The Walkmen: The Interview
Last summer, The Walkmen delivered You & Me perfectly packaged to the masses, and quickly became one of my favorite albums of 2008. WIth a more solemn tone than their previous work, the lyrics managed to simultaneously break our hearts and fill them once again with hope, literally track by track. The often mentioned Roy Orbison-ness of singer Hamilton Leithauser’s voice takes front and center in these seemingly lonely tales of longing, accompanied on tour by, well, Craigslist horns.
We got a chance to catch up with Mr. Leithauser recently about Anderson Cooper, a CL musician who witnessed Otis Redding’s fatal death, and twitter.
Be sure to catch The Walkmen with Beach House and fellow FREEburg favorite Cymbals Eat Guitars TOMORROW night @ Webster Hall– this is your last chance to see them out in NY for a while as they kick off their tour with Kings of Leon two days later.
Check out the interview after the jump:
There have been many musical comparisons to you guys from The Velvet Underground, Roy Orbison, U2, and Joy Division to more contemporary British rock. Who would you compare yourselves to?
We love all those. A lot of people I know compare me to Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks…it’s pretty obvious why if you’ve seen both of us. I like to compare Paul to Anderson Cooper.
Outside of the music world, what influences your sound?
I don’t know actually. Sorry.
In The Walkmen’s musical career thus far, is there one song that sticks out as a favorite to perform? How about write or record?
I always like playing the horn songs like “Red Moon” and “Louisiana” because we get a new crew up there with us every night. We post ads on Craigs List, and we get a wide variety of talent. In the studio, it’s much more fun when the songs come together fast..like “Canadian Girl”, or a bunch of these new ones. We have a new one called “Crackhead”.
On You & Me, there seemed to be a lyrical connectivity about travel & longing. There has been talk of a new album in the works, has a theme come to be realized yet?
No theme, but we do have a ton of songs.
When releasing the last album, most of the proceeds were donated to Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital– how did this decision come about? Can we expect more charitable work with future releases?
We were trying to book a benefit concert for Pete’s friends’ baby, who has leukemia. The dates weren’t working out, and coincidentally AmieStreet came to us with this plan, and it seemed like the perfect solution.
You’ve all been in this together for a long while now. Is the band dynamic constantly changing or do the individual roles stay strong while the music you’re creating around you changes?
It’s just one foot in front of the other.
Who is a current band you think is making big waves in the industry? Any NYC favorites?
The Fleet Foxes seem to be doing pretty well. They had a great record. I like Beach House. I heard the Oh Sees recently and thought it was very good. I don’t know very many NYC bands, actually.
You’re just closing out a mini tour with Beach House, and hitting the road with Kings of Leon right away. How do you imagine the two tours will be different?
I think basically everything about them will be different. With the Kings of Leon we’re doing like basketball arena type places. It’s a whole different animal. We’re obviously playing first, so people are like getting hot dogs and finding seats and like “twittering” while we’re playing. We had a great time playing with Beach House, I hope we do it again.
Since that’s where it seems you guys spend a lot of time, tell me a story from the road.
When we were in Memphis, Ben Cauley was one of our Craigs List respondants for guest horns. He played with the Bar-Kays, he was Otis Redding’s trumpet player, and he played with Al Green for the last 30 years. He told us all about the plane crash where Otis died…Ben was strapped to the seat directly behind Otis, and was one of only two survivors. They crashed into a lake in Wisconsin. He shredded on the trumpet.
And finally, if you all weren’t making music together where do you see yourselves?
Successful and rich.
