Interview
Interview
Stage Times: We Are Scientists
Being tricked into playing at a wedding, and why Belgium seems to hate them. Here is We Are Scientists' gig history.
“As haunting as it is to say, there is that grand theory that retro sensibilities move in a 20 year cycle. We are now deeply in that 20th year,” We Are Scientists’ lead singer and guitarist Keith Murray winces over Zoom from his New York City home. Other than the salt ‘n’ pepper tone of his hair, Murray hasn’t aged a bit. Even his haircut is exactly the same. Those 20 years must have flown by.
The most chucklesome indie rockers to come out of the retroactively branded ‘indiesleaze’ era, We Are Scientists were themselves caught in the cycle of riffing from retro sounds. “I definitely thought we were being 80s retro,” he shrugs. “I guess it was 80s retro as distilled through modern sensibilities, so it was its own thing. We certainly didn’t sound like Gang Of Four. We didn’t sound like Tears For Fears.” Murray understands the era’s resurgence, sort of. “Every generation experiences that emotion, like, ‘that was really the last scene’. The internet kind of destroyed the idea of a scene, for better or worse. Except now we are talking about indiesleaze being back?”
We Are Scientists released Qualifying Miles this year, the duo’s ninth studio album which they’d no doubt vouch is their greatest yet. Despite the release of new material and a shuddering realisation of their age progression in the public eye, the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of their debut album With Love And Squalor proved to be too alluring to refuse. Set to kick off in October – with Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows in tow who played with the band between 2010 and 2014 – the band will pass through Glasgow’s SWG3, and Manchester’s New Century Hall before capping off the tour at London’s Roundhouse.
With tour on the horizon, we caught up with We Are Scientists’ affable mouthpiece Keith Murray to talk about the band’s gig history: being tricked into playing at a wedding, jamming with R.E.M. on their final ever tour, and why Belgium seems to hate them. If you’ve ever wondered why Snow Patrol smell so good, keep reading:
That is the gig that made you want to be a musician
Because I’m a younger sibling, my musical tastes were pretty much established by my older sister. Who was very, very into hair metal. The first big show I ever went to that absolutely blew my mind was Bon Jovi and Skid Row. She went for Bon Jovi, I went for Skid Row. My parents made her take me. I’m sure she was humiliated by having a 12 year old with her. It was pretty cool watching people make very, very loud noises to people that had paid to witness loud noises. I was like, ‘wait, I want to make loud noises for pay.’
My guitar-playing lore was that my sister was very into Richie Sambora, the guitar player of Bon Jovi. It’s funny how ‘manipulatable’ the young mind is, as I definitely considered Richie Sambora to be an elegant, tasteful guitar player. He is a great guitar player, but I definitely considered to be this Hendrix-esque legend of the guitar. So, my sister bought this hot pink Kramer – which was the gaudiest of all ‘Hair Metal’ guitars – and then immediately stopped playing guitar. My parents forced me to begin playing guitar to accommodate for their financial loss on that Kramer, which was how I began playing guitar. I hated that Kramer. I truly begrudged its existence in my life, so sold it and bought a Fender Strat – a much more tasteful guitar. About 10 years later, I mourned the loss of that Kramer, so much so that I hunted down – not not the exact guitar itself – but that exact model and colour. I bought myself a replacement of that hot pink Kramer, which I still play all the time.
Have you brought it out for many shows?
It’s in the UK, unfortunately. Our biggest shows tend to be in the UK and Europe. So all of my favourite gear lives in storage over there. But yeah, I’m still always chasing that Bon Jovi and Skid Row show high.
The first
Our first full band performance was when we were living in the Bay Area of San Francisco, after we graduated college. We played several acoustic shows. One was at The Stork Club in Oakland. They had an open mic night. I know at least Scott – who was the original lead singer of We Are Scientists – and I played a show there. I don’t know if Chris played with us. I know we all played at a student venue at UC Berkeley, which is where I worked. I was an inside man, and got myself a show at the student pub on campus to kids who did not want to watch We Are Scientists. I mean, I guess we were their age. I must have seemed like a peer, but I didn’t have any friends that went to UC Berkeley or anything. I was just a random weirdo playing We Are Scientists songs. I think I played a full set, and maybe Scott and Chris maybe came up to play a few songs.
We definitely played a bunch of house parties in California. We all lived together. That was essentially how we started We Are Scientists. We rented a house in Berkeley that had a basement, and so I just had all my musical equipment down there. We essentially started We Are Scientists out of boredom because we hated having real jobs. I know we threw a few house parties. I feel like those are the first real full band shows as We Are Scientists. I was the drummer at that point. Scott was the lead singer, Chris played bass.
Our first real show was at a venue called The Portlight in Oakland, which was just a dive bar. It felt incredibly legitimate to me. Do you know the band Mates Of State? I don’t know if they really happened in the UK but they were pretty big in the US. They were just an indie band on Canine Records, who we loved. They’d played The Portlight a month earlier. It was a hundred capacity club, it was not a big deal. But I was like ‘Man, Mates Of State played here, and now We Are Scientists played here.’ That was the first show that made me feel like we were real.
It’s a solid marker, playing like a venue that one of your favourite bands have already played.
I grew up in South Florida, and there was a club in Fort Lauderdale that was the bigger indie venue. It must have been like 400 capacity or something. But I saw Pixies there, The Lemonheads played there. I saw a White Zombie there, Jesus Lizard played there. It’s the one place that I always told myself we’d play. It was called The Edge. If we played The Edge it’d be the ultimate homecoming. Then The Edge turned into a disgusting Fort Lauderdale dance club called The Chili Pepper, so that dream was stripped from me. I’ll always be chasing that dragon.
The smallest
Somehow, as well as we tend to do in Europe, we do remarkably bad in Belgium. It’s crazy – we do well in France, great in the Netherlands. But that two hour drive between France and the Netherlands? Oh man. Our first show in Antwerp or something, was probably one of the smallest shows we ever played. We were like ‘what are we doing? They don’t want us here’. I’m sure we’ve played smaller shows earlier on. But that Antwerp show stands out. We played sold out shows in France, sold out shows in Amsterdam. Then we get to Antwerp… It’s kind of strange. I do appreciate national sensibility.
Just not when you’re trying to sell tickets.
‘Belgium does not care for you’. That can’t be a cultural trait of Belgium?
The biggest
Glastonbury is probably the biggest population we’ve stood in front of and played. We played the main stage in 2008 or 2009. I think for our second record?
![We Are Scientists - After Hours (Glastonbury 2010) [lyrics/legendado]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0ZGga_fH4-Q/0.jpg)
We’ve opened for some huge bands. We opened for Snow Patrol at one of the big shows they do which are essentially festivals. But it’s a Snow Patrol show because that’s how big they are in Belfast. It’s like their hometown show. They throw a giant festival-grade performance. I love Snow Patrol, so it wasn’t a referendum of taste, but I remember being like ‘all these people are here for one band?’ We ensured people were there for two bands. Ash played too who are a Belfast band. The line-up was stacked.
What are Snow Patrol like?
They’re really sweet dudes. As kind and gentle and sweet as their music is. That’s how the guys are. They’re very legitimately lovely guys. Whenever I hang out with them I’m like ‘I’m a coarse man’. One thing I definitely think of when I think of Nathan, the guitar player, is that he always smells freshly laundered. I smell terrible. How is he on tour and smells like a high quality soap, when I smell like mud and lager? Even first thing in the morning after a shower?
It’s the way of playing festivals and gigs. The constant aroma of beer, dirt, filth, regret.
I reek of it.
The weirdest
We get offered private shows a lot, which we tend not to do. We very specifically say no to weddings. I don’t know if it’s the right look for us. So, we generally say no to weddings. But we got tricked once. I respect it.
We just played a show in Belfast, our own show, and then another show in the south of England. We got pitched for a festival. To be honest I didn’t know the festival, but it sounded beautiful. North of Wales, community festival. We thought, why not? We get there, and over the course of talking to the ‘promoter’ for a couple of hours we realised that it was just a wedding. In their defense, they pretty much turned their wedding into a festival that We Are Scientists were headlining. The band that played before was the groom’s dad’s band. Fair play, there were roughly a hundred people there. They invited their community. It was hard to be mad. We’ve definitely played worse festivals. But this one was weirder because it was their wedding, so everyone was in tuxedos.
Did you play for the first dance?
No, we did not take the bride. Also in their defense, they didn’t make us part of the wedding. It was a separate party. They did the wedding the day before on-site, then this was just a musical party.
It’s a savvy idea. I might do the same – just lie to bands to get them to play.
Just make sure that you give your wedding party a convincing festival name. It’ll trick everybody.
The worst
Good question. One that stands out was in the early 2000s. There was a very cool club in the East Village of New York City called Brownies. It was when we first moved to New York. It was where all the super cool bands were playing – we saw Liars there, we saw The Rapture there. It was a very cool, tiny club in New York. We really wanted to play Brownies. So we’d send our demo to the talent buyer at Brownies and he was always like ‘I’m looking for the right bill for you guys’. In the meantime, he pitched us this show out on Long Island. It was a trick. It was a lie.
He was like ‘I’m going to send you out to this amazing beach bar, it’s got a ready-made crowd, it’s always a party’. When you think of The Hamptons, it’s a scene. Every bar is jam packed. We’ve played cooler places since, like the Surf Lodge, where real bands show up. This was not that. We showed up and it was just a dive bar on a gross bay. There were about ten alcoholics hanging there. Maybe they intended to hook up with each other at the end of the night. But love was not in the air. They booked us just to play covers. They just wanted us to play ‘Jesse’s Girl’, but we only could’ve played Weezer‘s ‘Sweater Song’ about twelve times. We were promised accommodation to stay there that night. It was a broom closet with chemicals in it. So at 2am we drove back to New York. We did end up playing Brownies. Just not with that booker.
The best
We’ve played a lot of fun shows. We’re always saying to each other ‘that was the best gig we’ve ever played’. It depends on how many daiquiris we’ve consumed beforehand. But on paper the easiest gig to say was our best, was at the end of a tour with R.E.M. throughout Eastern Europe. It started in Estonia, went through southern Europe, and then ended in Spain. That whole tour was amazing. It seemed like an R.E.M. kinda thing to invite the support band up on the night night to play with them, to celebrate the tour together. We played ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’, ‘Man On The Moon’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ by The Stooges with R.E.M.. It was in an old bull ring in Madrid. Just everything about it was like ‘this is not real’. Standing next to Peter Buck playing his Les Paul, or playing his famous Rickenbacker. That definitely lives with me as a high point of the weirdness of our lives. It was a great gig. Somehow we’ve forged this existence, which has been pretty incredible.
For sure. That must’ve been one of their final tours too?
I think it was the tour for their final album, yeah. I’d like to believe we did not contribute to R.E.M.’s decision to call it quits. It was truly incredible.
