really have to to get in there and sometimes that means getting off the grid for instance you know and that's something that as much as I'm ambitious I'm I'm also like lazy
and so sometimes I'll be like I don't want to do this one to to the grid and so you know you look at a lot of songs in this album they have a um they have a Tempo map that is more like you would see in a record from the 60s than what you would see in a typical
lools record no no I get I I get no sense really apart from a couple of moments here in there like on Prep School gangsters or even like the surfer where I get a sense there was even a click in the room let alone a grid that
was working on so if that's editing if that's if there's a looseness that's being applied through modern technology as well as the actual playing in the room then you're right Ariel's a genius yeah no he's he he it takes a lot of work to be that loose isn't he just in the band now I mean it took Trent resar like how many years for attakus to finally just join 9 in nails and just be done with it I mean isn't he kind of just in Vampire Weekend in a
weird way I might give him a chain give I might give him the VW chain I'm going to bring him out at the Hollywood Bowl and and well yeah but again that's the thing it's like he's the it's like a it's a big family too and and again another
thought when we're talking about what is the band this is one of my little pet theories where I'm like everything is a band because on the one hand bands are more some people have said bands are more played out than ever right even
when people tell me like rock is back and then they tell me what bands they're talking about they're not bands in the old school sense you know I mean it's great stuff but they might be solo artists or kind of temporary groups of
people that's all cool but bands are still bands May will probably never be the the center of like the cultural conversation the way they were again absolutely fine but my but my point has always been that you look under the hood
of most things there's something approximating a band a collaboration you look at Kanye one of the most popular uh solo artists of time you know Mike Dean is is what he's in the B and I always think about um the main crew behind um the the biggest Michael Jackson albums off-the-wall Thriller whatever rod templon in that whole Rod Temperon Quincy Jones Michael Jackson and Bruce seden who the Nerds know who he is his name's not as big as the other
guys but Bruce wedin was the The Genius engineer and there's a reason why you listen to those records and sound like they sound like they're from the 70s and the 80s and yet they also have this perfect mix of I would say what Bob
power is to Native tongues and backpacking yeah absolutely so you look at these Crews of people who worked together and and I don't know maybe it wasn't always easy obviously in in the solo artist case one person is the boss
and one person is the face but you look behind the scenes and you're like that was a group of people just like you know I just Oscars or something people up there thinking their team the the actor or something are thanking all the the
cast and crew you're like right because as much as you are the the the person with the the Louis Vuitton campaign and the perfume deal and stuff probably every day that that person is talking to somebody who's uh they're bouncing ideas
off of or something like and anyway I guess if you try to turn it into some kind of you know life thing it's like yeah human beings are naturally collaborative yeah we we're inclined to work together even though we make it very hard for ourselves to do that sometimes we create all kinds of barriers between that experience I don't know why I don't know why it's flawed in our system that makes us get get in our own way everybody's got some inner
conflict but when I think about yeah somebody like Ariel it's like whether whether he's in the band not in the band you know whether I thought we just established he's in the band because everything's a band until he gets the
chain yeah no no right yeah exactly whether we call him a member of Vampire Weekend just like do we we don't call our managers a members of Vampire Weekend we don't call the people but the label members of Vampire Weekend but is
it a huge group effort that involves relationships in this at now in this phase going back well over a decade sometimes yeah and and so it's it's almost like bigger than a band would you ever do an IM onone voice note like uh
like in those like Eminem albums where it's just like hey Ezra it's montone I've heard the album dude what are you doing to me this is such a piece of you got to call me this album is trash you know next album for sure I love that there's a
moment on this record and I think it's in the surfer mhm where it gets really big is it the surfer it's big orchestral moment boom and that was really that was a real Revelation to me because I feel like you have been building to that moment as a
fan at least a long time it felt very much like a release like this is the song This is the moment we're actually going to do it we're going full axle Rod here here we go I want those horns and I want that to sound like the
walls are caving in yeah um am I making too big a deal of it no I mean that was that's definitely the most live musicians we've ever recorded and again you know to R El's credit he he pushes things he's he loves old school stuff
like you know there's a certain I I have a certain point I've never been a Gearhead I appreciate it I appreciate the sound but the idea that um I'm usually pretty happy with the the plugin version but it's good that I have
somebody in my life who's not so you know we mocked up the surfer I'm the same as you by the way but I have friends who are the who are Ariel and they I drive them crazy with that talk they go crazy they it's a great it's a great Duality there's we recorded um I think it on Capricorn we recorded real strings playing the D and at the last minute I called it and I was like I like the I like the old ones I like the fake ones which are only half
fake anyway it's a real sample a real sampled instrument but on that song yeah we' mocked it up and with like high quality you know midi stuff and I was like it sounds pretty good he's like no no let's go do a big couple days at and
we did at East West Studios old school Studio it's where um Frank Sinatra recorded that's live you know like it's got real pedigree Heritage you feel it um yeah and it's a big amazing room and actually it's funny the last time I was
in that room I I was uh visiting a buddy who was working on like a big uh pop stars album and I went into this room which is made for an 80 piece Orchestra and there was just like a a a German guy on his laptop in this like giant room
brilliant which I kind of loved him own way anyway now yeah that was cool too but now I'm back in now I'm back in uh that's Jeff's next pretty cool just like so much space but anyway now we're back in this room with not 80 people maybe 40
and it really was special and I was glad because also recording um recording can be so insell at the end of the day the vast majority of Vampire Weekend stuff the the if I had to boil down to one image it's often a couple people sitting in front of a computer whereas this day it's this big Orchestra and one and one thing cuz Ariel has done more like big orchestral stuff with some of his like TV and movie stuff and I and I was not familiar with
this phenomenon he was just like invited everybody so it's like a little bit of a party and normally I'm so like I don't want anybody in the room I want to be able to talk freely and then but then this time we're like hanging out you
know I like my family stopped by but I'm like meeting like I'm like like oh this is his cousin um and then like the the dude who created beef came through real cool guy and I was kind of like oh wait hang on what but was like like this guy
made beef and everybody's like all right great show but wait but but what spies the guest list like it's fine to say hey we're going to record an orchestra today so it's a big deal like hey you want like you want to see this that's cool
but like I just wanted I'm super into intention at the moment what's the intention behind my cousin the guy who made beef whoever else was on this R shout out to Simon our tennis coach he was there too yeah Simon came through
who else give me a couple others I want to get a better picture of who's in the room you know then like Vampire Weekend crew of course which can be a lot of people uh my family who stopped by later that's mostly what comes yeah I
mean yeah the rest is like kind of friends but Ariel's like this would be something a tennis coach would want to see I think to what Ariel was going for in that moment was kind of like and now I understand looking back on it I was
like what we do is so insular so for instance inviting somebody to watch two guys stare at a computer screen and like talk about snare drum sounds is not very not pretty Niche is not very exciting but then you realize that to go stand in an old school control room and watch uh people playing cellos double Bas tempany all that stuff that that is kind of exciting and and also it's um you know by then we like the music is all written and stuff
and you're watching our boy at will kenary who plays keys with us live was conducting and then you realize like okay there's more to see and feel and it's like one of those rare moments where you can actually bring people that
you care about in your life um to kind of step in and watch something in real time and of course I'm never going to do that I'm never going to be like uh yeah let's invite like everybody to come watch me do vocals would you it' be my
nightmare but this is like cool it's like it's a little bit like you're going to see the orchester or something Have you seen the We Are the World documentary oh yeah yeah yeah it's great if you'd got a phone call yeah today to
do something like that right now we are the world 2024 uhhuh and and it's the equivalent of what it was back then in terms of star power yeah so I don't need to create that hierarchy you can imagine who would be in the room are you taking
that call are you excited to show up and do that regardless of the cause I know you're a good guy what's in your heart of course you're going but you know maybe you donate the money and don't show up like is is that a good day for
you in the studio that day no I don't think so I'd probably I would probably feel like at best Bob Dylan and we are the world doc like uncomfortable and kind of like are you are you sure that sounded good oh man all right if you if
you say so Quincy I don't think no it sounds sounds so invested in I mean for someone how okay how much money you trying to raise I'll just give it all right I'll yeah um I you're so invested in Bob coming through the other side of that because it's such an awfully you watched someone that really has done such a great job of creating um what I would consider to be intimidation through mystery like he inates B if in the same room as me I'd
be like terrified me too right so to see him so vulnerable in that moment you you're really rooting for him so that moment when he finally fires up and he's like you know get a better well for you and me you're like holy Bob you
did it yeah no and also when you look back on it there's uh at the end of that movie there's a a quote supposedly a CH with Mak there's a quote supposedly attributed to Quincy that somebody else says that apparently he was driving home
he said those white boys really brought it who knows if he actually said that but when I'm thinking about like what what did he what did he mean by that he probably was thinking you know what the fact that we had sorry Huey Lewis and
and Bruce Springsteen and um Bob Dylan it gives the song put Bob on that list he got there but no but I'm saying what what it gave that song and why that song is interesting to listen to and why people still get excited 30 years later
watching the documentar is cuz people had really different voices yeah and and I've actually had a whole thought about this modern We are the world would not hit the same because you know God bless autotune it it's it's it saves us you
think we've but you think we've evolved everybody's voice everybody's voice sounds the same the autotune everybody if you listen to the like unconsciously we're becoming the AI yeah so if you listen to everybody's voice if you take
the 10 biggest pop stars and you know if you throw in some some indie rocker or whatever you're going to our voices will be different but the quality of modern recording it's not going to be when you hear Michael Jackson Cindy loer and Bob
Dylan on the same song Oh W well well it's they're so different and it's so clear I'm just saying like like you know go God bless all these people but even if you did it with the weekend into Ariana Grande into Lana Del re into
whatever it's not going to have it's not going to be the same and Millions will die because of this do you understand what I'm saying Millions will die because they won't raise the money because the vocal quality of modern recording is too
similar whereas back then lives were saved the idiosyncrasies are so beautiful and much needed because you know they they make the songs what they are the last song on the records really important hope I was thinking about this
um story you told me once about when you were dancing and Jay-Z told you that you needed to relax yeah cuz you were holding on too tight on the anyone when they dancing next to JayZ and beon and a few other people he was
like come on man she wants you she want you to relax and uh and I it just but that story came to mind when I heard the song the other day CU I was like wow you know the process of Letting Go and actually just being able to like just
just be okay with who you are and all the crazy in life yeah that's what I got from this song I know it's probably way deeper to you than that but it feels like it's on the album for a reason at the end for a reason andon I mean I think so I think it's
where ultimately everybody is heading which is some sort of acceptance surrender Letting Go I mean that's what the song says I hope you let it go and uh there's you know there's times in the song where it's talking about your enemy
our enemy my enemy but it's you know I think with every every song You're ultimately like kind of speaking to yourself in in some sense especially now you know you look at all the uh the the pain and agitation in the world which is
basically a constant and the kind of seemingly endless disappointment and you know you talk to so many people who feel like well when's it going to let up you know they feel like that year was remember everybody said like 2016 was
the worst year ever there was there's always something like that right people like well 2020 is the worst year ever but again if you have that worst year ever mentality you know you're going to find a lot of Worst Years ever and it's you're you know you're going to have that you're going to be let down over and over again and so this feeling of when's it going to let up and sometimes it never lets up that's why I love this song it's such a
direct reflection of everything you just said that that that that need to kind of accept things for what they are and try to find some Grace in it all like it reminds me I hope you take this as a compliment cuz it's meant as such
not directly but in terms of the simple sentiment perfectly achieved it reminds me of Tender by blur oh yeah that's a great song because again it's not overly complicated in terms of the arrangement the and the and the chords it it builds
slowly with a wonderful Dynamic and it's a h mhm this feels like your first H oh that's interesting I mean I definitely thought of it as like a folk song but yeah I mean obviously hymn folk songs they're tied together and both traditional forms of
uh community and and it's supposed to be commun a lot of songs are very singularly driven toward me as a fan and then the trade is I make it my own but I have to do some work to do that right yeah this feels like it's actually being
gifted like this one isn't really just for me and you do what you want with it this was made for all of us again what we do we're we're in our own lane it's it's might might not be for everybody but again it's not our job as as a
whatever you want to call us an alternative band it's not our job to make something that speaks to the whole world but what I always hope is I always picture and I know we have older fans younger fans whatever but I always
picture a fan who's roughly our age and I always think about when I have to picture somebody and you know and kick the tires on what we're working on and I just always hope that because I've met these people I I said it when we put out father brde I met people who were like oh man I was in college when your first album album came out and then it's in my late 20s when modern vampires came out and now I'm in this different phase of
life and this album came out I feel connected to it and you know in an oblique way we feel connected to each other and I just picture that person and I imagine you know whatever we we have a decent number of fans everybody's had
probably their own uh between age 30 and 40 let's say they they everybody's had all sorts of different experiences good bad you know joyful painful whatever but I'd like to imagine a song like hope for that person that Vampire Weekend fan I
don't know what happened in their life they don't know what happened in my life but they probably are reaching that that place where you you know you probably take a bit of stock yeah and you've probably tried to solve a lot of
problems in your life with your mind and you realize that that doesn't always work and you've probably reached the end of a few roads I don't care who you are at some point by the time you're pushing forward you've re you've hit the end of
a few roads and you're probably looking for something uh I don't know what to say a little bit deeper yeah and you're thinking about these ideas and maybe you're corny when you're younger gratitude acceptance you know all that
stuff and you know so I think that's infused in that song a bit and in the album and um yeah cuz you're about to turn 40 yeah I turn 40 the week the album comes out you're looking forward to it well I I like that actually we're
doing a show on that day because there's a total Clips going through Texas and we're doing a show in Austin I like that um I've never been like a big birthday party person so I like that there's something communal that's like the band
is doing it you know of course I'll have a little party later with the some uh beer and barbecue but I like that there's something else to do so that the uh it's not just like oh it's my birthday day you know it's like we got
something to do with the band and kind of be together and all that kind of stuff you talked about inss of roads and and and I when I turned 50 m uh last year it was a really wonderful moment cuz I was like I mean you talk about taking stock at 40 you really started to do it at 50 because you realized like what am I going to do with the rest of my time like right and and even if I don't have mad Ambitions to like if I'm not running out to the
street the day after I turn 50 like a crazy person trying to solve everything I've ever wanted to solve or do anything I've ever wanted to do at least I'm going to let this go mhm cuz it ain't serving me anymore so T got
cut really quickly and it was really effective what are you leaving behind do you think going into the next decade of your life and with this album now done which I think is the perfect sounding album to finish your 30s with I really
do and it's like perfect like a real rail against that decade of I think 30s are the worst decade cuz it's oh really yeah cuz the 20s you're just supposed to be wild and and just and like figure it all out in real time your 30s are when
you're sort of pretending to be a grown-up but you really don't have TOS yeah right it's all it's all a big game of pretend in your 30s I think and maybe for yeah by the time you're 40 most of us are starting families around that
time so we're trying to figure out who we are but then we're also trying to pretend that we know what the to hand our kids you're Faking It Right faking a lot ofing to be like an authority figure right yeah so there is
a question wrapped up in all that which is kind of like what are you excited about letting go and and and and freeing space up to focus on for the rest your life well I mean the most basic answer would be you know letting go of uh the
the desire to control things which which is a bit what anxiety is which obviously the one of the number one things you and me and everyone we know suffers from some form of anxiety and some people depression as well but you know what is
anxiety other than you know your your brain trying to control trying to control we trying to do you a favor control things but then you kind of realize like that that is uh you know that can sometimes be more trouble than it's worth so I think
that's that's the number one thing and I also think too these things are a facet of life like I talked about why why was I so anxious to get a record out in 2009 looking back that would have been a bad idea there all these other big Indie
albums in 09 I want to be a part of that been terrible Contra was made to come out in 2010 and yet at this anxiety because it was probably some sense of what what will happen to me what will happen to the band if uh if we don't do
things correctly so I think leaving behind that anxiety and having uh increasingly having having some form of Faith which is a belief that things uh things will be okay and and also it's I think you know to some extent having
kids is helpful too because you realize people ask you all the time well what would you hope for your kids right what would you hope for them and and you know you you can't say well I really hope they get a PhD in Neuroscience you can't
be specific right because people are their own people and I feel like generationally previous they might have said that there was some specificity to that answer in like the 70s and the 80s quite big time yeah I want my kid to
have an advanced degree and um well it's law it's going to be law yeah I want them to be a law but so you but then of course you realize you can't pick something specific for another person correct especially once they're an adult
and so then you realize well what's the number one thing you would hope for a child your child or if you don't have kids a young kid in your life or just a friend what would you hope for them would you hope that their life is free
from uh curveballs and pain you could hope that but it's not going to happen so what would you hope for you would hope that they have the ability to go with the flow yeah to let go of things that are not serving them the
ability to uh see the light in the dark yeah they have confidence that they can show up when the times are really good and even when the times are are really tough because the showing up is the point right making the most of the time
you're given is the point and that's not to say you have to wake up at early in 5: in the morning and go through till 3 in the morning and just make it most of every second like no live you live your life with balance but just trust that
you have the tools to manage right and that's all that matters because also I guess also you get older especially if you work in Showbiz or something you've I've met enough miserable successful people where I would not trade places with them for all all the golden El Dorado I don't know what the I wouldn't trade place with them for for all the money and then I've also seen people who you know maybe you're your 20s and people getting more
status oriented and saying well this person is doing something interesting that they're not really doing much I don't know and then you some of those people you look you look back and you're say that person who climbed and climbed
and climbed their life is filled with competition and rivalry and and pain and comparison and sometimes that person who maybe people like it didn't really work out for them you look and they're just like chilling they're just Zen chilling and
they they just fell off the truck that way and they they know how to do it and they're kind of like and then you kind of realize like wait a second that person knows what's up and again so so once you get into specifics about I I
hope people I want to accomplish this or I hope my my son accomplishes this then you realize it doesn't matter you want them just to be happy are we in Show Business you and I technically absolutely beautiful we're we're part of Holly weird