We Are Scientists - "With Love and Squalor" with Keith Murray - Major Label Debut

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
It's major label debut, the podcast about major label debuts.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Graham, right.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I do my research, so I am seldom surprised, shocked,
caught unawares by people's answers by information presented on this show.
It's not a true crime broadcast, you know, We're not
here to do twists and turns. However, it was kind
of a big twist when with all my googling, all
my research, all my searching in my old emails, I
discovered that Tokyo Police Club and We Are Scientists never

(00:38):
played together. Two bands that came out almost at the
exact same moment, who were part very much of the
same indie rock boom, who were frequently compared to discussed
in the same sentences. We Are Scientists and Tokyo Police
Club didn't just never play together. We put out records
and conducted our career for a long time, kind of

(00:58):
in lockstep. Twenty ten, fourteen, twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, five
record releases in a row for both bands were in
the same years, which is pretty unlikely. I don't know
if that's like a meaningful statistic, but it's interesting to me,
and it makes it even more surprising that we somehow
never even like played at the same weird festival in

(01:20):
you know, Minnesota or something somewhere. Frankly, that really shocked me,
and I'm sure it also shocked Keith Murray from We
Are Scientists, who is my guest on today's episode. If
you remember when there was a British astronaut who had
an identical twin brother, they would do studies to calculate,

(01:40):
like how does going to space change your bone density
or whatever else, because they were so physiologically similar that
they could look at the space brother and the Earth
brother and compare and contrast between them in a useful way. Similarly,
I feel like you can look at me and Keith
and listen to our thoughts and feelings and perspectives about
a life in music and sort of hear how these

(02:03):
minor differences slowly add up and change how your experience goes.
And of course, the whole point of major label debut
is that your experience in the music industry comes out
in the records.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
To the day you move.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
We Are Scientists started with a meaningful distinction from Tokyo
Poleae Club. Their first album is also their major label debut.
It's called with love and Squalor.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
It came out in two.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Thousand and five on Virgin Records, which in two thousand
and five was a great place to put it a record. Also,
it has three adorable kittens on the cover, which Tokyo
Polae Club never had a kitten on any of our covers,
And we do talk about the kittens in the interview.
For all my fellow cat lovers out there, don't worry,
we talk about the cats.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
So it was great to talk to Keith. I always say.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's great to talk to everyone I talked to, and
I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I
love talking to all these musicians, but I was really
especially excited to talk to Keith because by far we
are Scientists. Is the band that we've spoken to on
this show that is the closest to like my own experience,
And as you're about to hear, we really have a
shared vocabulary and a shared understanding of the music business

(03:32):
and what it means to work in it. And you know,
took a police Club ended and we are Scientists are
still going, which is another meaningful difference. And I think
throughout this interview I sort of started to get a
sense of how the path they traveled different from the
path we traveled, and you know has kept them going
along anyway. It's a great talk, and it's a in

(03:55):
depth and thorough conversation.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Those are the good words for long. So stop yapp
in and I'll let you listen to Keith and I
yap to discuss We Are Scientists two thousand and five
Virgin Records debut with Love and Squalor. Here is Keith
Murray spot By.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, Keith, thank you so much for doing this. I'm
really thrilled to be finally connecting. I was googling We
Are Scientists Tokyo Police Club because I was so certain
we must have shared the stage, but I could not
find any evidence of it.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, I had a sneaking suspicion that we did something
together at the Brooklyn Knitting Factory, but I can't really
remember what that would have been like. I just have
an association of you guys somehow being at the knitting factory.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
And I don't know that was a culd a sac
of a reminiscence.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
But knowing the time period we're talking about, I can
just I'm assuming it it was like a launch activation
for a canon megapixel point and shoot digital camera, for
which we were somehow paid like forty five thousand dollars
to play a ten minute set in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, I think I do remember that show. That must
have been the one I still got that camera.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Whether or not we truly crossed the same boards at
knitting Factory, we certainly shared a lot of the same
like Zeitgeist.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Really, you're by far the most contemporary musician I've spoken
to on this whole podcast, and it's great to talk
to someone with like the same frame of reference, especially
about the music business, the whole major label thing. I'm
learning in the nineties, everyone liked their major label. Nobody
had any complaints about it. They all got tons of
money and had a great time about houses.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yes, it sounds really nice. Yeah that's what I wanted.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, but before we get into all that, I wanted
to check in with you about your experience in my
native Toronto watching Oasis and experiencing our beautiful new concert venue.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
The Rogers State talk.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
About taking advantage of the major label system, Oasis and
it seems to have nailed it.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yes, I think they got it figured out, had a.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Cored time Roger Stadium is a funny spot. I full
embarrassing confession. I also went to the Oasis show in
New Jersey, very different show at MetLife Stadium.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Like I'm glad those were the two that I saw.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
They seemed like profoundly different vibes, so it felt like
two different shows. I never really get to hang out
in Toronto, Like every time we play. It's such a
long drive from any other place you will have been
playing on a tour, so it's always really in and out,
and often, like after a show, we'll leave Canada entirely
just to get across the border in the middle of

(06:44):
the night, So never really get to hang out. I've
probably been there over a dozen times. I mean easily
over a dozen times, and I think this two days
was the longest I've ever been to Toronto. Extremely pleasant,
what a hang Yeah, really makes New York seem like
a hellhole.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
I'll tell you that. Well.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
We have such an inferiority complex in every aspect. When
you said you went to see Oasis at the New
York show, which was in New Jersey, which, to be fair,
the Toronto show, if we had a New Jersey would
have been in it given how far away that venue is.
But I could feel instantly my inferiority complex kick in
and I thought, oh my god, the New Jersey one
must have been so much better, Like that was probably

(07:24):
a real show, and the Toronto ones they were just
sort of faking it because it's camp.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
I mean, I think there it's actually probably a pretty
good parallel. Like the Roger Stadium show felt very communal.
I had good vibes from all around me. Oasis seemed
like they were cowed by how pleasant it was in
New Jersey. You know, it's a giant forbidding stadium. Immediately

(07:54):
walking in, I was like, what the hell is going
on in here?

Speaker 2 (07:57):
This place kind of sucks.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Did into the bowl itself and was like, wow, this
is impressive.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
You know. Oasis were very cocky that night.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, so I do think they adjusted the shows to
accommodate the environment. But yeah, I very much enjoyed my
three days in Toronto.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
I'm very glad that you did. I went to the
Oasis show on the Monday night. I think you went
on Sunday, right, Yeah, I went on Sunday. No, No,
we went on the Monday. Sunday was the rain.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
We were at this we were at the same days. Nice.
Oh great, it's weird. I didn't see you. There was
only like eighty thousand other people there. I thought I
sensed you.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's right. Yeah, that's uh. I exude a certain aroma
when I'm in public. Sometimes I'll go to a gig,
and it's been interesting to navigate, like since the band,
since Tokyo ended. How this occurs to me. But I'm
often at a gig and I'm identifying with the like
the fact of the gig, you know, I'm watching them
on stage in a way that I understand. Oh, that's

(08:55):
what it's like to walk over there, That's what it's
like to get a guitar from the guy on the side,
or to ask for more your monitors or whatever. And
I found with Oasis it was so big and just elevated,
at least in my perception, that I couldn't really identify
with it.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Which was cool.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
It kind of forced me back to just a spectator position.
And I was curious if you had any like band
guy reactions to the Oasis show.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I guess the immediate reactions that
I'm remembering are kind of twofold one A little bit
along along your take. Well, my wife is always very
annoyed because when we go to bigger shows, I'm always
really focusing on the production and like thinking about like

(09:43):
the logistics of the production, like not that like, Wow,
this production is great and I'm really enjoying.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know that Pyro or whatever.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
I was like, did wait you think they like shipped
that to Toronto or are they locally renting? And I wonder,
like who clear these screens? If they got them in
to run her carn must be one hundred.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
I mean legit. I was thinking about that.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
That horrified me, so yes, I did not personally identify
with Oasis in that scenario. I did a little bit
identify with Cage D Elephants, yes, and was like, man,
that supports a lot is hard work. I'm simultaneously envying
them being on the Oasis tour and also I'm like,

(10:30):
oh god, I really hate that slot so much. Anytime
we have a support slot of that scale. I mean,
we've never done a stadium supports LT, but like doing
arena shows or whatever with with bands that are like
sort of outside our immediate vibe, I'm always like, man,

(10:52):
these people just want we are scientists to stop playing
so they get so they can see the real band.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
They came to see, like we are. Definitely we might
as well.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Be an ad for you know, Twizzlers or something that
they just have to look at while they wait for
the movie to start.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, they might as well just have a trivia like
a word scramble on there where they had all the
letters are all swipped up in this blurring.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Maybe that should be what we do, and we have
those kinds of supports last now just otherwise entertained people
not play the music is incidental beneath.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, the trivia about Oasis that we pitch. What's the
biggest supporter you guys?

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Ever? Did I get?

Speaker 3 (11:28):
We did an RM tour in two thousand and eight,
I guess a European RIM tour, and I think that
was probably it was. It was Arenas, But as you
might imagine, I don't feel like RAM we're getting to
like Eastern Europe all that often, so I think.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
These were pretty rare appearances.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
So those shows were actually, oh no, our biggest support
and this and RAM spans were actually really awesome.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
We had a great time. It would be Yeah, we did.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Some supports for me use in Russia, and I think
like the Baltics maybe, and those were those might have
been like tiny stadiums and those people just wanted to
see a Muse show that was rough sledding.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, that was rough sletting.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, that's some I'm sure you've had this experience. We
played a couple festivals where we were like on the
main stage at one pm or whatever and Tool was headlining.
And whenever Tool was headlining, the whole front of the
stadium was full of Tool fans who were so furious
about the ten full hours they had to wait watching
Tokyo Police Club and another such bands before their beloved

(12:39):
Maynard took the stage.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
It is sad that like the circumstances surrounding they're seeing
you only contributed to their inability to connect. Like I'm
sure in any other scenario they would have been like.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh what a what a nice you know, at worst,
they'd just be like, look at these guys doing doing art.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
But yeah, in that scenario where they're just like, I'm
trapped here like cattle for so long, I hate you
because you are representing the amount of time I have
before I see Tool.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Well, I mean then I guess that's as a band who,
to my great envy we are Scientists, has always seem
to do really well in the UK and Europe, and
so I imagine you've done lots and lots of proper summer
festival gigs and you have lots of experiences in that environment.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, I mean, I don't love the festival gig even
like in you know, we are fairly fortunate that, like,
especially in the UK, it feels a little less like
an introduction. People have already formed an opinion about us
in the UK when we're on a bill like that,
so if they're there, they're probably at least they've made

(13:48):
an informed decision to do it for the most part.
But it's still like really just like the distance between
you and the crowd, and just like the stop and
start of the day where you been most of your
day sitting around doing nothing, and then it's like changeovers
fifteen minutes. You're on a hard deadline to play your
forty five minute set.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Go Go Go.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, they're very hard to like get into, I find, so, yeah,
I kind of always feel like I've just been like
thrown out of bed and have to take a math
test when we play festivals even now.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
That's a perfect way to put it. It is.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
We've had some festival shows that I've been told were amazing,
and in my mind now, the first time we played Coachella,
I now remember it as a special, amazing show. But
if I think a little bit harder, I remember that
there was like a wildly loud buzz we had to
keep stopping to try and address, like their power was
fucked up, sweating always a headache, and yeah, I was

(14:45):
miserable for the entire set. And then later I saw
in an article like Tokyo Police Club's legendary two thousand
and six Coachella. Yeah, I wish I could have seen
that set.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, I do consistently have that sense from I'm like,
oh man, I'm I'm definitely living outside of the moment
that every other person is having right now, and then afterwards, yeah,
we'll see like video or photos and be like.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
That actually looks pretty fun, good job everyone.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
And I guess that distance kind of plays into that
where people are far. You know, if you if you're
having that kind of tech issue at the Camden Barfly,
there's someone with their elbows on the stage who's like
watching you a dragon, hear you whispering to each other
and oh oh god. At Glastonbury they are one hundred
feet away, so it's less they don't know what's going
on up there.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
God blo, you know what. They bought that ticket to
not care about what's happening to me up there. Man.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
So, speaking of memories, do you listen to the old
shit very often? Like, when's the last time you put
on your own old shit? When's the last time you
put on with Love and squalor?

Speaker 2 (15:45):
I don't know. Well, so we did it's tenth anniversary
this year. Yeah, this is twentieth anniversary. Oh twentyth Sorry, sorry, sorry,
I hate to say it. And we did.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
We did a twentieth anniversary thing in the year, and
I definitely did not remember how some of the songs went,
and like I had to listen to it just to
like remember the song structures.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
But I'll bet I didn't listen to the whole album.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
I mean, we definitely play four songs from that album
at every show, so I definitely did not listen to
those four songs. I never really listened to our recordings
in general. Part of the problem is that, you know,
as with any musician, who makes multiple records.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
I really only like the last record. That's the one.
I'm like, that's the real shit right there.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
But anytime we make a new record, the process of
making that record involves listening to that record so many
times that I don't actually want to listen to that
one either, because I'm like, I'm just like, I can't
hear that again. After like mix draft ten, this is done.
I'm gonna trust everyone that the master is fine because
I can't listen to that master.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Please please, I'm not going to the mastering. I don't
want to be thinking about that. You're gonna get really
bad advice from me if you make it come absolutely well.
I have been listening to With Love and Squalor a
lot leading up to this, since it is your major
label debut as well as sort of being your debut,
you had another record before that that you know, well,

(17:19):
now it's it's not on DSPs, so it's hard.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
To say whether it's real or not. It is not real.
It is definitely not real. It was like self produced
and released.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
It's not real.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
And like the minute, the minute we started writing the
songs that were on With Love and Squalor, every single
one of those songs stopped being in our live show,
like regardless of like it being our major label debut,
and we're like, all right, here's the career stetting. Now
we know what songs are. Yes, all of these other
songs are retired.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yep. Oh.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
And retiring songs, especially before you've really you know, put
yourselves out there, is such a pleasurable I remember like
an iconic band meeting we had where we retired half
of our songs. We decided that we had a new
bar and these ones don't clear it and we gotta
move forward.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well because when you start, I don't know if this
was like it, if it was like this for you,
but for me, when I first started writing songs, I
was like, holy shit, I can do this. I can
make up a song with my friends. Every song we
make up is the best. Like you said, the last
thing you made is the best thing you made. And
that's true of your second ever song. That like, when
it turns out later that it's literally just a stroke
song that you accidentally rewrote.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
I mean that's best case scenario. That is best case scenario.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I mean also when like your band is first starting
out or like before you become an album band, you know,
we were just kind of playing show to show, and
so we would just write songs to be like, well,
we need a new song to play.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
At this show.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
I don't I don't know why that was an idea
we had, but we were always like, we have a
show coming up, we need a new song. So kind
of every time we would have a show, the worst
song in our set would immediately get retired. So it
was it was a reading retirement for all of our songs.
They would go one by one. I don't think we
ever had like the sit down where we had to
be that cruel and clear eye.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Just just a one in one out mentality. It was
very much a one in one out.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, and when you're starting and you're like learning the
tricks of writing songs for us, I know, it was
kind of every new trick we'd write a whole song
around it. So if there was a cool drum beat
that someone thought of, or you got a new pedal,
or you know what you learned to new chor do
you write a whole song that was kind of like, oh,
we could have just put that drum beat in a
song that we already had.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
I mean yeah, when you're like learning how you write songs,
it's good to have, you know, a basis to lean on, say, yeah,
that's a cool drum beat, but we need something for it.
Oh we wrote a song good.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, exactly, like, oh, we gotta just I think we
should yell our name in a song, so just like
assemble a song around our.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Band name and that way. I did admire that move.
That one did stay on the record.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
I do distinctly remember being like, that's I really like
when bands refer like art Brute, who I'm sure you did.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, yeah, I always loved that.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
Art Brute talked about Art Brute in their songs.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
So SHTI happy basta.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
That makes sure everybody does is gonna be okay.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Way to play a week.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
To the road, And I like, I like when songs
talk about that song in the song, like it makes
reference to the fact that this is a song and
here's something that happened in the song.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, it's like very cool, it's a breaking the fourth wall. Yeah,
but yeah, yelling to Okyo Police looked very.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Cool classic for a reason. Yeah, you say that your
non debut is not worthy of being on DSP's is
not worthy being out there. Somewhere in between that and
with Love and Squaler coming out, you did get signed
to Virgin Records. Since this is major label debut, I
want to ask about sort of how you went from

(21:17):
brand new band, you know, college friends, playing shows, writing
a new song, kicking the old song out from there,
to like, you know, a major label coming along to
put out your first record, because that that never happened
to us. We said yes to the first indie label
that gave us a suspicious looking contract, and that was
that was it for us.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
I mean, I am a little sad that we missed
that step. It does seem like there's something cool about
slowly waiting into the water, like getting a hang of
it before you're going. I mean, I think the good
counterpoint for us is that we weren't particularly green as
people when we saw it, Like I think we were

(21:56):
like twenty six or seven, and it had real job.
I was working for, like a film production company, which
is a similar world. So I think we sort of
understood it a little more than we might have if
the same exact thing had happened when we were like nineteen.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
But yeah, I mean, I don't.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Know the arc of how we landed in that world
still a little bit eludes me.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
So we got our.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
First manager based on friends, like he was a friend
of a friend who were also in a band that
you know, would play to four people at you know,
the lions Den in Greenwich Village, which was essentially like
a pay to play, like you needed to bring ten
people or else who were punished, and he was just like, yeah, Mark,

(22:43):
a guy went to school with is. I think he
worked in the college radio division at Hollywood Records maybe,
which was like a Disney subsidiary or something, and he
was like, I need to get out of this, but
I like working in the music business.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I'm going to be a manager. I've decided.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
And we were like, well, we don't have a manager,
and we don't know anybody in the music business, so yes,
of course you can be. I mean, I guess that's
the equivalent of the sketchy indie indie label that you
signed to because they're the first offer you got.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
I mean, we did get along with him very well.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
It was like a mutual appreciation vibe, and he did
introduce us to the guy who ended up producing our.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
First record, who's his Ril Reckshide.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Who at that point had not done I really don't
think anything of Like, no, I don't think we'd heard
of anybody he'd made records with.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah. I looked at his discography today and it was
the first record he'd made that i'd heard of. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, But he was a very very cool guy.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
We immediately loved him. And Oh.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
They were roommates at the time, our manager and Ario,
and he was like, well, as long as we're all
just a bunch of knuckleheads, you should let my roommate
record some demos for you.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
And we were like, oh, yeah, I mean that sounds
good too.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
We've we've you know, again, the record that we had
made before then, just to like have at shows we
had made by ourselves, you know, loft in Williamsburg. It
sounded like ass uh legitimately, and so we're like, oh, cool,
you say this guy knows how to record a record,
that'll be great. So I think we went and recorded

(24:32):
like three songs with him, I mean kind of also
in an apartment studio, like a bedroom studio, but they
immediately sounded rad His taste is really good, and so
I think I think two of those songs that we
recorded were Nobody Moved, Nobody Get Hurt, and the Great Escape,
which ended up being like our bigger singles from that record.

(25:01):
I got a great, Yeah, I've gone right, I got
a great I've Gone Right, which was just fortuitous because
I'll bet those were like two of the four songs

(25:22):
of the with Love and Squalor Batch that like existed.
I think those were just like, yeah, we're like into
this vibe now, and so here are these songs that
are that vibe. And I think our excuse for being
in La was that Ril's band at the time, they
had a residency at Spaceland, which I'm sure you probably did, yes, timon.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Uh, and we were like, oh my god, yes, we
that was That was what it was.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
He was like, my roommate's band has a residency at
Spaceland and they will let you be like first of
three on one of their nights, and we're like, absolutely,
we're coming. Then it was like, while you're here, why
don't you record three songs on them? That that was
what happened, and so we recorded those and we were like,
oh my god, these sound really sick. Ariol nailed it,
and the first thing that happened out of that was

(26:09):
somehow we got a publishing deal with Sony ATV Nice,
and that was like one of the situations where it
was the only offer we had. I mean, at that point,
even though I was pretending that we were vaguely industry savvy,
we definitely had not been never.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Talking about publishing deals. That was just like not a.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Thing I even was like aware of as being separate from,
you know.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
A label deal or whatever.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
So the deal with Sony Publishing was that the publishing
came in three stages. The debate that we had to
have at that point, which I guess is opposite to
your interest in major label debuts, was that we could
only fulfill the contract by sign to a major label,

(27:01):
and we were like, that seems like crazy thing for
them to anticipate out of us, And so we kind
of like didn't want to sign that deal, not even
necessarily because we were against being on a major label.
Although I think I don't I don't really, I mean,
I guess like, yeah, yeah, yeah, as we're on Interscope.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Strokes for on our c yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
So I guess we were listening to like major label
stuff like that at the time, But I don't think
we We definitely didn't care about being on a major label.
I'm sure it sounded like cool to us, but I don't.
That wasn't like our angle. But the prospect of having
Sony just give us money to make a record without them,

(27:45):
that like, there was no oversight from them. They were
just like, Okay, here's this money that you should be
using to make a record. Come back when you have
a record, and we're like, okay, that sounds pretty sick.
So we took that money, which was not very much money,
and recorded.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
A full record with Ril. Like we were just like, well,
Aril's the producer. We know.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
I'm sure our A and R guy at Sony Publishing
would have helped us, but we wanted to make a
record with Ril, and we kind of wanted to make
it without them, you know, breathing down our necks. So
we recorded with Love and Squalor essentially same vibes as
that album before that I'm disregarding. We recorded in a

(28:32):
terrible studio in North Hollywood, by which I mean like
the Valley, not Northern Hollywood.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
The studio really sucked.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Several breaks in recording had to occur because their computer
died and so they'd be like, oh, the tech guy
will come in on Tuesday, so why don't you come
on Wednesday?

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Were like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
But yeah, it's that vibe, but you know that sort
of like scrappiness is what we wanted. And Ril, you know, again,
I can't say enough and history has borne it out,
is just an insanely good producer.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
He's very he's very cool.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
He has much better taste than we do in sounds,
and is like sort of sort of had and still
does have like that sensibility where you're like, this guy's
my best friend and I want to hang out with
my best friend and hear what he has to say,
and when he's mean to me, I know he's being
mean to me because we all like each other, and

(29:32):
he's like.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Get your head out of your ass, dude, do it
this way.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Whereas, like anytime we've worked with other producers that we
don't really know, him always like, oh, this guy doesn't
like me and he wishes he weren't here. So it
was like a really fun camp I was at with
my two band members in Ril, but it did kind
of feel like we were making it in another vacuum.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
There was a very big part of me that.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Did not believe we would ever fulfill that term in
our on tract with Sony. I do think we had
a few conversations with our and our our publishing and
our guy about like being like, so, look, if if
we don't sign to him, if like no major label
will sign us and we can't fulfill our contractual obligation,

(30:18):
can you just not give us that last part of
the publishing and we'll still put out the record and
you guys will be our publisher or whatever. And he
was like, yeah, probably not, but maybe, oh god, okay, okay,
well yeah, sort of impossibly. People just started making making offers,

(30:41):
and uh, it was very weird, and even though we
had been girding ourselves for that since we signed with Sony,
it felt very strange and and it just felt improbable.
I guess as as as I think I've I've pounded
in the story of making it.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Well, it's interesting to contrast your experience with mine on
this score, because, like you said, you guys were you know,
twenty six, twenty seven when you were when this was
all happening, and we were eighteen, I think, And so
I didn't find it unlikely or strange at all. I
was like, oh, yeah, okay, I was pretty sure I'm
a big deal, and this just basically proves it.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
I'm not really surprised at all here.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
And well, that had its own sort of that planted
certain seeds that then would pay off down the road
when I had to confront reality in a more clear
eyed sense. Maybe you guys had a clearer eyed vision
of it right from the jump, and especially talking to
major labels and like that. I mean, especially in that
moment when it seemed like one of the last gasps

(31:44):
of maybe these these young men with guitars can make
every one a million dollars.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah they would.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
It would tell some really promising stories and spin some
some nice dreams in front of you. Did you get
wined and dined and narrativized? Yeah, I do think we were.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
I think our iteration of your being like, of course
we're we should be a huge man. Our version of
that was sort of the opposite, where we were like,
we are smarter than all these like all these people
seem like knuckleheads, and I don't think they know what
they're doing. The only thing they're really bringing to the

(32:23):
table is marketing, spend and I do appreciate marketing spend.
But yeah, I think we in general found ourselves only
in the whining and dining era. Once we signed, we
ended up liking a lot of people, but we found
that part of the process like kind of distasteful. We

(32:44):
really disliked people who clearly had only given our record
a glancing listen, talking about how genius it was and
like that it was changing their lives now.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
And I was just like, I know you're lying.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
I know if I ask you you like four questions
about the record, you will not be able to answer that.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
So you want to sign We are signed to say
name three of their songs, I mean legitimately.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
That often felt like they were just like, well, my
boss said that other people are trying to sign you,
and so now I have to try to sign you.
Was oft was was occasionally a vibe I got. I
guess we signed with the people we dislike. I mean
that we disliked the least.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
I think there were a.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Couple there were a couple of guys that we are
still friendly with that we maybe could have signed with
more out of friendship than we did. I don't think
that would have helped our career at all, But yeah,
I did. I really disliked that process.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well. Also, I'm very bad at business.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Like I'm the sort of idiot who, like, when I
have to make a phone call, will do everything I
can to not like get on the phone because I'm afraid,
like if, like you're supposed to call a hotel to
a book rather.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Than go online, I'll be like, oh god, no, first
of all, this.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Person is gonna me and they're probably gonna swindle me
somehow if they get me on the phone, I'm just
gonna say yes to stop being on the phone call.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
So that also was like an unpleasant part of that.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
I would just be like, please, I will sign just
to not be at this dinner right now.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
God, it is the sort of insecurity of the certain
kind of artists. Seems like it plays an important role
in the function of the music industry, and I'm not
sure if it's a positive.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Way or not.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Just man, we just adopted cats and I had like
the interview with the adoption person and she was like, oh,
this is great. I think I have these two cats
I think you'll really like. And right away I was like,
what's wrong with the cats? You must have identified right
away that I'm a sucker and I'll take these two
busted cats.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Yeah, we're gonna to float these useless cats.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Doubt the entire process. So I can only imagine in
the record label signing world how much harder that would be.
It's amazing to me that you were sort of funneled
into the major label pipeline by the publishing deal. Did
you even talk to indies or consider indies with the
record or was it just kind of clear what you
needed to do.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, I mean I think, I know we talked to
our manager about indies, but I don't think. I think
simply because the contract totally excluded that we didn't get
to that point. I do think we had, like the
conversation that I was saying we had broached to our
and our guy, which was that like, if we can't

(35:28):
get signed to a major, how do we proceed from there?
And can we use this record on an indie? But yeah,
I don't think. I don't think we ever. I don't
think we ever did. I don't think we ever did
get there. I don't think we ever did get there.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
So you were working with a full record here, like
when you signed with Virgin you basically had the thing
in the can.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, and we were I feel like the process worked
pretty well for us for negotiations. I think once, like
once it did get onto people's desks at major labels
and several labels were interested. We took a really long
time to decide, I think, to a lot of annoyance

(36:09):
from people at labels. As I'm sure you've experienced, and
as is the case in all industries, the minute one
person is interested, everybody is interested because they at the
very least are like what do they know that I don't,
or like what like why do they think this is.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Going to work?

Speaker 3 (36:26):
And so kind of before we were signed to Virgin,
we kind of like put together the whole rest of
the team, Like we got two really big booking agents
in the in the US and worldwide, and.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Got like a really good lawyer.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
They used to say it was really important to get
a really we went to New York City to play
like a command performance show for a lawyer before he
would consider being our lawyer.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah. Our lawyer was really really awesome.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Her name is Lisa sib Kransky, very cool and like
Foo Fighters lawyer and like Blanquinity too.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
At least at least just Travis Barker.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
I think maybe all Blankeliney joined them when Travis Barker
became the cultural jugger or not, he became.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Her greater concern than Blankuinity two.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
But yeah, she was very rad and very smart and
as I guess a lawyer should be the most clear
eyed member of our team.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
She was definitely the person we went to for like
the real talk. Yeah, not a lot of romance in
those meetings.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
So I think maybe our UK booking agent passed the
record on to a DJ named Steve Lamock at Radio
one in the UK, and he started playing the Ril
mix of Nobody Move. We didn't have a real mix.

(37:52):
Ariol had just essentially done like a board mix of it.
But yeah, it started getting played on the radio in
the UK, as I'm sure you know, like the BBC
gives their DJs a lot more leeway than American radio
dj seem to have, so like they are kind of
taste makers, as the producers of their shows are often
like this is cool, I think we should be playing

(38:13):
this kind of thing. So yeah, Steve Lamarck was just like,
I really like this band, I'm going to start playing
them and we just kind of started getting.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Played on Radio One before we had a record.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Out, so that definitely helped negotiations a lot. Like the
ball was rolling without the label's help, which they like,
they like.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
And the UK was like, I feel like after the
Strokes broken the UK before the States, everyone had their
radars pointed at Radio One specifically to say, Okay, tell
us who the next cool guitar totors are.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, we still get a lot of like when we
do interviews, we had a lot of questions of like,
why do you think you're so much bigger in the
UK and Europe than you are in the United States.
And the answer is just that is what they thought
pop music sounded like in two thousand and five, and
that's what they saw pop music sounded like in the
United States in two thousand five at all. I mean,
it's barely what they thought rock music should sound like

(39:06):
in the United States.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
I'm like the radio and MTV seriously.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
So yeah, we definitely had a leg up by virtue
of the BBC Radio's very generous policy of allowing their
DJs to play whatever they wanted to play for.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
The most God bless them.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, So I'm topsy turvy here, because usually I asked
the getting signed questions and then the making the record questions.
But you, guys, actually it's flipped where the order in
which this happened. So I'm not sure if I should
keep Guys, Let's follow the story of ending up on
Virgin to its conclusion, and then I'll go back and
ask you what fuzz pedal you used.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, a sort of in an inverse of the usual
version of the story. We did essentially get signed at
south By Southwest, but usually the idea is that at
south By Southwest bands kind of like generate the buzz there.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
I think probably we booked.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Ourselves at south By Southwest before any real offers had
come in. I think we probably were like, well, we're
making this record, we'll go to south By Southwest and
that will be where we start shopping it. But by
the time we went to south By Southwest, we already
had a bunch of offers on the table, and so
we kind of like, we're just like, well, we're just
going to play three really cool shows and tell labels

(40:23):
to come, and then we will talk to the labels
that have already made offers and be like that's what
our show is.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Going to look like.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
We don't really want to change it very much, and
we don't want to re record the record and what
do you think? And so pretty much at that south
By Southwest we pretty much I don't think we like,
we didn't sign the deal there, but I remember sitting
outside at like you know, some Mexican place like eating

(40:52):
chips and salsa and drinking Margarita's with the two Virgin
guys that signed us, and they were really pissed off
that we had not yet signed their deal.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
And they were like, this is not right. We've had
this offer on the table for so long. You got
you come on, you got to them.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
We're like, well, you know, there are a lot of
other labels here and we feel like it wouldn't be
fair to.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Them to not talk to them.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
And our and our guy really wanted us to sign
with a different major or Sony guy. I think he
wanted us to sign to a Sony imprint. And so
he was like, okay, I see that you're about to
sign the vision. And in his defense, you know, word
on the street was that he and I was going

(41:37):
through rough times, and you know they were, and m
I didn't really. Virgin Records didn't last very much longer
after that, so I think he saw that. I was
just like, look, I'm thinking long term here, and you know,
not to sell ourselves short. But I think we sort
of had the opposite take of you. We're like, being

(41:58):
in a band is not a real thing. Like we're
we're doing this because it's awesome and fun and my
best friends are in the band. But like, I don't
think that because we're signing to Virgin, we're going to
be Coldplay. And so he was like, Okay, please, before
you sign this deal, let's play one more show in La.

(42:20):
I'm just going to book a showcase and do one
more and then talk to other people. And we're like, oh,
we really don't want to do that, but you know
we we feel like duty bound as your business partners
to hear you out on this stuff. And so we
booked a showcase. I can't even believe I'm saying this

(42:41):
at the Viper Room.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
And like, especially after south By Southwest, which was super
I mean, even as much as south By Southwest is
famously a shit show and it's just like stressful chaos
all the time, this shows are really fun everybody's like
drunk and psyched to be at shows, and like just
everything felt really cool and like this is why we
like playing music. And we went and did this showcase

(43:05):
at the Viper Room and we're just like, this sucks.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Oh we did.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
I remember I skipped over a showcase we did in
New York City, the classic showcase just for like one
label where you go into essentially a conference room that
has a little tiny stage and a terrible pa and
executives are sitting in chairs in front of you and
they've clearly been like forced to like you know, cut

(43:32):
their phone calls short to come in and watch you play.
And it's and honestly like that was a disincentive to
me to sign to that label. I was just like,
that sucks totally. It's not like the vibe at all.
So no, I don't want to sign with them. I
don't want to sign with them. And that that definitely

(43:52):
influenced us on the label that we were doing that
Viper Room show for us, We're just like this, it's
just like, isn't it's not even that, Like it wasn't
the game we.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Wanted to play.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
We were just like, if it's going to involve like
us feeling bad about what we do. We don't want
to do it, like we we only want to do
the fan. Look, yeah, sometimes you gotta play the game
because again, yeah, you're in.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
This business deal with people.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
But if I'm not even in the business deal with
you yet, I don't want to eat shit. You know,
like if we're not your partner yet, don't make me
feel bad ahead of time. I know that wasn't their intention,
but it just like was. I was like, I've had
associations with this. Now we're signing with Virgin.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
We're signing with vir See, this is what I'm talking
about when I say we're contemporaneous. I finally that like
vestigial leather pants music industry that was one hunter viper
room is where it all goes down, and that we
still had to interact with was so gross and alienating.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
I remember being out of dinner with somebody and they
were like talking about groupie stuff and I was like, wrong,
band man, you we are telling this story to the
wrong guys.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
We don't like you.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Once you landed with Virgin and as that was coming together,
was there any conversation about re recording even like nobody
move or remixing or you know, did they That song
is so obviously kick ass. It's so obviously like the
song is as music industry people love to fixate on
and usually when they fixate on it, they start to
get their tools out. They started they're like, we can

(45:37):
we can make this better for you, we can make
this work for you.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Did you get any of that.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
I'm sure there was that conversation at least with like
behind Like, I'm sure they had that conversation with our manager.
We were very hell bent on not re recording it,
which I guess does like suggest a certain like lack
of curiosity on our part. Like sometimes when I look

(46:04):
back and I'm like, I mean, maybe it would have
been cool to to explore other options, but we just like,
you know, again, we really loved ral. It felt like
we had made a record, like the record we really
wanted to make with a guy that we thought was
the fucking coolest dude we had ever met. And like, yeah,

(46:25):
like the other producer, we definitely got introduced to other producers,
not even under the auspices of like re recording with
Ovin Squalor, but just like you know, yeah, come to
epic and you'll meet guys like this, and then we'd
be like that guy, I mean, that guy's not making
a record we want to make. Yeah, so we we

(46:46):
put it in our contract that they had to use
our record, and in fact put it in our contract
that for the next record they had to let us
use ri l if we wanted to. And they did
not want us to do with Ril on a second record,
and we could tell, we could tell at the time.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Yeah, so actually maybe they did.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
They maybe they did pitch re recording with some other people,
because that was something that we were very like. I
can't imagine why otherwise we would have been like, we
need to put in the contract that, yeah, they can't
make us.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
I remember the death Cab for Cutie when they signed
their Atlantic deal. All of the headlines were that they
had written into the deal that they got to, you know,
use their guitar player to produce their records or that's funny.
So I guess major labels were forcing bands to work.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Maybe maybe our lawyer was just like and also perhaps
telling me again she was also Ril's lawyer, ha, and
she was like, we're gonna put this in the contract.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
It doesn't say you have to do it with r L.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
But if you if that's what you guys want to do,
that's that's they have to let you do it.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Well, the record sounds really good.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
I mean, especially like Indie or you know, could har
Rock whatever you know, angular all the words that got
thrown around then a lot of those records are just
kind of included had like a lower midter five sound,
and I feel like your record sounds sounds great, Like
what what else could anyone want from it?

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Well?

Speaker 3 (48:15):
So, also to finish answering your question, they and we
agreed to this also because we had pointedly not gotten
it professionally mixed.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
We did use a big name mixer on it again
named Mark need Him. Oh Mark need Him mixed to
Tokyo Records to a Force field Er fourth fifth record.
He's great. That was the easiest ever.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
I got an email with a mix in it and
I said, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yes, he's a real chill guy too. Did you go
to his studio?

Speaker 1 (48:40):
I know our singer went out because he had written
some writing with him in his studio and so then
he just like carried it on into mixing it. So
I just sat at my desk answering emails.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
So yeah, that that cat that mixed costs way more
than our record costs to make. And he had a
good job. Sounds good, A good job. He definitely, he
definitely cleaned up a lot of things. I'm sure if
I listened to that Ril mix now, I would not
I'm sure I would think it was cool, but I'm
sure I would also be like, yeah, that that You
can't I see what Mark was doing in you kept

(49:11):
with that on Virgin Records.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
That's why Mark Needham has a big giant house exactly. Now, Aril,
I'm sure also has a big giant.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
House, but oh yeah he does.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
What did he Ril bring to the like the recording process.
I know you've said on the new one you've talked
a lot about finally sort of doing more of a
band in a room thing, and how you'd always resisted
that in the past. When I listened to it with
love and squalor, I hear it sounds like a band playing,
you know.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
I mean that that record was absolutely that vibe. I mean,
we essentially and I think just because we were in
general so green about that part.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Of being a band. You know, we had only recorded
ourselves to ill effect.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
So yeah, I think I think the recording does sound
like what I imagine we sounded like live, but I
know that isn't what he sounded like before Aril, like
fixed up tones and stuff like he just had like
the songs didn't really change very much from how they
existed before we started tracking, but just his like his

(50:19):
vibe is just very cool. And obviously as a as
a producer, he also mostly engineered it. We had an
engineer help, but he just like he kind of knows
not even just like what he likes, but like what
other cool people are going to want to hear. He's
really good at like nailing that. So I would I

(50:41):
would be like, yeah, I want to use my you know,
boss DS one for distortion.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
You'd be like, that's not happening, dude.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Here's a way cooler distortion pedal and away cooler fuzz pedal,
and we're doing that now.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
I do truly have written down.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
I got to ask what fuzz pedal because the record
starts with like the squelch, like the beginning of that guitar.
If you hear it kind of out of the silence
of like a fuzz pedal gain inside, and it's such
an exciting sound to me.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
So I think I think it was a zfect wooly mammoth.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
I don't think it was a willy mammoth. Okay, I
think we used the wily mammoth on on bass.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Did that? I think it was a mass to Tronne.
I'm not sure that those ZX pedals, man, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
So insanely good. Did you ever tour it all with
Ambulance Limited?

Speaker 2 (51:34):
No?

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Never.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
I got introduced to zfacts by Ambulance who uh just
always they had the.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Box of Rock. I don't know where mine is not
the box of rock.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Oh, the super hard on this and just like it's
it's a gain pedal, but they would just like have
it on minimum gain. But the tone just immediately, it's
just the circuit is so nice. And I was like, well,
I guess now for the rest of my life, I'm
gonna have that pedal, just sitting on making my life better.

(52:10):
And it's still at the end of my bit's the
last thing on my on my pedal board.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
To this day, he's not affected by the Rileys wars.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
He says, relax, don't think about.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
Wow, just thinking of zbex pedals makes me think of
two thousand and six Watch.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
I was about to say, I think a lot of
the other like the straight distortion on it. It's the
full tone, the blue two channel distortion pedal.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I think I have one of those two What is that?

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, this boy, Oh a true classic.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
This is so two thousand and five insane. I don't
think I've used it on a record since, but it's
still cool.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, they say in Dcle's is coming back soon, I'm
gonna look at our full tones and zat story rats Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Or ac thirties. Lug them out of the closet. Put
your radium away, kids, it's time to go back to ANFS.
I will not be putting my iradium.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Away too light. Tell me about the album cover with
the Cats. It's so great, it's so immediately. I've just
no record cover looks like that. It's like perfect. It
has personality, it has style, it has your cool.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Logo on it. You know, it really just comes comes
out hard.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
It. This also, I think, is a similar story about
how maybe we were not taking being on a major
label seriously enough. So the story of those Cats is
that we had a rehearsal space in Williamsburg back when
Williamsburg was like still kind of a shithole, and it

(53:52):
was in just like a really busted warehouse and the
space is really cool, but it was I think one
of the dudes from Longwave had met the like the
super It was like a totally empty warehouse off of
Bedford Avenue, like that's how long This was like Bedford

(54:14):
and like North eleventh or something, and I think they
had just been like, hey, you're not doing anything with this,
can we rehearse in here? We'll set everything up and
make it work. And the guy's just like, yeah, I
don't care whatever. So I think maybe maybe I'm attributing
something to Longwave that they don't have any responsibility for.

(54:35):
But I think they like set up these three rooms
and we and a band called Bishop Allen shared a
room in there, and there was a cat, just a
stray cat that lived outside of that warehouse, like clearly
just eating mice from the warehouse. And she was really
sweet and definitely should not have been astray, but not.

(54:58):
You know, we were all so irrespond well at that point,
We're like, we're not taking a cat. But then winter
started coming and we were like, oh, we can't. We
can't leave this cat outside. This is terrible. So one
of the Bishop Allen guys took the cat and his landlord.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Found out it was like you can have a cat.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
And so the idea of like taking the cat in
and then putting it back out was too much to bear.
So our drummer at the time, Michael, who who's on
the with Lemon squaller, we're living together, and we took
this cat, took the cat to the vet to like
get shots and stuff, and the vet was like, oh cool,
your cat's pregnant.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Oh no, Well, first of all, what have we done?
What have we done? Can we put the cat back now?

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Obviously not, so the cat had kittens under Michael's bed,
and obviously, being the idiots we are, we're like, well,
we need bamphotos. But this and our initial idea was
that we wanted to use those photos of us holding
the cats in front of our faces as our promotional photos.

(56:09):
And it was definitely before we were signed that we
took them, but I guess probably had no real use.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
For promotional photos at that time because we had nothing
to really promote.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
But when we got some, we were like, oh, also
tell the PR department. We've got the photos totally sorted out,
and we sent them to them and they were like,
you can't use promo photos that obscuri your faces, you idiots.
We were like, no, that's the that's the whole idea.
I mean, tell that to death punk.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
I guess, I don't know. Maybe that was probably part
of our idea.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
I don't know, but yeah, when they told us that
we couldn't use them as our promo photos, were like, well,
then it's the album cover. And I think they probably
pushed back on that as well, but.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
I don't know. We were stubborn, I guess.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Oh no, I think they pushed back, and we were like, okay,
we'll talk to some designer about other covers, and we
got other covers like drafted, and we were just like
these suck, and you know these suck, and the album
has to go to press in like two days, so
can we use our album cover?

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah? You could.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Sometimes I feel like Tokyo Police Club pulled a few
business moves like that that just sort of sin of
stalled or took too long to make a decision, and
then we got absolutely or we wouldn't respond to an
offer and then two weeks later they'd write back with
a better offers.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
They thought, I mean, that's definitely how you play that game. Yes,
just shit, I just lost the email. I forgot to
reply to it. Ha ha, I legit, I guess. I
don't know when this is coming out, but I hope
it comes.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Out after we have already sorted this out. But I
literally just had that phone call today. In my defense,
we did honestly, utterly forget about the offer, and we
were having a phone call with our booking agent about
something else entirely, and then he was like, but so
is that a pass on that because they came back
with a better offero We're like, well, it wasn't a pass,
but yes, we'll take the better way.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Don't tell them we'll take the first one. At this point,
how business gets done by accident. It's called indie rock.

Speaker 4 (58:06):
Oops.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
It feels so like a backhanded compliment to say, you
guys are you're like funny people. I don't know if
it's fair to call you a funny band, because we
are scientists. Like the songs aren't joke songs. They're they're
not silly you there, they are weirdly less silly than
we are as humans. And I feel like that's the
kind of two things at once that major label minds

(58:31):
sometimes have trouble holding those two things, you know, And
which makes I understand if you're trying to sell something
to the maximum number of people, you want it to
be one message hammered over and over, right, But was
it did that continue to be a point of conflict
with the label you guys having, you know, just something
like as characteristic as holding up the cats in front
of your faces, which is the kind of idea I

(58:52):
would also have loved and I still love to this day.
And also that I can imagine record labels looking as
scans that.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
So I'd be interested in your experience and the experience
that you've been mostly having recounted to you. But for
better or worse, and maybe maybe worse, Virgin were.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Generally pretty hands off.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
I don't know if it was just like our demeanor
and that like they could kind of tell that we
didn't really care about their take on things. Again, maybe
in curiously on our part, we were pretty much in
charge of it, Like every video that we made again,
so the videos we made for with Love and Squalor

(59:42):
were all with this guy at Kiva Shaffer, who is
now very famous as part of The Lonely Island, but
at that point had not done anything and we were
friends with him through our manager at the time. He
was like an LA guy that our manager knew and
was like, you are going to get along with these guys.
Immediately we met the Lonely Island dudes and we're like,

(01:00:03):
you are our friends. Now when we come to LA,
we are hanging out with Aril and the Lonely Island.
I'm actually so confused about why Virgin let us make
the Nobody Move video with Akiva based on that idea
that we had of us being chased by a bear

(01:00:23):
for an entire video. I can't fathom why a major
label would sign us and then be like, yeah, use
your loser friend to direct this inane video.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Go for it boys.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
It seems so ingenious that I have to think they
did it by accident, because in that moment, unlike ten
years even prior, when music videos were a going concern
in such a way that you could look at MTV
and say, hey, if we do something like that, then
we can probably sell to that group. By the time
we were both starting, MTV was still there, still playing videos,

(01:00:58):
but it wasn't the main center of the music culture
that it had been, and the only thing that could
still break containment was like an original idea like okay,
go dancing on treadmills, right, And I feel like getting
chased by a bear in a hilarious video is so
much more likely to be a big music video than like,
you guys looking cool playing in a room, yeah, which

(01:01:18):
is a very major label music video idea to me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
So they were right to do that. I don't know
why they managed to.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
I don't know if if you've rewatched the video recently,
but the kind of the gag, the real gag of
the video is that it kind of starts out as
that really shitty, look at these cool guys literally playing
in their practice space, yea, like looking at the camera
trying to look cool, and then a bear jumped through

(01:01:45):
the window into their practice space, and then it's just
us running from a bear. But yeah, the joke of
the video was that those videos suck and this will
not be that video. This will not at all be
I mean, but then every once in a while, I'll see, like,
you know, the Killer's debut major label video, which I
think somebody told me is.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
The first video.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Yeah, they like playing on a mountain like in the
desert with a giant Killers sign and lights with like
helicopter shots, and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
I'm like, I guess that is kind of cool. I
mean it worked, It definitely worked. It's not our thing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
I definitely couldn't have been Brandon Flowers in that video,
which is why he is Brandon Flowers and I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
But it's kind of cool video. It works.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
It's it's the it's like the song sounds cool in
a certain way that the video looks cool in that way,
and he likes the song is much more bombastic.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Yes it is, so that's true. But you know there's
a version of nobody move.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
You know, if you had, if they put you in
the studio with you know, a more high falute and
fancy super producer, and you'd, you know, if you guys
have been everyone was trying to play ball in a
different way. I think that song could have been bombastasized
to that degree.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Now would that have made the song better? Probably not.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Yeah, And again I sometimes like, I don't think a
better way of framing it in one's mind is probably
not that when a major label is trying to make
you make a record with a giant producer and shoot
a giant video that maybe you don't have to regard
that as like gritting your teeth and playing ball. We

(01:03:19):
might have been served well to not have considered it
that way, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
We didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
We just we simply didn't want to. We had our
own ideas about the things we liked. Unfortunately, for some people,
the things we liked tended to be on the fringes
of what is considered like wide format.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Well put, it took a while for the album to
come out right, I guess partially as a function of
having made it before you signed, and then you sign,
you gotta do the mix and you got to get
all the assets together and everything. Was that a excruciating
period or an exciting period?

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Uh? I think it was.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
It was exciting because I think especially because of the
amount of work that we were putting in, especially in
the UK. It was very funny because we were signed
very specifically to Virgin US. They were our product managers

(01:04:20):
essentially for better or worse. But I definitely knew way
more people at Virgin UK by the end of the
like I definitely thought of all the people at Virgin
UK as our team, and then every once in a while.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
It'll be like, oh, oh yeah, people at Virgin US
are different people.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
They're different guys, right, Oh shit, okay, well we should
go say hi to them at some point. It definitely,
especially in the UK, felt more like a gradual and
like consistently fulfilling build, Like it was definitely the vibe
where like our first tour there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
I mean it wasn't didn't suck because.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
We there was our first tour in the UK, Ah,
this is cool, but it was definitely like half full,
smallest venues possible in weird ass towns.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Yeah, but we were like, yeah, Middlesbrough is sick. I
love it. This is great.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
And then like you know, we did a tour with
that band Editors, and it was before their first record
had come out as well, really tiny, like probably the
same rooms we had just done half full, but with
them totally full.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Then next tour, I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Mean we've honestly we probably did seven or eight UK
tours before our record came out, So it did feel
like a long time between when we finished the record
and it came I mean I think it was almost
a full year before the record came out, but we
were constantly working and like seeing that it was building,

(01:05:48):
so it didn't feel like we were sitting on it.
It kind of felt like we were like servicing the
record before it came out.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Yeah, yeah, that used to be the way. Yeah, yeah,
sure did, Sure did.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Had you harbord UK aspirations before the start, because you guys,
it's I'm so jealous. I loved touring in the UK.
I loved it when it looked like we were going
to break there, and then we really plateaued really quickly,
and then we stopped bothering the Cervix.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
We were touring Canada and America instead.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
And then I woke up one day I was like, shit,
we haven't been to the UK in ten years, as
we fucked up, and so I want to hear about
your experience. Like we once chased Stevelmack around London, Like
we were at a bar with our label guy and
he was like, we just heard that Steve's at this
other bar. We got to go over there. He's got
to meet you, guys. He's gonna make you big.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
I never met him, but we were like stalking him
through the town. So that was my experience.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
It is really incredible the influence that like very specific
tastemakers had.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Yeah, it's pretty wild. We definitely did not.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
I mean again, once again, this is probably just evidence
of our pretty insular idea of how the band was
gonna work. I just think it wasn't something that we
thought about. We were like, we did not consider it.
We were really into like British Indie Rae. I don't know,
I don't know, man, were we I guess maybe I'm

(01:07:09):
just thinking that we liked Franz Ferdinand.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Future Heads, Yeah, good group.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
But yeah, I mean, I think we just liked playing
super fun shows and those shows like the Payoff in
the UK tour to tour, and I think also part
of breaking the UK is a little bit about making
them feel ownership that is like absolutely part of their

(01:07:34):
cultural vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
So yeah, I think I think a lot of people
even there were very surprised when they learned that we
were not a British band. Like I think for a
long time people were like, yeah, their accent's kind of weird.
Maybe they're from Cornwall or something. I don't know, because
we definitely like we essentially had the career arc of
a British band. All of our tours felt we might

(01:08:00):
as well have lived in leads and we're like playing
the toilet Tour for four tours and now look now
we're moved up to like the small room at the academies.
That's cool, which I doubt is how many many bands
grow in the UK from American bands.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
I mean, yeah, well that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
It's one of those ones where you kind of like, well,
we'll go over there when we're big enough to go
over there, in which case you kind of get to
start at least in the academies.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Yeah, and then you miss all the beloved precious barflies. Boy boy,
oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
I am sad that the barflies are gone, only like
because of their historical.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Residence, but they were bad rooms.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
It's such a funny. Well, we were talking about Roger
Stadium in Toronto, and I was thinking about Toronto's venue scene,
which I tend to think maybe punches a little below
its weight class frankly given the stature of our city.
But it's so amazing, and I guess this is part
of it. How these just unpleasant place is to be,
whether it's to play or to attend the show or whatever,

(01:09:03):
just by virtue of being where the show's happen.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Take on all this power.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
And you know there's that venue in Tunbridge Wells that's
just like literally an old toilet.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
And we were laughing before we got there, like, oh yeah,
they're putting us on the toilet again. And then you
play it and it, despite itself, feels special and feels like,
oh now, I'll be sad when the toilet's gone.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
It's true.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Yeah, the Forum is still there. God bless I miss it. Yeah,
I gotta go back to the Forum now.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
It's like the grog Shop in Cleveland. Over the years,
I would complain and still complain and complain. Then the
last time we played there, it was my favorite show
of the tour. I was so happy to be back
at the grog Shop.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
I mean it's a The room is really good, you know,
I really like I've I've realized I like a I
like a square room.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Hmm. Square rooms really fun.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
Like I like when there's like a symmetry, like when
the audience feels like they're crunched in one space. A
long room's pretty brutal. People in the back definitely are
like checked out. Yeah, a wide room's the worst. Why
room is a nightmare? Why are the people over there?

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
That's wrong, it's incorrect.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
My keys always faced like off stage left, and when
you're playing, I'm like, I'm not playing to the crowd
when I'm looking this way, and if there's two hundred
people there, I don't have moves for them.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
This is my time, man.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
And it never really occurred to me how much better
a keyboard is. Life becomes when the band graduates to
sizeable stages.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Oh yeah, you're like, now I can face forward. This
is one of them. I have my instrument now fits
on the stage.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Also, speaking of throw and goes at festivals is the
worst thing to say. Okay, I got to set up
my nord and just hope that the twelve cables all
function the way I hope they.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Will in our five minute changeover brutal. This is the
life we chose.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
So the record comes out, Yeah, the tours keep getting bigger.
It certainly seemed from the outside like it went really well.
My perception of We Are Scientists was always of a
band whose career looked like I wanted it. How did it?
How did it feel? From the inside. I just I
can imagine starting with the major label, starting in that
world again from the outside, it looks like getting launched,

(01:11:07):
you know, instead of going up the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
Roller coaster hel shot right away.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Yeah, what was it like to be in the midst
of that? That definitely is not at all how it
felt to us. I think I think, probably by virtue
of having the long lead before the album actually came out,
we spent so much time touring really relentlessly before the
album came like even really before we were getting any

(01:11:36):
real radio play, Like I know, I know, Nobody Move
was on specialty shows, but we definitely were not, Like
I don't think we got playlisted until like even our
like second or third single, like oh yeah, because we
re released Nobody Move at the end of the cycle

(01:11:59):
because it hadn't been playlisted the first time around, and
they were like, but it's gonna get you know, at
least be list this time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
And it did. Obviously.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
Compared two years in playing in the you know, worst
random clubs in New York, playing on like totally random bills,
or like you know, putting on shows with your friends
in a warehouse, it did feel like a very different project.
Especially being friends with people like Arctic Monkeys, who were

(01:12:29):
a true like out of the Gates utter explosion, like
media frenzy. It did not feel like what was happening
to us was being force fed to people.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
It wasn't Beatlemania.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
It was definitely not Beatlemania, but it also didn't feel
like I don't know what the opposite historical version of
Beatlemania would be, but it didn't feel like those bands
where you kind of can just tell that the reason
they've attained any stature is because they're omnipresent because of marketing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
I'm sure you toured with some of those bands like
we did.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
Definitely, we definitely did. We definitely did. I will say
we were pretty fortunate. I'm trying to think if on
like the pre album release, we definitely had many supports
later on that kind of felt like that where where
like our agent would be like, this is happening, this
band is coming on this tour and we'd be like, oh,

(01:13:26):
we don't want to do that, and he's like, do
it for me. I mean, on the other hand, we
played a show in San Diego and I guess twenty
fifteen where the CEO essentially of our agency dribbled down
that this artist was going to open this one show
in San Diego, and our agent was like, you have
to do this as a favorite to me because my

(01:13:46):
boss is telling.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
Me to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
And that was Billie Eilish. It turned out it was
like her third show ever. I think so sometimes sometimes
when they make you do it, it's because it is actually
an amazing artist. They're just banking on that. They're like,
we know this is going to be huge, just do this.
But there are other ones where you're like, I don't
know what's happening. They just they know that they need

(01:14:09):
to make other people be exposed to this because nobody's
gonna want to see this on their own.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
As soon as the marketing dollars go out of this band,
there's no more band.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
I've definitely seen that nine times, So it didn't feel
like I'm sure it doesn't feel like that to anybody
who's who's experiencing that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
But that truly was not like our sense that we
were overexposed.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
I think because it was gradual and like for all
of like the radio play we were getting and like
we we did get I think probably by virtue of
having we I mean I guess weird videos by a
major label, so like they were MTV at least had
to consider them, and then we're like, what is this
is actually an interesting video? We were getting a lot

(01:14:53):
of MTV like to plays, so I don't know we weren't.
We didn't get a lot of like I think we
were a very difficult interview at that point. We did
not take interviews seriously at all because we hated talking
about ourselves and it felt silly and general. You could
easily walk away from watching an interview with us having

(01:15:15):
learned nothing about the band at all except that we
wanted to tell jokes. So I think maybe that was
part of a reason that we weren't doing like Enemy covers.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
It was funny because Enemy like clearly liked us.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
One of our big, a big step we had was
like our sixth or seventh tour of the UK was
an NME tour. It was mystery jets and Maximum Park
and Arctic monkeys and US. I think that was like
a good solidifying moment. Again, I kind of think everybody
there definitely knew who we are scientists was, but I

(01:15:54):
think they were like, oh, okay, so that we are
scientists is real now though, Right, So yeah, and I
mean it definitely liked us, but we weren't, like, I
didn't think we were an enemy band. I kind of
felt like they wrote about us because they a little
bit had to write about this band that was definitely
around and getting radio play. And people liked we were

(01:16:15):
friends with a lot of journalists, but I don't think
they liked having to do interviews with us. I think
they liked having drinks with us more than they liked
during the interview.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
There was like a brashness of attitude that seemed important
to enemy and we were so eager to please. We're like,
we'll do anything together on the cover of NME and
they didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
That's not what you're supposed to.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
I mean, being cool is definitely the most important thing,
and part of being cool is being a little bit
of an asshole.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
Yeah, did you ever feel cool in the heyday?

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
No? We felt we were like friends with a lot
of very cool people, and so that made me be like, well,
maybe we're not as not cool as I think we are,
but I think we were very likable. And a thing
that kind of always struck me was that even the people,
the friends that were like media cool people. I hated

(01:17:08):
them in the press. An experience I consistently had was
that I would be like, this person sucks, and then
I would meet them and be like, what an awesome dude.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Guy, And then like a week later, I'd see them
in the press again and be like, was I wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
This guy kind of sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
And then I'd see him again and be like, Nope,
cool guy. And so I think we just maybe never
mastered the art of being a dickhead in the press
and looking cool.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
I never realized that you could like be performative. Yeah,
I was like, you got to be earnest and honest
and authentic. It's that's cool. You got to be like
Johnny Greenwood. You know, I don't think that's what you
don't have to do that you can just act cool
Mac show.

Speaker 3 (01:17:47):
Yeah, we definitely, we definitely never mastered that skill.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
A sneither.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Well, it's all about longevity. So you know, you did
another record with EMI because virgin and EMI became one thing, right,
Like it was sort of a right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
Yeah. Well, I think I'm not sure what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
I think right before our second record, not only did
EMI consolidate, I think maybe our second record was technically virgin.
In the UK it was astral Works, which was an
EMI imprint.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Here, that's cool, that's a cool label to be on.
It was cool. We really liked everybody at Astroworks a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:18:39):
And I know, either right before or right after our
second record was coming out, ownership changed. I know at
one point they were bought by a guy named Guy Hands.
Oh oh yeah, I forget what he did. I forget
what his overall vibe. I think maybe he was media,

(01:19:03):
but like business media. But then at some point shortly
thereafter a German company that essentially this was literally how
it was explained to me by the people at Emi,
who hated.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
What they were doing. At that point.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
This was a German company that essentially bought failing companies
and was like, we will fix them or destroy them,
that's what will happen. And their last huge success had
been German Autobond toilet stops.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
And if you've been those are pretty nice. They did
a job, but they charge you for them. It is
a business man.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
You think they're taking your your waste and making something
out of that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
They're not. They need the money.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
It's called the toilet business. Not the toilet fund exactly
as they say. That is what they say in German.
It has a lot more gravitence.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
So yeah, thing things did immediately start to go awry
hmm at version.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
I also how long were you sorry? What label were
you on?

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
So we kind of zagged around our first record, which
was an EP, but we toured for two years like
it was a record. It was on a Canadian indie
called paper Bag, who put out the first Broken Social
Scene record. Like before Broken Social Scenes started their own
label and re released it themselves, and then we did
the next record with Saddle Creek. Then we did a
couple records with Mom and Pop, which was the closest

(01:20:29):
we came to being on a major, And that was
in that moment of like, it's everything good about a major.
It's all the smarts and brains of a major, but
there's no shareholders, so there's artistic freedom. And it didn't
quite turn out to work that way, but it was
a great sales pitch.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
I don't feel like I've ever heard someone say that
what's good about a major is the brain.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Yeah, they were like, it's these well, because that one was.

Speaker 1 (01:20:51):
It was like Metallica and Shania Twain and Red Hot
Chili Peppers or something. Management company Q Prime, and they
built a whole in house marketing team and radio team
for their artists so they didn't have to share. And
they woke up one Dan said, oh shit, we made
a record label. Let's hire an A and R guy
from Sire Records. We're all like big major label geniuses,
and we're going to take these bands and do it.

(01:21:12):
But we get we don't have to split the money
with the goddamn shareholders. Sure, but what they just had
was like the same old leather pants biases and notions
about how to succeed in the music industry.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
And we never quite succeeded at playing next you you
were not on a major at any point.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
We took a lot of meetings with them, and then
we just they that was when they started offering three
sixty contracts basically as a rule, and we just it
just felt like unsignable, even at our tender young age.
So we ken't get these guys T shirt money.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
I think we got in just as that was like
starting to become a thing they were thinking about. But
we're like, we can't. That's insane, we can't really do that,
can we? And so I think our contract was not
three sixty at all. In fact, I think maybe we
got some offers that were three sixty ish from other
labels and we were like big no, big no.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
For the listeners.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
At three sixty deals like three hundred and sixty degrees,
it means not only do they take the standard cut
from the records they make with you and sell, they
take a cut of your touring and of your merchandise
and of every dollar you make, which in theory is
supposed to incentivize them to work the record harder, but
in practice kind of seemed even at the time, to
be like, hey, is the internet just eating your lunch?
And so you're looking for other ways to make money

(01:22:27):
without changing anything about what you do.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
And the answer to that question was definitely yes. Answers yes.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
But so I really think signing to mom and Pop
and the whole that moment in my career is what
created the itch that I'm trying to scratch with this
podcast of like trying to understand like where does it
all happen and how does this affect how you make music?
Because for us, we were doing the traditional thing indie
indie bigger label. Now it's time for us to be

(01:22:52):
the Black Keys, to be on the radio, and we
did like an American radio campaign and do you guys
ever do an American full ass radio campaign.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Didn't so as enviable as our as our UK and
European fixation was. It did mean we were often just
not doing anything in the US like they would.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
They would say, can you come do this, and we'd be.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
Like, nope, gotta do the Enemy tour or you know,
like we just like clearly were favoring the UK because
that started heating up before the album was out. That
was how they wanted to approach promoting a record that
was going to come out.

Speaker 2 (01:23:29):
I think virgin Us was probably more we're gonna buy
a big ad in Rolling Stone and uh, you know,
make k Rock play you. That's our plan.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
I'll call my buddies and they'll do They'll call their
buddies and we'll do the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
Let us know if that works, I guess yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
So with Mom and Pop, it really felt like it
came out of the gate with a lot of promise,
like we're gonna here's what.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
We got the song and we got the album.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
And we're gonna do this we're and then over that
sort of the first year, it pretty quickly began to
feel like the air going out of the balloon and
there it was just sort of this disheartening anti climax.
And we did do another record with them, but it
took us four years to write it because we were
suddenly we're going in with co writers and we're like
trying to play the game and be people pleasers, but

(01:24:13):
also we don't Our hearts aren't in it, and their
hearts aren't in it, and anyway, so my experience of
how our almost major label thing ended was just this
sort of sad, slow grind to all. They had an
option and they were like, we're not going to pick
up the option, but if you guys want to, we'll
put the record out for like, we'll take one zero
off the advance, and we ended up doing it, which

(01:24:34):
I think was maybe some malpractice on someone's part, but
it was just that kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
Thing where like you don't want to shelve.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
That's it, that's it, you know, and you've worked, You've
spent four years working on the damn thing, Like we're
going to spend two more years trying to stop it
around Anyway, all of which goes to say, if it's
not too much of a bummer to talk about, how
did your major label journey come to an end? Because
I note that your third record came out on your
own label and you you've been an indie band since then,

(01:25:03):
which was good timing. Frankly, I think twenty ten was
about a good time to jump off a major label ship.
But how did it all how did it all shake out?

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
I mean it was it was a little bit perpetuated
by EMI's crumbling scenario. So the reason I was clarifying
whether or not you you had actually been on an
actual major is that I think even in the best
of times, a thing that's very annoying about being on

(01:25:31):
a label, on a major label is attrition of staff. Yeah,
like the people that work there are just always moving
around from label to label, so your team is kind
of always really changing. And the two A and R
guys that signed us to virgin Us One immediately, I
honestly want to say, two months after we signed was like,

(01:25:53):
by the way, I'm leaving, I'm starting my own label,
Like fuck you so much, dude, you really suck.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
And we were pretty lucky that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
The virgin UK folks, I mean, and again I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
A period of four years that we were on virgin
five years. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:14):
They for the most part stuck around and they were
the ones we really connected with the most. But I
did feel like the big, big negative of a major
label is the turnover. Like virgin US I think had
three presidents over our term with EMI and virgin UK,
I think had two presidents. So like one of the

(01:26:36):
low moments, and this was I think on our first
record when things were actually like good.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
We went in.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
Are the president that had signed us left as well
on top of the NR guy who had signed us
who had left, and the new president was a major
big wig, and everybody was really psyched that, like this
is a real step up. Indeed, he has tremendous tess
in the industry. But we walked into his office to
meet him for the first time and there was a

(01:27:04):
Kid Rock poster on the wall and we were like, oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
This is not gonna go well.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
His opening gamut was what are we gonna do with
you guys?

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
And we were like, well, I don't isn't that your job?
We don't know what you're gonna do with us.

Speaker 3 (01:27:20):
You should know what you're gonna do with us, and
like everything seems to be going pretty fucking well at
Virgin Your partners in the UK seem to know what
to do with us, and his rejoinder to us was,
your friend's Arctic monkeys don't mean dootally.

Speaker 5 (01:27:37):
Squat over here. We're like, well, I don't know what
to tell you. We're not Arctic monkeys. And also Arctic
minkeys were doing just fine over here. I think they
had like just been on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, We're like, man.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Shut up. They just shut up.

Speaker 3 (01:27:55):
So anyway, that sort of turnover and like having to
kind of cross your finger or is that whoever is
coming in even being your pr person or whatever is
going to get you this time started really wearing on
us again. We got along with the UK a little better,
and I, for whatever reason, again I don't know why,

(01:28:15):
it seemed like our team was mostly staying put and.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
So for our third record we were like.

Speaker 3 (01:28:22):
Hey, we want to renegotiate our contract so that it's
with Virgin UK again. We really did like Astraworks and
the people there, but as usual, everything was happening in
the UK and that was a much more powerful team.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
You know, their hands were always tied.

Speaker 3 (01:28:41):
They would have to get finances cleared from Virgin Us
to do stuff that if we were their own artists,
they'd be like, of course, we're dumping this money into this.

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
So we're like, why don't we just move everything to
the UK? And so we were like.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
In the middle of contract renegotiations I do think three
sixty k up and we said no. And while we
were having that conversation, we were like, should we see
what else is out there as long as like, as
long as our old contract is being voided? Essentially, yeah,
let's see what's going on. So we came to like

(01:29:18):
an agreement. I'm not even really sure how how we
didn't go through with it, but we essentially got a
new contract with virgin and we're like, now we don't
want to sign that, and I'm not sure why. I mean,
I guess it, you know, might represent their lack of
faith in doing other stuff with this.

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:29:41):
Somehow they didn't force us to just keep our original
bad contract, but yeah, I remember we we like renegotiated
the contract and then we said we don't want to
do it, and I think I guess at that point. Yeah,
it was all different people, and so we essentially just
like like, okay, we're not going to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
Bye, I guess, I don't know, and off you went.

Speaker 1 (01:30:01):
Did your experience of like being in and among the
music industry and like working as a band change noticeably
once you left the major label world.

Speaker 3 (01:30:12):
Certainly not like immediately. It definitely wasn't a night and day.
So we released the next record with a company called POS,
who are a very very large European distribution company that
essentially are a major label without I think they actually
did do some label services, but their model is essentially

(01:30:36):
we are not.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
The label, we're the distributor.

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):
But my gut is that being the label with PS
distributing was probably pretty close to doing like a sub
poppy kind of thing where it felt like a big
indie label. Yeah, and again, even with Virgin, we were
always pretty much in charge of our project. The two

(01:31:01):
things that I will always say were very cool about
a major label were marketing, budget and tour support. Tour
support was definitely essential, even those first UK tours that
we were doing that probably cost almost nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
I'm sure operated at a deficit.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
Loo because you've got to rent a van and rent
the back line, and like, yeah, we.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
Always hired a driver. We didn't want to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
Yeah we did not drive those first tours. But yeah,
like when you're playing a two hundred capacity club in
every town and only half filling it, you're not paying
for that tour. And so again I'm sure the tour
support was not very much. But if our manager had
been like, hey, you want to spend three grand to.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
Do maybe we would have died.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
I guess at that point we probably would have been like, yeah,
of course I want to spend three rand agun tour,
but not having a lot of money at that point,
it was nice to have someone else give you that advance.
I guess I would say like after after that, things
like taking a support slot with a much bigger band
who was probably going to be in a bus and

(01:32:10):
so their drives were going to be arranged around a
bus routing of like brutal overnight drives. There were definitely
times where we're like, it would be nice to have
Virgin have to get us like at least a driver
or like someone you know, like instead of us chasing
I can't even like think of who we were touring

(01:32:30):
with Like I know, we did the Kings of Leon
tour in a van and that was.

Speaker 2 (01:32:36):
A bus routing, so I don't know it's doable.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
We did a Weezer tour in a van and it
was just we played. We played at like six thirty
at night, and you basically play for half an hour
and then pack up and drive like five hours so
that you were ready.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
To go the next day to the next city.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
Yeah, that is I guess the benefit of a tour
like a Weezer tour is that you're going to be
on rely so you can leave, but it's it's brutal yep.
So that yeah, that would be the only situation in
which I feel like we would actively be like, oh
that was that was a good perk or whatever. But
you know, again, because radio in the UK is national

(01:33:15):
radio and theoretically not corporate, we still got a lot
of radio play over there and stuff. So yeah, it
didn't feel like a major shift. Felt like some things
like videos had to be cheaper, which was fine. Our
videos were always pretty cheap anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:33:31):
And that was happening anyway. Like going from two thousand
and five to now, music videos got for most of
us necessarily much cheaper because they're going to earn much
less money. Sure, of course, how did you guys find
the sustainability to still be here doing it now, you know,
twenty years in?

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
I mean, yeah, I do think that part of it
is that we we always kind of kept things pretty
like straight, Like we always really wanted our show to
not be a big product show, Like cool lights are cool,
and so we were always like, yeah, I got an
LD and some cool lights.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
But we don't want a video wall.

Speaker 3 (01:34:10):
I mean that would have been I'm sure we could
have done something fun if we were doing stuff like that,
but we just kind of like never really had the
bandwidth for that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
We were like, we're three dudes on a stage, what
do we need?

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
So the model that we kind of adhered to even
at our biggest was pretty scalable. Like, to be honest,
we like hanging out with each other and we're always
friends with our crews, but kind of like the more
I always felt like the more people you have on
a tour, the less fun the tour, you know what

(01:34:43):
I mean, Like it's.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Nice to not have to carry your stuff in.

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
But I'm happy to carry my I don't need somebody
to carry my stuff in and then you're hanging out
in a green room with twelve people who haven't been
home in two months.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
It's not that much fun sometimes, you know, we.

Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
Did, you know, we did fifteen years of like the
four of us plus two people in the van, and
we sell our own merch and we like really keep
it tight, and it scare you feel really present on
tour and you look out the window and you travel
the distance you travel consciously. We definitely do feel that way, yeah,
and we did for the final The farewell tour was
such a it was a if you're ever looking for
a quick way to amp up your profile, let me

(01:35:24):
recommend breaking up. Because then we were back on a
bus and we had like a six person crew and
it was so jarring to go from having.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
Toured the cheapest way possible back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
And the gigs were amazing, yeah, and everything else was
kind of like tough and not as much fun and
not as like beautiful and special.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
Yeah, And it's simply just like, no, I can't just
do the dumb things I want to do, and I
can't just run down the block with Chris and our
drummer Keith and like just drink beers and then be
irresponsible and show up like fifteen minutes before we play
and play. We got to like be there because every
other people are depending.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
Yes, yeah, yep it is.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
It's the scale is so different, and even just like
oh shit, going out into the house to like yak
with a few fans becomes kind of like, do I
really want to commit ninety minutes to a lineup that's
gonna form when I go out there? Which sounds like
a doucy thing to complain about, but it does really
change the calculus for I'm gonna grab a pint from
the bar and yap, what's youever.

Speaker 2 (01:36:20):
Standing next to me?

Speaker 3 (01:36:21):
Or even just like that, if if that is a
thing you want to do, you're putting out the other
people on your crew, who are like, we got we
want to get done. You know, yep, we're not here
as our passion project. As much as we might like
you and your band. I do just want to be
back at the hotel, relaxing, So come on.

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:36:41):
Our usual tour manager in the UK, I feel like
his quality of life is diminished immeasurably by how often
we're like.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Oh, look at that country pub pull over. We got
to stop at that pub, and he's like, oh, there's
no time for a country pub. Boys, please, we have
to go. We're like, Johnny, come on, we can't live
like this. Look at that beautiful outside.

Speaker 3 (01:37:05):
There's a babbling stream by it. I need to drink
a beer there right now. And he's like, oh, it's
so amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
You join a band. You're like, ah, finally freedom. I
didn't have to get a real job.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
I'm playing guitar with my friends from my living and
then you have to hire someone to force you to
adhere to a timetable.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
We did this European tour.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
I guess last year two years ago that the UK
run was with Crew, and on the last day we
just essentially boiled down to the three of us and
two dudes who were opening for us.

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
But are also just like friends of ours from New York.
We were like, just come to Europe with us.

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
And on the drive from our storage space like dropping
stuff off and dropping off Crew to driving to the
euro Tunnel, we literally were driving over like a creek
on a bridge and saw the backyard of a pub
I was driving and I was like, I'm turning this
van around right now we're gonna get on the next

(01:38:10):
train to France. We're missing the train we have booked,
but you're allowed two hours after your train, just thinking like,
oh man, Johnny would kill us if be near. And
we actually did send him a photo of us drinking,
drinking in the backgard me like we do wish you
were here because we love you, but we're glad you're
not here because we none of us would be here

(01:38:31):
if it meant missing the train.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
He would not have allowed that to have.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
I'm so glad to hear that a band. I'm so
envious of your UK touring ability to get to keep
going back there. We went back for our Farewell tour.
We played in a Trafalgar Square on Canada Day. That
was the extent of our UK touring, like post twenty fourteen,
and I'm glad you're doing it right and stopping at
pubs and taking advantage of it because that is.

Speaker 3 (01:38:56):
Country pubs are, like it is a a mantra that
annoys everybody in our vicinity. We really are committed and
like we kind of always forget that, like the food
is always kind of pretty bad.

Speaker 2 (01:39:13):
We were really excited. We don't care, Yep, we don't care.
The beer is always pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):
Sitting outside in England on like a nice day or
even kind of like a crappy day.

Speaker 1 (01:39:23):
The Weatherin's different things there, and a crappy day in
Toronto is a kind of a nice day in England
at least to my bones.

Speaker 3 (01:39:31):
Yeah, I mean yeah, even on a terrible day, sitting
inside like an old country pub. God, unbelievable, an unbelievable
luxury on one that we are scientists is utterly committed
to exploiting.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
And we all of us here major label debuts, salute
you with great seriousness. I guess full circle now that
I've taken two full hours of your time.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
Oh my god, I'm sorry, this is no I mean,
I'm I was looking forward to this and it is
not disappointed. We always wrap up by app asking what
you were eating. Well, you made the recording question in
the studio, and I know you guys went from New
York to LA to make this record, which having gone
from Toronto to LA to make records, I know that
like East coast to West coast feeling and being in

(01:40:13):
LA for me always felt so big and expansive. And
you're on the freeway anyway and you can go, We'll
just drive an hour to get a sandwich, or you'll
well in the intern like two states away to get
us tacos. So situating yourself back in Los Angeles making
with love and squalor even in the North Hollywood studio,

(01:40:33):
What were you guys bringing into Nashan.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
I think all we did was eat burritos and drink Margarita's.
And then as a health move, Ril lived in like
Los Fela's zone, and there was I think it's still there,
a restaurant called Alcove, Yeah, that is still there that
had really big, awesome salads, and so like every fifth

(01:40:57):
day we'd be like, I need a fucking salad.

Speaker 1 (01:41:00):
We're going that's so La. That's so banned in La. Like,
oh shit, I ate tacos for the last twelve meals.
Let's go eat the biggest salad ever. Fix it with
a giant salad.

Speaker 2 (01:41:08):
Yeah. Did you ever go to No Plates in Brooklyn?
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:41:11):
It was like cold Stone Creamery for salads. They had
like a billion ingredients you can make your own salad.
And I didn't really know how to eat salad yet.
When we would go there, cause I was like twenty
so I get the weirdest shit in my salad anyway,
killed in a candy store, Yeah exactly, but it was
like sun dried artichokes.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
Oh that so two thousand and five.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
Yeah, so two thousand and five. That's the perfect way
to end. There you go, that's the segue I was
racking my brain for that with Lomon Squalor is a
great fucking record. I was really happy to dig back
into it. It really for me. It has a lot
of you know, valence of like I was two thousand
and five is like when we were making Tokyo Police
Club up. Yeah, and so we were listening to that

(01:41:50):
record and being influenced by it, and it was great
to go back and like really get inside it. And
it's aged really well. So nice work. And also, you know,
congratulations on still going.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
Thanks very much.

Speaker 1 (01:42:03):
You guys sound like you're really doing it right. Seems
like you enjoy it and are.

Speaker 2 (01:42:08):
Still enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (01:42:09):
We do still enjoy it, which seems like the metric
you should use whether or not we're doing it right.
I don't know, there's no right way. We're enjoying whatever
way it is that we're doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:19):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (01:42:20):
Well, it was a pleasure talking to you, and hopefully
by the time this comes out, I will have come
to the Toronto show and oh coo, maybe I can
buy you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
At Pine that would be great.

Speaker 1 (01:42:32):
That was my conversation with Keith Murray of We Are Scientists,
talking about their major label debut two thousand and five's
with Love and Squalor, and also their whole career as
an indie band, their love of the Oasis show, and
perhaps most importantly, or most resonant to my heart and
how I'm feeling right now, their love of British country pubs.

(01:42:55):
I think that more than anything, I miss going to
pubs in the UK on tour, which is wild because
Tokyo Police Club hadn't toured the UK in like a
decade when we called it a day anyway, so I'd
been missing that throughout the band.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
And maybe that's the secret.

Speaker 1 (01:43:11):
If there's young musicians out there looking for advice, maybe
the secret is to keep touring the UK and going
to country pubs if you want your band to have
the kind of longevity that We Are Scientists have. Or
maybe it has something to do with putting cute kittens
on your album cover or mate. It has something to
do with going on the major label debut podcast. The
jury is still out, but scientists are looking into it.

(01:43:33):
Thank you so much to Keith oh. I wanted to
say that was that I said I forgot something that
The thing I forgot is that I went to see
We Are Scientists after I conducted the interview, but before
I recorded these words I'm recording right now. We Are
Scientists came through Toronto on the tour for their most
recent album, Qualifying Miles, and I went to the show
and I was so thrilled by it. This is a

(01:43:55):
band that has been touring for a long time, as
we talked about, and one of the things that happens
when you've been touring for a long time is you
start to see familiar faces city to city, and people
coming to your show becomes a tradition for them. And
the fact that they've been to three or five or
ten We Are Scientists shows, they bring all those shows,

(01:44:17):
those memories, the people they were when they saw those
particular gigs. They bring all that with them to the
most recent gig. And as I do at a show,
I was standing at the back with my can of
beer beaming and heartwarmed by.

Speaker 2 (01:44:31):
Yeah, the band was amazing. Yeah the crowd was into it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:33):
But more than that, there's this thing that is hard
to describe but easy to perceive, where every member of
the crowd is like beaming spiritual meaning at the stage,
and the stage is beaming it back to them, and
everyone is at their own show, Yes, as part of
a crowd in a community, but also as a person

(01:44:54):
who has lived their life and who is now watching
a band that's been there for them time after time
and is there for them right now at this gig.
And it's it's something that transcends the already really good
notion of you know, people on stage playing songs for
people listening. It's the magic that can happen to a gig,

(01:45:15):
and it's the magic that can only happen at a
gig by a band that's been doing it for a while,
for fans who have been loving it for a while.
And so it was really meaningful and just great to
be there and see it. Thanks so much, Keith, it
was such He was so generous with his time. That
was a long conversation and I felt like we could
have kept going, but we spared him. Really appreciate him

(01:45:38):
taking the time to talk to us and being so
open and sharing his experiences.

Speaker 2 (01:45:42):
Really appreciate you listening to it.

Speaker 1 (01:45:44):
Of course, it's always a delight to be major label
debut out to your ears.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
And that's it. Let's get to the end credits block.

Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
I suppose the show is produced as always by John
Paul Bullock and Josh Hook. Our theme music is by
the great Greg Allsop. We are available on all the
socials media wherever pods are casted. I entreat you every
week to like and subscribe, and follow and share and
all those things. And I entreat you again right now

(01:46:13):
to please do those things if you're checking the show
up for the first time because you're a We.

Speaker 2 (01:46:17):
Are Scientist fan.

Speaker 1 (01:46:18):
We've got a whole great back catalog now of really
interesting conversations with really cool artists, many of whom you'll
be familiar with, some of whom you may not be
familiar with. They all have different things to say, they
all have different perspectives, and all of them are really wise.

Speaker 2 (01:46:34):
And really smart and really worth listening to.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
So you know, why not dig back into the MLD
back catalog and find something else that you're into. Of course,
We'll be back next week and the week after that,
and week after week to come with more tales from
the intersection of art and commerce.

Speaker 2 (01:46:52):
Thank you so much for listening so long. Two booksta

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We Are Scientists - "With Love and Squalor" with Keith Murray

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}We Are Scientists - "With Love and Squalor" with Keith Murray