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Interview with Yeasayer
Interviewed By: DaVe Lipp
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While there are many bands coming out of New York’s preferred borough for musicians to settle in, Brooklyn's Yeasayer are a bit different. Blending pop sensibilities, vocal workouts, and inspiration from a wide variety of musical genres that spans the realm of world beat to Peter Gabriel to Prog, the only category Yeasayer seems to fit into is being able to craft familiar sounding sounds that are completely new. |
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I had the opportunity to speak to one of kevchino.com’s favourite bands this year, Yeasayer. I spoke with singer/keyboardist Chris Keating of the bands origins, music, and food.
Please tell us how Yeasayer came together.
Anand [Wilder] and I grew up together in Baltimore and we used to play together. I moved to Brooklyn in 2004 and Anand and I started doing music and eventually after Ira [Wolf Tuton] joined to play Bass in 2005, we eventually called ourselves Yeasayer. Luke [Fasano] joined in the summer of 2006 to play drums.
There’s a lot of different styles of music going on in your songs. Who inspires Yeasayer?
We have drawn inspiration from just about anyone and anything that we found exciting. For this record we were listening to Bollywood soundtracks, Chimurenga music, and a lot of Sacred Harp Singing.
The first thing I noticed when I heard your album “All Hour Cymbals” is that there are a lot of heavy melodies and vocal workouts that go into your songs. What inspired the vocal arrangements in your music?
We knew we wanted the project to be based around the vocals. We were very focused on making the music about melody and the group vocals seemed to fit the overall concept and mood of the record.
You recently played the CMJ Music Marathon 2007. What was your favourite show you played?
We played so many times that in terms of a singular show experience I can honestly say that none of them really left any real impression. The nature of an event like CMJ just means constant rushing around the city, bad sound systems, and short sets. I enjoyed playing the show at Cakeshop because it was just a free-for-all sloppy mudslide.
“2080” and “Sunrise” are two of many beautifully crafted songs on the album, with world beat influence and upbeat rhythms. How do you manage to make your songs sound familiar yet completely new?
We are committed to some semblance of pop formula which I suppose adds a level of familiarity to the music. We also strive to constantly push ourselves and find new sounds and new combinations of sounds. There is no point in releasing a record that sounds exactly like something else. We were writing, recording, and arranging for a year and a lot of that time was spent obsessing over the way the recordings sounded. Making them sound unique was a huge goal.
Since no one has been able to completely describe your sound, why don’t you save me the embarrassment and tell the Kevchino readers what Yeasayer are going for. Communal ecstatic revelry. Jovial chaos.
I heard that you guys don’t like to give personal interviews for a few reasons, one being that you want people to focus on the music. Are you trying to hold on to the mystery in your music?
I don’t mind giving personal interviews. I think the music should speak for itself but I’m happy to answer questions about it.
Being from Brooklyn, do you find it harder to get away from being typecast as a New York band or is that something you prefer to embrace?
I think that one of the exciting things about a lot of contemporary Brooklyn bands is that they are hard to classify. My favourite Brooklyn bands have very little in common except for their desire to push the boundaries of music.
When you play these songs live, do you stick to the formula on the album or do you leave room for improvisation?
We don’t really improvise. We make conscious decisions to change songs for some specific shows, just to change a mood or keep things interesting but we are pretty rigid about the song structures.
With the recent release of “All Hour Cymbals,” what is the next step for Yeasayer?
We are constantly working on new material. We have a bunch of new songs that I’m extremely excited about and we have a bunch of touring coming up.
Any closing comments, recipes, and or favourite eateries of Brooklyn?
Seafood: Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal
Tacos: Tacos Nuevo Mexico on 5th Ave and 12th St. Brooklyn
Place with pretty girls: Marlow and Sons, Williamsburg |
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