Episode 92: Father of the Bride
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back once again.
This is the Father of the Bride episode.
I'm joined by Jake Longstreth and Ariel Rechshied.
As we play Jake, the new Vampire Weekend album in its entirety for the first time.
He might have heard some of the songs before, but still, this is a historic event.
Please join us now for a very special-
Time Crisis with Ezra King. B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Sport One.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
They were a felt-robbing leap of my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt to the blow, one of us had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying, one of us is lying
Leave the lonely man
Time Crisis back again. This is a very special episode.
This is the Sunday after the Friday that the new Vampire Weekend album, Father of the Bride, was released.
Obviously we're pre-recording this. We're banking the eps because I'm all over the place with the touring.
We're probably all in New York, realistically, because today's the day when, knock on wood, nothing went wrong.
We're playing our kind of fun New York album release show/party at Webster Hall.
So we probably got a few TC heads there who can't be listening to this, but everybody else can.
But we thought what we would do to air this weekend, because this is like the big weekend after the album drops,
we would just listen to the album and talk about it.
Because Jake, you still haven't even heard the whole album, right?
Right.
So basically, let me set the scene. Me, Jake, and RL, Rekshad, what's up?
Hey.
We're sitting here in Los Angeles, banking an ep about the album.
There's been talk about the album, we've talked about the songs that came out, but we've never gotten too deep on it.
So we might as well just jump into it. Father of the Bride, track one.
We're still a couple weeks out from release, but here it is.
Have you heard this song, Jake? Hold You Now?
I don't know.
It's one of the ones with Danielle.
I know the reason why you think you gotta leave
Promises of future glory don't make a case for me
I did my best and all the rest is hidden by the clouds
I can't carry you forever, but I can hold you now
Leaving on your wedding day, all calm and dressed in white
All I keep's the memory of one last crooked night
The pews are getting filled up, the organ's playing loud
I can't carry you forever, but I can hold you now
Alright.
I believe in what I believe in, believe in not only you
I believe in every man, I believe in nothing but you
This is dope. You never heard this?
Mm-mm.
I know the reason why you think I oughtta stay
Funny how you're telling me on my wedding day
Was that iPhone recording in the beginning or fabricated iPhone?
Neither.
Was it live?
It's some hi-fi-ass recording. What the hell are you talking about?
There is some iPhone.
There's some state-of-the-art.
There's so much, like, great room noise.
Oh, yeah, there's some birds chirping.
There's iPhone recordings on this record.
I know that song.
When things were feeling light
Turning this June morning into some dark judgment night
This ain't the end of nothing much, it's just another round
I can't carry you forever, but I can hold you now
I believe in, believe in not only you
I believe in every man, I believe in nothing but you
Who's singing there?
That's a sample from the Thin Red Line soundtrack.
Ah!
Did you recognize that?
Now that you said it, I do.
So that song's called "Hold You Now."
That's gorgeous, man.
Oh, thanks.
Very pretty melody.
From pretty early on, I had a feeling that would be a good track one.
I also just like that it opens with just, like, acoustic guitar and vocals.
Mm-hmm.
Which I thought was just, like, such a weird way to open a Vampire Weekend record.
I think by the time you hear the whole song, you're like, "Okay."
Even within two minutes, there's some surprises.
You don't even know Danielle's showing up yet.
I'll tell you one thing, because we're doing this on time crisis.
I always knew that this album was gonna have three duets.
And I always knew I wanted to be with the same person,
and thank God it ended up being with Danielle.
It's, like, so perfect.
But I always knew I wanted these kind of, like, country-inspired--
I wouldn't really call them country, but clearly they're indebted to, like,
classic country duet songwriting.
Mm-hmm.
And I wasn't even sure what three they would be,
but I knew that there should be three spread out around the album.
It's funny, when you work on a record for, like--
We only worked for maybe two and a half years, like, hardcore, but--
Two and a half? Right, you did--
Oh, I was-- Yeah, before-- Well, okay, maybe not us.
Before we were going hard.
But then it is interesting how, like, you start to, like,
feel, like, the weirdest things scoop you a little bit.
There's even a part of me that's, like, when "Shallow" got so big
as, like, this duet, I was like, "Oh, man.
Are people gonna hear these songs and be like,
'Coming off the heels of a 'Shallow'?"
No? No.
All right. That did not occur to me, dude.
Maybe on this show I'll say some of my, like, biggest insecurities.
Because that happens. You're working on a record--
Spoken like a true psychopath.
Yeah, maybe I am a psychopath.
But I'm just, like, the first time we ever put down
some vocals on that song was probably at least 2016.
Oh, yeah, a long time ago.
Yeah, so imagine, you're just, like, working on a song like that,
and then, you know, you're always thinking about,
well, first you think about, "What is the art I want to make?"
And then later you think about, "Well, okay, what is the moment it's coming out?"
And so I guess, okay, I'm glad you think that's crazy.
Just the idea that anybody would ever--
And look, you know I respect "Shallow."
But the idea that anyone would be like,
perhaps they were inspired by, you know, "Star is Born" "Shallow,"
and they want to do some duets.
Okay, hopefully not going to happen.
How did you know you wanted three duets?
Like, had you written the songs yet?
I had vague ideas.
That's very specific.
I had very vague ideas for what the duets could be.
Like, three specific ideas--
Lyrical ideas.
Like, this first duet will be this lyrical theme.
The second one will be this lyrical theme.
In a rough way.
And the ideas kind of all came at the same time.
Once I knew it was going to be a double album,
when I really started to feel strongly, like, we had the songs for it,
I also had this feeling of, like, I want this to be a double album.
It feels right.
It feels right that our fourth album is not 10, 11 songs.
It felt like it needed more room.
Initially, I wanted it to be 20.
At the last minute, I cut--
What did I cut? "Houston, Dubai" and "Conversation."
Those were the two songs I cut at the last minute.
Although, "Houston, Dubai" is a Japanese bonus track.
So, shout-out to Japan.
I was trying to explain this to a journalist recently.
I don't know if I had, like, the right language yet.
To me, there's, like, two types of double albums.
There's, like, the kind of white album that's just like,
"Hey, guys, let's have some fun."
"Everybody just bring your best songs. I don't care what they're about.
The weirder, the better, and let's just mix it up."
A mishmash.
"Let's have a true mishmash."
And, like, you can't really have a mishmash on a 10-song album.
So, then there's the white album paradigm, which is amazing,
which is kind of just like, "Hey, each song is its own universe."
And by putting them next to each other, that's where the kind of vibe comes.
It's the contrast.
And then there's the other type of double album that, to me,
is probably the best example of is "Bruce the River,"
which, you know, as a Jersey guy, that's the ultimate double album.
Very consistent palette on that album.
It's a very consistent-- and a very consistent theme.
It's almost like "The River" is almost like a book of short stories
like Dubliners or something, where it's like,
"No, he needed more room on that just to explore different personalities and moments."
But it's all-- you picture it all taking place in the same town--
- Oh, yeah. - --or the same world.
It's not 20 different worlds next to each other.
It's one world.
He needed the room to maybe hit on different emotions and moments within that time.
So, anyway, that was a little more like what I wanted "Father of the Bride" to be like.
And, of course, there's like the genres, maybe, and the references go all over the place,
but I actually think, lyrically, it's one of the most unified albums.
So, anyway, I thought that the duets would actually help reinforce that by having--
it's weird to say "characters," but by having the same two people kind of meet,
even in different moments, and sing together, I thought would help unify.
Because I didn't want it to be like, "Oh, why is the album like 18, 20 songs?"
You know, just because we stopped editing.
There was actually more rigorous editing on this than ever before.
So I thought the duets are kind of like the tentpole moments that unify it.
You remember anything about making that song, Ariel?
Yeah, I remember all of it.
The good, the bad--it's crazy how many versions we did, considering how simple it is.
Sort of, I mean--
We were tweaking the bass sound, like the synth bass forever.
There's a lot of different places to listen to music these days,
whether it's on your iPhone speaker, on your laptop speaker, through your Sonos,
and your car stereo.
It's hard to get certain elements to read on all of them, so--
Oh, so you were doing that?
Oh, yeah.
You would, like, record a bass, and then, like--
How's this going to sound on the laptop speakers?
Kind of, or we would just--you know, I mean--
Go jump in the car, classic.
Oh, that makes sense.
Yeah, you can't, like, those notes disappear.
Let's figure out a different way.
Sometimes it's a--
Wow.
You know, sometimes you're plagued by the key of the song.
Sometimes it's just an arrangement thing, like you realize you should--
bass line should be an octave up, or whatever it is.
But kind of to your question about when you disrespected my production
by asking if it was an iPhone recording, the way I--
Not a disrespect.
It would have been a strong artistic choice.
Jake loves lo-fi.
The way some of these--sometimes the best way to, you know, hear a song
is just to put up a mic and record Ezra performing it.
Yeah.
And that is what we did.
He was kind of introducing me to some of the material,
and I put a mic up, and it was super casual.
Most of the recording is pretty casual.
You know, a lot of it took place in my house downstairs,
which is kind of where the natural union of Danielle and Ezra
came together, I would say, on the record a little bit.
It was just very natural, like among friends.
Sometimes when I've been doing press for this record--
maybe I should have asked you guys.
It's not a big secret, but occasionally I'd be talking to a journalist,
and they might be like, "So how did Danielle end up on the record?"
And I was like, "Well, you know, it started--it was just very easy
because we were working on a song, and we'd say, like,
'Oh, man, we want to try some harmonies on this,'
and we'd just be like, 'Well, Danielle lives upstairs,'
so she'd come downstairs, she'd put down the harmonies."
And then sometimes people would just look at me half-confused, like,
"Yeah!" But nobody would ever follow--like, "What do you mean she lived upstairs?"
I just don't know if they were--
She has an apartment above the studio.
Yeah, I just don't know if they thought that was a metaphor,
or maybe they just knew. They're like, "Oh, because, you know,
you're working at Arielle's home studio, and you guys live upstairs.
No big deal."
Yeah. It's okay. It's not a secret.
I mean, it's not--we don't advertise it, but--
That you guys live above the studio.
Well, it's not--there's not even the main studio.
Anyway, it's the home studio.
It's the home studio, yeah.
We did it--it was very casual, old friends, all of us, you know?
So the initial bit of that recording is that.
Just, I think the door was open, outside sounds.
And he goes, "Okay."
Exactly.
I love that.
I mean, literally--
Yeah, we repeated it at the end.
Well, what happened was, when he was done showing it to me,
he just took the headphones off. He's like, "Okay."
And then we were talking about it a bit more,
and Ezra was explaining that he's always liked that bit from Thin Red Lion,
and, you know, the chords are similar.
So I do think that's when I was just like, "Let's throw it in there."
And then we just started [bleep] with that, and I was like, "Oh, that's pretty fresh."
And then, because of the weird timing, you had to stretch it out,
so that's why there's like that [imitates stretching sound]
It was just--
Oh, I love that at the end.
Yeah, we were just messing--it was just like--you know, it wasn't on a grid,
meaning, like, it wasn't on any specific tempo or anything like that,
so it could have taken a few more minutes and tried to make it feel like it was in time,
but I didn't--just kind of--
You know what's funny? Speaking of--
It was like a mood board idea that then just turned into the arrangement of the song.
You know what's funny? Like, a really thoughtful journalist,
you're probably not going to agree with a lot of them, but--
I'm a thoughtful journalist.
You are a thoughtful journalist.
You, not so much. No.
[laughter]
But--
Very thoughtful.
But the funny thing is, I guess it's not--it's not even just journalists.
Anybody who spends a lot of time with their music, a fan, whatever--
Yeah.
--just making up s--t in their head about how things went.
That's what's cool.
It's like--or it's like the more you're into an album,
the more your imagination is going to run--it's true for us, too, like, with records.
I especially would preface it with, "And in my imagination, this is what happened."
Right, versus a hard fact.
A lot of people just write down, like, "So clearly this is what happened."
You know?
Yeah, right.
Clearly.
Yeah, you don't always know it.
Clearly it was an iPhone recording.
Not that, but, you know, a lot of people have these hard ideas about--
Yeah.
--what you were listening to, what influenced you--
Right.
--what the process was.
"Oh, you did this because of, you know, this motivation," or whatever,
and it's like, "What the--?"
Right, right.
It would be more--
Yeah.
--it would be more fair for somebody to say, like, "Listen, the way--
I actually have no idea.
Yeah, I have no idea, but the way I hear it--because that is interesting,
the way somebody else hears something.
It might not be what you intended."
And by the way, it's a beautiful thing, open for interpretation, but--
It is a beautiful thing.
--let's just not rewrite history is all I'm trying to say.
No, I feel you.
But I remember talking to a thoughtful person who--
they were really interested in that part where I said--where I go, "Okay."
And they were into it.
They were, like, really into the album, and they were really into the song,
and they said something like, "That moment on 'Hold You Now,' track one,
before that big sample comes in, you sound very resigned.
You're very weary, and you say, 'Okay,' as if you know that the sample
that's about to come in--it's like a meta-commentary on sampling."
And I was just kind of like, "Oh, that's--it's, like, amazing that you're
thinking of it that way."
You know, I don't know.
I guess clearly--obviously we never thought that.
We just had it there.
But when you leave in studio chat, or we even repeated it at the end,
it is because you want there to be--I guess they're right that you were
creating some sort of meta-commentary.
Like, if you really want to clean up the edges of a song,
you don't leave stuff in.
Yeah, it makes it really alive.
It gives it a real sense of time and space.
I remember going by the studio a few times and being surprised.
I was like, "Ooh, the new Vampire Weekend album."
I was picturing a big studio with the separation rooms and the huge board
and the glass windows.
Yeah, major label debut, all that.
Yeah, and I remember just thinking, "Oh, this is an interesting vibe.
I dig this."
They're just R&L's basement--or not basement, just like the--
Downstairs.
Yeah, the downstairs studio.
Like a room that's maybe 12 by 14 feet.
Nothing fancy.
It's less than this, for sure.
This is interesting.
Like, you guys doing drums here?
We did.
Yeah, we did some drums.
You know, occasionally we go to a bigger studio.
Barely.
But you know how it is.
Half the time we're just hanging out talking, so why pay an arm and a leg
just to shoot this [bleep] with your buddies?
Just the real music from Big Pink over here.
Yeah, basically.
It's nice to have the door open, the birds chirping.
Step outside, get some sunshine.
Well, that's also a weird thing is perhaps for good acoustic reasons,
most real professional studios don't have windows.
So, you know, you could be in there like 2 p.m. on a beautiful day,
and it might as well be 2 a.m.
And it's just that, like, gray eggshell soundproofing on the wall.
Just sitting on a black leather couch.
Very depressing.
And I've actually come to realize recently because I had some pretty bad jet lag--
Cold.
--in my travels that, you know, sunlight is very important for regulating your body.
Get a little vitamin D.
I guess this is pretty obvious.
Most people know this.
But I would just like--like ways to beat jet lag,
and people are just like, "Go stand in the sun."
And then you realize, like, there's some days where you don't get very much direct sunlight.
And they're like--and this is where it gets tricky.
They were like, "The sunlight has to hit your eyeballs."
So no shades.
Got to be careful.
Oh, wow.
Who's they?
You know, some, like--
Hippies.
--someone put a fourth down on the first page of Google website
called, like, medicaldoctors-health.co.uk with, like, a lot of pop-up ads, that kind of thing.
Very difficult to read.
Yeah.
But basically it said--it was somebody who was saying,
"You know, I get people who have trouble sleeping,
and everybody's so focused on getting blackout curtains
and making sure that there's no light coming in at night."
And I'm like, "Well, you know what?
What about making sure there is light coming in during the day?"
Anyway, well, track two is "Harmony Hall."
[guitar music]
Classic.
So that's a great one, too.
Well, thank you.
And actually, it's kind of similar in that they have this sort of, like,
very pretty acoustic verse.
Right.
And then there's an unexpected chorus or instrumental sort of break
with, like, the piano in this one.
Same acoustic.
Chord in the same room.
Oh, it is the same acoustic?
Yeah.
[singing]
We only had the one.
Yeah.
The little guy.
Yeah, well, because I've heard this a lot.
Hearing the first song now, this totally recontextualizes this.
I'm hearing how, like, kind of lo-fi the verse is,
and then how iPhone-esque.
It's cool.
[singing]
Yeah, this always felt like a good--
[singing]
This always felt like a good one-two punch opening the album.
It's also funny, too.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately, how you work so hard
making this body work the album, and then you have to pick singles,
and you have to pick, like, whether they're real singles
or just taster tracks or whatever.
It's such a crazy thing that you have to do.
You work so hard on this thing, and then you're like,
now we have to unveil it little by little.
You know, like, you can't pick a song that defines the album.
And like you said, the context of Harmony Hall as track two
is so different than just, like, Vampire Weekend's back.
Check out our new single, Harmony Hall.
Whatever, that's how it works.
Unless you do surprise releases, which have their pros and their cons.
By the way, I think this is the first take of your vocal also.
Some of it.
I think pretty much all of it.
Not the harmonies, but the lead vocal.
I swear I only did one or two takes day of years before it came out.
Wow.
And same with--
And then it was just figuring out the, like, production, the piano stuff.
Yeah.
[MUSIC - HARMONY HALL, "HARMONY HALL"]
This is one of the last additions here, this guitar that comes in.
This guitar right here is one of the final things.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Really ruffled some feathers at the time, though.
Wait, now, is Dave singing on this?
Yeah.
Yeah, Dave and Danielle sing backup vocals.
Anybody else?
No.
Is Dave singing the lyrics?
Yeah.
Nice!
Oh, Stephen, fine!
[MUSIC - HARMONY HALL, "HARMONY HALL"]
OK, you want to talk about iPhone jig?
This is it.
So you know there's two parts there?
Beautiful.
So the baroque part--
[VOCALIZING]
So we did that at RALs.
But then in the other--
To a click track, or just, like, no, to this?
Oh, OK.
To the rest of it.
Then also below here--
[VOCALIZING]
It's more in the left.
Mm-hmm.
[VOCALIZING]
So that part was in New York at the time, playing the piano at my apartment in New York.
So that was probably three or four years ago.
And I was just thinking of different ways that I could play the chords,
just, like, phrase them a little differently.
So I was just-- I'm going, bum, bum, bum.
So I made an iPhone recording so I wouldn't forget it.
And then I played it for RAL, and it was like, oh, just send me the voice memo.
That actually is legitimately iPhone recording.
[VOCALIZING]
We tried a lot of different tambourines on this song.
Yeah, how do you like that one?
The tambo?
Yeah, love it.
Solid tambo.
Great tone.
You think about the tone of tambos?
I don't, actually.
This part's classic.
Greg Lee's "Shout Out."
I wrote this part on piano.
I could never play it on guitar.
Now Brian Jones plays it live.
[MUSIC - BRIAN JONES, "SHOUT OUT"]
That kind of boogie piano that comes in there, that's Tommy King.
Tommy King nailed it.
Endless cast of characters.
Yeah, I was thinking about how many songs are on this album where multiple people
played the same instrument.
Like, different people played bass, different people played guitar,
different people played piano.
It's a very steely band.
Oh, right, yeah, bringing a dude just to do, like, one part.
Yeah, one drummer on the chorus, one drummer on the verse.
Wow.
[MUSIC - TOMMY KING, "SHOUT OUT"]
That Tommy King piano stuff there is my favorite part of the whole album.
Just those little riffs.
Did he just, like, improv that, or was that--
Yeah, we gave him some direction, but he did--
he probably just did four or five takes in a row, just, like, doing his thing
and picked the best moments.
Huge song.
Yeah, I appreciate that you've always rode for that song, Jake.
Oh, yeah.
That gave me some confidence in the studio.
That's definitely a top Vampire song for me.
Top five Vampire?
Oh, for sure.
Nice.
Maybe top three.
Wow.
That's not-- that's not-- means words here, folks.
See, that's what gets tough.
You get older, man, you know.
People grew up.
They have so many years of memories with your old albums.
The idea that you could truly reshuffle their top five--
you can't teach an old dog new tricks always.
You could be bringing some heat.
You really think you're going to reshuffle my top five, man?
It's not easy.
Yeah, it's tough with bands, right?
Let alone my top three.
When I started working with you guys on Modern Vampires,
Rostam pointed out that I didn't really know any of your previous material.
Like, you probably heard A-Punk or something.
Yeah, I heard-- and I went to one of your shows even,
but, you know, like I hadn't really lived with it in that kind of way.
Which was for the best.
I think it was for the best.
I remember meeting Rivers Cuomo randomly.
Lead singer of Weezer.
Editor's note.
And it's a long time ago, but, you know, I was a huge fan of those first couple albums.
Sure.
And I told him, you know, I'm like, "That's the s--t of Pinkerton."
And he's like, "Well, if you're such a fan of Pinkerton, how could you--?"
What about Maledroit?
"Aren't you going to just want us to be the old Weezer?"
I'm like, "Yes."
I didn't get the job.
Well, better to be honest.
Yeah, no.
He said, "I am a conservative."
I like that idea of you producing a Weezer album.
You piqued my interest.
Yeah, but he wants to, you know, he wants to push forward.
I understand that.
Yeah.
And also the truth is, you can't step in the same river twice.
No pun.
You can't step in the same rivers twice.
Maybe Rivers also, it's like--
Also, well, you know, he famously has kind of a complex about Pinkerton.
Yeah.
Because the album didn't do very well at the time.
Or that's what they say.
I'm sure it did fine, but it didn't--
No, no, no.
I think it didn't do well.
It didn't match the success of the first album.
I bought it the week it came out.
Oh, really?
Me too.
So, Rivers, if you're listening--
I always liked it.
I would hear the singles on kind of late night on K-Rock in New York, and I was like, "This
is great."
But anyway, River, he-- whatever, I read an article.
I read a charticle once, a clickbait.
I was on men'shealth.doctor.co.uk, and I read a series of decontextualized quotes about
that album.
And it said that his feeling was he really put himself out there with the lyrics, showed
unpleasant sides of his own mind, I guess, and felt like he was really--
Punished?
Well, he felt like he put himself-- he went out naked on Main Street, and he didn't even
sell that many records.
And he's like, "What was I doing?
I feel embarrassed by that.
I feel like I overshared, and I thought I was being a real artist by being so honest."
And then it didn't even pay off, and so not only did I embarrass myself, I messed things
up for the band.
That seemed to be kind of what I took away from his interpretation.
And then he was like, "My favorite band growing up was Kiss, so I should just go back to being
weird, just guarded, oblique rock star."
Maybe.
And who's to say-- I don't know if that's what he literally said, but then--
No, no, no, I'm making that up.
But I know he's a huge Kiss head.
Right.
And that's-- it's kind of seemed like that would be the natural reaction if he got burned.
And then later, a lot of journalists would always bring up the fact that, "Okay, but
it paid off in the long run, right?
Because that album, I think it eventually went platinum or something."
So he got that commercial success, and he also got the critical love.
I think also the critics didn't like it when it first came out.
No, yeah, that's the thing.
And then later critics like Reed got into it, and then a whole generation of musicians
and dudes in emo bands were like, "That's my favorite album of all time."
And so I would-- whatever, journalists would bring this up to him, and it kind of seemed
like it was cold comfort.
You'd think that he still felt weird about it, but anyway.
I think the truth is--
Why did he go down that path?
Oh, because I was talking about old versus new.
And I think that-- I felt that way about Modern Vampires, too, just getting up there playing
some of those songs.
I was like, "This feels-- even to me, feel as familiar to me or the audience as the first
two albums."
Especially because the first two albums were like, towards so crazy.
I've probably played A-Punk well over a thousand times in my life.
And then you get up there with new songs, and then you realize, even if you get good
reviews and people are excited when it first comes out, it still is this long-term process.
Well, I remember the shows--
To reshuffle somebody's top five.
--last year that I saw you play.
I remember thinking, "Wow, Yahe is really a classic late set, foundational closer."
I don't know if it's actually literally close.
I guess you close with shows with--
Walcott was the--
Yeah, Walcott.
--the show with the show with the show.
Yeah, but Yahe has become a good--
Yahe is a deep, late set.
I remember thinking--
Yeah, bottom of the eighth kind of song.
Yeah, that's a cool-- it's cool that that song is right in there.
There is something weird about-- I mean, Time already passes in a weird way.
I think everybody would agree with that, especially as you get older, especially if you live in
Southern California.
Is that the next song?
"Time Passes in a Weird Way"?
♪ Time passes in a weird way ♪
♪ Especially if you're living in Southern California ♪
♪ Do do do do do ♪
[laughs]
But my best way of remembering what years things happened or what years Vampire Weekend
albums came out, where I can be like, "That was definitely 2012," because Modern Vampires
was not out.
Right.
I guess it's kind of just like life, like family and friends and stuff.
It can be sometimes funny to be like, "Whoa, there was a time where I literally didn't
know any of these people.
The people I see every day, I literally didn't know."
There's a time in my life where "Yahe" wasn't our bottom of the eighth song, and I didn't
know any of you guys.
You know, there's something trippy about that.
It is weird.
Anyway.
New friends become old friends?
Yep.
Old enemies become new alliances.
Different people sit on the Iron Throne.
Damn.
All sorts of shit changes.
Old friends betrayed.
Old friends betrayed.
Alliances tarnished.
What's track three?
We are at a leisurely pace here.
[laughs]
Track three, "Bambina."
Have you ever heard it?
No.
Okay.
Sick.
Fuzz bass.
Very Matt Sharp.
Thank you.
To an extent, yeah.
I forgot about that part.
[laughs]
Tight.
Weird third song.
Dig it.
Minute 43.
I love it.
Well, I also feel like Harmony Hall is over five minutes.
We want to keep things moving.
You're familiar with this one.
Oh, yeah.
Performer.
That's right.
Whip that solo.
Yeah, man.
Love that solo.
Honored to be on it.
Huge solo.
I should have added Southern California.
Have you ever had a guitar solo on alternative radio?
No.
I shouldn't have had to think about that.
[laughs]
For some reason, I took a beat.
Well, Jake has performed on many albums, which is why he's eligible to join the Recording Academy and the Grammys, as previously discussed on Time Crisis.
This is an annual cycle we go through.
It's cool.
Have you heard it on the radio?
No.
That's [bleep] me.
What radio station?
K-Rock?
I think they do.
KCRW?
Morning Becomes Eclectic, probably.
Harmony Hall is still kind of like the single.
Yeah.
Really overselling my contribution to the song.
It's a hot moment.
It's emotional.
Great.
You're really emoting through your instrument, which is not easy to do.
[laughs]
We talked about this one a little bit previously on Time Crisis.
This one had a bunch of different versions.
I think that one of the days that came by, I think you guys played me three or four versions.
And were we just like, "Which one's the best?"
Yeah, I was like, "I don't know, guys."
Well, I do remember Ezra just being like, "Not sure if he wanted this song on the album," and you were like, "Definitely put this on the album."
Yeah.
And I was like, "See?"
I was nervous that this song was too simple.
That's kind of what I said before.
And again, I have my own taste.
I think oftentimes the simpler the song, the deeper it really is.
But then I just get a little bit in my head.
But it's interesting, the coalition of people who are into this song behind the scenes--
Common thread.
And that's why sometimes you need to play stuff for people and just be like, "Whoa, those--"
Because we always talk about it in the studio.
We'll come back and be like--I'll be telling Ariel, "Oh, yeah, I played this for Rashida," or whoever.
And be like, "Well, what did they think?"
And it doesn't mean you always agree.
Everybody has their taste.
But it's sometimes interesting to be like, "Oh, they like that and that person like that.
Okay."
Here it comes.
Oh, hold on, hold on.
Quiet, quiet, quiet.
This is Jake's part.
This is better.
Jake.
That's it.
You know what I like about that part also?
Let's just rewind.
Rewind.
Just like Funkmaster Flex stuff.
I also like--I guess this is an Ariel thing, but I like the way that that part--
Well, because also in every other verse of the song, we would do that--
Like that pumped up part.
But this is like the last verse.
That was your idea.
It's like, "Let it chill a little bit.
Woo, woo."
And it's like a surprise.
Oh, rather than the, "Da-na-na-na-na."
It's like the Jake moment.
But I also like that I always thought of it like Jake has this chill little guitar riff,
and then the organ answers it.
It's like a call and response.
You know?
It really is like it's saying something.
And then this guy--
And then the organ says something.
I like how the bass is really raw, too.
A real instrumental moment.
Oh, yeah, this part.
Well, it's good sequencing, too.
If you're worried about this being too straightforward, Bambina was a trip.
It's like a short little--
Right.
And now, actually, this is one of my favorite new ones to play live.
It's like I love playing this with the band.
Is Brian crushing a solo over the end here?
Or is he just like unison with you?
[Humming]
Brian's playing acoustic.
When we've been jamming it live--
Well, not jam.
I don't want people to get--
Not that type of jam.
Live, we just kind of--
Because we're not going to do a live fade out, so we just kind of go through it then.
So we just kind of do like a little--
Everybody just adds little things.
Will goes a little crazy on piano.
You know, CT had some fills.
And I just started going--
[Humming]
Just adding like a few strokes.
What were you going to say, Ryland?
Well, I had a couple things to say.
One is that Emily Lazar, the person who masters all of the Vampire Weekend records,
among many other records, Grammy-winning mastering engineer at this past Grammy's,
she thought that "Bambina" was a single.
Interesting.
Yeah, that's always funny.
I mean, wow.
There's other people who wrote really hard for "Bambina."
I always just think it's a good sign that--
I mean, it's a thing.
It's a cliche at this point.
I've always said when we've made albums, every song needs to be somebody's favorite.
Now, no surprises.
Certain songs are going to be a lot of people's favorite.
I just always feel like when you start making records where you could play it for like 100 different people
and you'd say, "What's your favorite?" and everybody would say the same two songs,
it really means that you're starting to make boring albums.
Or you're just hitting the same tone over and over again.
Even when people pick kind of random ones, it's kind of like on the last album.
There were a lot of people--I'm not going to name names--
but there were a few notable people who really weren't--
or not that they weren't into Hannah Hunt,
but at least three, even more than that, times where people really questioned if it should go on the album.
And look, I get crazy too.
I said this shouldn't be on the album.
I said Diane Young shouldn't be on the album.
That's always when we're in that moment where we didn't have the quite last arrangement breakthrough.
I'm acting out a little bit when I say that.
I know it's classic.
You're deep into the creative process.
If we can't figure this out, it can't be on the album.
F it, dude.
Yeah, f--- it.
We'll do it live.
We'll do it live, dude.
Okay, take me a second to get that.
But back to "This Life," speaking of the fade-out live,
or the lack of, there's a lot of cool stuff that happens behind that fade-out in the recording as well.
Oh, yeah.
It's like a whole--
They got lost, you mean?
They got mixed out?
Yeah, I mean, at a certain point, you got to fade the f--- out.
That song's not short.
What's it clocking in at?
Four?
No, longer.
Four thirty.
All right.
No, yeah, because there's like this extended version.
That thing could have been like a cool five thirty if we just let it go.
There's an extended version where like Anjali Kejah is singing.
Who's that?
She's our friend.
She's originally from Benin, kind of came up in France.
She's like a legendary singer.
I've done stuff with her more recently.
She's done everything, like from kind of like African dance, pop, traditional music.
She's done like Philip Glass symphonies.
Wow.
Character on Neo-Yokio?
Character on Neo-Yokio.
So she sang at the end of This Life and it got-
Yeah, like she stopped by and put down some vocals and they were great, but it's like
just in the final version it didn't-
But just like more bass ripping, Jimmy Johnson going off.
Oh yeah.
On bass?
Oh yeah.
He's the dude who plays fretless.
Oh, sick.
Next album you have to get my Uncle Ted to play bass.
Yeah?
Sick fretless player.
They could really build it down on fretless.
Oh my God, dude, he's a monster.
In my mind, Ted and Jimmy Johnson look alike.
Oh, because you've met Ted before.
I have.
At like Richard Picture shows maybe?
No.
Or-
Well, maybe more than once, but yeah, you know what?
At a Richard Picture show and also at your wedding party.
Oh yeah, cool.
Uncle Ted.
Track five we've already discussed.
I'll just let it play as we speak.
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you.
Nice.
I was so overcome with emotion when I was hurt and in need of a friend.
This is one of my favorite songs on the record.
It's like-
Did the Japanese version make it in time?
Yeah.
One of the other Japanese bonus tracks is like a radical reconfiguration of Big Blue.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's so sick when that comes in.
I was so overcome with emotion when I was hurt and in need of affection.
Shout out to Greg Lees once again.
Beautiful playing here.
Then you're off the protection.
And then I found out.
The way this came together is really a miracle.
Yeah, it started with me and DJ Dahi beat, very different.
Once my life I felt close to you.
What's going on here with the "oh"?
It's like a choir sound.
A sample?
Well, no, it's like-
Yeah, it is.
I don't know what the part, but it's not a sample that we took it from a record.
There's sampled choirs that we played.
It's a sampled instrument.
On the keyboard?
Yeah.
Let my back on the horn.
Big Blue, once my life I felt close to you.
Really cool fan art that came out of this song.
Yeah, Big Blue actually gets the most fan art.
Nice imagery.
You guys jam this one out?
Oh, yeah.
I really like the live arrangement because the song's a minute 49.
I also feel like on an 18 song album, like, of course, it's like tempting.
You know, you have a song like Big Blue and you could.
There'd be one way of listening to it where you'd be like, all right, well, we got the chorus.
Let's write a verse and let's, you know, but there was also something I was like, I don't know.
It felt good to repeat that line.
Some songs, the recording can be like a jumping off point.
It's like a brief fleeting idea, whatever.
So anyway, yeah, songs like 2021 Big Blue, when we perform them live, it doesn't feel great to just get up there for a minute 49.
And it's actually fun to work on the arrangement.
I mean, it seems perfectly prone for jamming out.
Yeah. And not even necessarily on some like true improvisatory jamming out, but even just in the rehearsal room being like, what else could we do?
Right.
And so those ones actually have grown a lot live and I'm sure they'll continue to.
Tough choice don't make me laugh.
My life's a joke.
You heard this one?
No.
You broke my heart at midnight mass.
Now I'm the ghost of Christmas past.
The only choice you gave to me is one I took reluctantly.
Because when we play democracy, you always take immunity.
How long do we sink to the bottom of the sea?
How long, how long?
How long do we sink and it's only you and me?
How long, how long?
How long?
How long?
How long?
What's the point of getting clean?
You wear the same old dirty jeans.
What's the point of being seen?
Those eyes are crude, those eyes are mean.
What's the point of human beings?
A sharpie face on tangerines.
Why is it fed like Halloween since Christmas 2017?
How long?
How long, how long?
How long do we sink?
Wow, you just keep me guessing here with these.
It's like every measure there's a new sound.
It's cool.
Damn, real kaleidoscope here.
I love where this song goes in the last verse.
How long?
How long?
How long?
This is my favorite part.
Getting to the top wasn't supposed to be this hard.
The house is on Mulholland Drive.
The car's on Sunset Boulevard.
The registration's here with me.
Neither of us has the key.
We can live down in the flats.
The hills will fall eventually.
How long do we sink to the bottom of the sea?
How long, how long?
How long do we sink and it's only you and me?
How long, how long?
How long?
How long?
How long?
How long?
How long?
How long?
This one's a trip.
How long?
You want to know something real trippy?
Yeah?
This is the one Ezra and I thought was the biggest single.
Oh, interesting.
It's not as poppy as the others, you know.
Well, it's not even that.
Also, I want to say, like, truly, no song ever makes the album,
and this is true with all four albums,
I've never allowed a song to be on the album
if I didn't have a moment of it being my favorite song.
You know, so--
Sure.
Like the thing I was saying before,
it's got to be somebody's favorite.
It's not that I-- even with singles,
it's that I necessarily prefer one to the other.
It's that you just think as you're working on a song,
oh, this is the one that other people are going to hear
and be like, this should be a single.
It's poppy.
It has, like, a simple hook.
I mean, like, for instance, I never would go around being like,
oh, Big Blue, that's a single.
No.
On a very basic level, it's like a poem.
It's a minute 49, the lyrics are repeated,
but I think we just thought, like, oh, how long?
Like, that sounds like a single.
To me, that song is more straightforward
than, like, Harmony Hall,
but this is maybe where I'm tripping.
I mean, this one was a real--
like, the production on this song was crazy.
It almost, like, was, like, similar to, like,
looking at a highly detailed realist painting
where you can kind of just keep looking and looking
because there's so many things to see.
So as this song was unfolding, it's like every--
there was, like, a new sound every, like,
two measures or something.
It was, like--
Not really.
I mean, it had a really, like, a very '90s, like, hip-hop--
Like, a sort of guitar bass, drums, piano.
Right.
[imitates guitar]
Bass.
Is that bass?
No, I always said that this was kind of like
the '90s pastiche a little bit.
It truly reminds me of '90s alt-rock and hip-hop and pop.
It's like a collage of the '90s, I thought.
Not lyrically, but--
So there's a--
Not even all the production either, but--
A while there where you're thinking,
"This is the single."
How is it that, like, you arrive at Harmony Hall
as the first--
Well, I don't think we were like, "This is the single."
We just--you know, I think--
You were excited.
Well, not even--
Every now and then, you just think you're doing--
We like the song.
Yeah, and you just think you're doing a song,
and it's like, "Oh, okay, well, you know."
I mean, people are gonna like this one.
And, I mean, some people do.
Yeah.
Well, and also, you know, I don't know.
You're making a record,
and you hope that there's something for everybody,
so you just start to daydream a little bit about, like,
"Oh, is this the one that that type of person
might react to?"
Right.
It seemed like the basic one, really, in a way,
'cause it has, like, the repetitive chorus.
It kind of seemed like the simplest or something.
Yeah, how do you choose singles?
You know, it's a conversation between everybody who works on--
Even simpler than this life on some level, you know.
Yeah.
A lot of levels.
But, no, I'm glad that people think it's weird
better than thinking it's basic.
But the way you pick singles is--
it's just like a conversation everybody has.
I've always found it somewhat easy to be, like,
open-minded about it,
if, like, say, the label has a strong feeling.
You know, some people get in, like, big fights with the label,
like, "No, you're wrong.
This is the single."
And I've just always kind of been like,
"Listen, you guys let me make the album I want to make.
I'll listen to you."
And generally speaking, we've never actually been
on some harsh, like, old-school label,
so it's always been a conversation anyway.
The A&R man says, "I don't hear a single."
Well, and also, that's when people truly get into
nightmarish conflicts.
It's not when somebody says,
"Hey, I really like this song.
I think you should consider it for your first single."
That's, like, what you want to happen.
And then you say, like, "Well, yeah, of course I like this song, too.
I put it on the album."
But what's really bad is when people play somebody an album
and somebody goes, "This can't come out."
Like, "Why? I worked really hard on this.
There's not a single."
"Well, I think, actually, that my song 'Southern California,'
it would be a great single."
"What are you, a moron?
This would sink like a stone.
The fans wouldn't be excited.
Radio wouldn't touch it.
The critics are going to hate it."
And compared to Albert Hammond's
"It Never Rains in Southern California,"
it's garbage.
It's garbage.
You know Albert Hammond Sr., my friend.
That's heavily trod ground.
Those are serious conflicts people get into.
And they're like, "But then what? I don't have a single?"
And they're like, "Well, what about that demo that you made
that I always said was great?"
And you're like, "Oh, I hate that song."
"Go finish the song. Listen to me. I know this bit."
That's when you get these crazy things where you hear years later
a musician telling a story, like,
"I made a lot of bad decisions when I--
when I first got involved."
Well, you hear the opposite, too.
I mean, let's not, like, just completely--
No, no, I'm saying that it's never--
--get behind the major label.
No, no, I'm saying that it's never been my experience.
Right.
And I think that's the extreme thing that happens.
So the idea of--
You know, there's times I've, like, questioned a little bit.
Like, I remember on Modern Vampires,
there was some debate within the organization
about what should be the next single after "Dying Young."
Should it be "Unbelievers" or "Don't Lie"?
And I thought they're both great songs.
I truly love them equally.
I feel equally connected to them.
And sometimes I'm a bad judge at telling
which Vampire Weekend songs they're gonna read as, like, weird
and which--I don't know.
Sure, sure.
But I remember just, like, really thinking about it,
and some people were really all about "Unbelievers"
to be like, "No, 'Don't Lie' has more--"
Ultimately, I was just like--I just really tried to imagine
being somebody hearing each of those songs for the first time.
And my vote came down.
I was like, "No, 'Unbelievers,' it's, like, a little peppier.
It's, like, easier to remember the first time you hear it."
Again, not, like, a value judgment,
but choosing singles is just, like, a funny other thing.
So anyway, Harmony Hall--
Better subject content.
Yeah, debatably, but no, probably.
No, not at all.
Yeah, "Unbelievers" versus "Don't Lie."
But even on this, it's, like--
Well, and also the truth is, it's always kind of cool
because to us, we work so hard on Harmony Hall.
It's this long, epic song with a guitar solo
and all these things.
So again--
It is a miracle that that song was the first song that came out.
No, so also, like, one step further
versus what you're saying, when we would say, like,
"Oh, we thought 'How Long' would probably be the single,"
honestly, if we had played this record for everybody,
you know, management, all the people we work with,
and everybody had been like,
"That Harmony Hall song's a bit of a handful.
Maybe you should consider cutting that down
or cutting it entirely."
I like "How Long." Let's lead with that.
That actually would have felt uneasy.
I was kind of psyched that everybody was like,
"Let's do Harmony Hall."
I was like, "All right."
I agree with you, 'cause we worked--
Don't want to admit it, but we worked harder on Harmony Hall
than we've done "How Long."
Well, in terms of hours spent, absolutely.
Yeah.
There's, like, a way of thinking, too.
That's when you truly are just, like, being by the metrics
where you're like, "You know, it's funny.
I'm looking at the numbers now.
So Harmony Hall's 5 minutes, 8 seconds,
and then 'How Long' is 3 minutes, 32 seconds."
Like, the definition of, like, a good length for a pop song.
That might have been part of it, too.
Like, it just naturally ended up on that length,
and you're like, "This is obviously, like,
gonna go down easier than Harmony Hall."
Right.
Not the case.
Well, we'll see what the fans say.
But again, it's like, now it's an album.
Now we've made it through the singles phase.
Well, that's not entirely true, 'cause obviously, like,
you hope that individual songs will still do their thing,
but as far as I'm concerned, that's other people's problem.
It's like, now we're in the album phase.
It's like, all the songs are equal.
Track 7, you know this one.
Big time.
You didn't love this song when we first played it for you,
I remember.
Really?
Yeah.
Huh.
Broke my spirit a little bit.
Really?
S***, it's all right, man.
No, it happens.
What did I say?
This song 100% is a lot of people's, like,
top 3 on the album.
It's not for everybody, maybe.
♪ Baby, I love you, but that's not enough ♪
♪ And pulling away has been unbearably rough ♪
♪ Super buff ♪
♪ I ran up the mountain out of your sight ♪
♪ The snow on the peak was just unbearably wet ♪
The oldest idea for how to launch the album
was come out with two tracks, "Harmony Hall" and "Unbearably Wet."
And in the end, when I think about how we rolled the album out,
I'm like, "You know what, we did that."
We just stuck four songs in the middle.
"Harmony Hall" was still the first song,
and "Unbearably Wet" was the last.
We gave people some, like, curveballs in the middle,
but I still do feel like--
I don't know why I always associate "Harmony Hall"
and "Unbearably Wet" like two sides of the same coin.
Me too, me too.
♪ No book was unbearably wide ♪
♪ There's an avalanche coming ♪
♪ Don't cover your eyes ♪
♪ It's what you thought that you wanted ♪
♪ It's still a surprise ♪
♪ It's hot on the body ♪
Serena Kinney playing violin.
Shout-out to Serena.
♪ To learn what kept us together ♪
Cool chord changes.
♪ What kept us alive ♪
♪
Some freaky--
This is one of my favorite moments on the album.
Me too. It's nice.
R.E.L. and Blood Pop production styles coming together.
Very rare.
♪
♪ Sooner or later ♪
♪ The story gets told ♪
♪ To tell it myself ♪
♪ Would be unbearably bold ♪
♪ Presented with darkness ♪
I also just think it's a great vocal performance by Ezra.
I don't care what you think, Jake.
Thank you.
I think it's great, too.
No, you don't like it.
Not true, sir.
Everybody's going to have a different top five on FOTB.
It seems like most of your lead vocals are usually single-tracked.
Is that right? During these verses?
Or is that not usually?
Is this single-tracked?
Well, this song's kind of unusual in that there's no harmonies.
Right.
Obviously, there's harmony, but--
No, but this song doesn't have any harmonies.
A lot of other songs would.
I don't think any song on this album is double-tracked.
♪ It's still a surprise ♪
We thought about adding background vocals.
♪ It's hard on the body ♪
♪ It's hard on the mind ♪
♪ To learn what kept us together, darling ♪
♪ Is what kept us alive ♪
♪
I mean, double-tracked vocals are cool.
It's just such a specific sound.
Oh, here's some double-tracked vocals.
Oh, wait, yeah, here there is.
There you go.
There's that double-track.
♪ Call it a night ♪
♪ Call it some cold ♪
♪ Just a bad, bad ride ♪
♪ Call it a day ♪
♪ Call it a night ♪
♪ Call it some cold ♪
♪ Just a bad, bad ride ♪
♪ Call it a day ♪
♪ Call it a night ♪
♪ Call it some cold ♪
♪ Just a bad, bad ride ♪
♪ Baby, I love you ♪
♪ But that's not enough ♪
♪ Can't awake ♪
♪ It's been a bad, bad buff ♪
One more buff.
♪ I'm flying up the mountain ♪
♪ Out of your sight ♪
♪ It's not cool ♪
It'd be cool doing live shows
if you, like, freestyled and was like,
♪ So buff ♪
♪ So, so, so buff ♪
♪ Buffy buff, buff, buff, oh, yeah ♪
♪ I can't stand how buff it is ♪
♪ It's unbearable ♪
Toledo, how buff was that?
[laughter]
Imagine a song that's just called "Unbearably Buff."
[laughter]
And then, like, weird shirts that just say, like,
"Bring the buff."
That's the new 8-Minute Cape Cod.
It's just like, "Bring the buff, dude."
"Bring the buff. Let's get buff."
And that goes into track 8.
♪ Rich Man, have you heard this one? ♪
I don't know.
♪
♪ When I was young, I was taught at five ♪
♪ One rich man and ten as a satisfied man ♪
♪ I'm the one ♪
Oh, yeah.
I think I heard this, like, 18 months ago.
Yeah.
♪ Hundreds of ones says I wouldn't react ♪
♪ But I'm the one in a hundred who would swing right back ♪
♪ Yes, I'm the one ♪
♪
♪ Dozens of steps and staircases to climb ♪
♪ Thousands of men you're most likely to climb ♪
♪ And yet I'm the one ♪
♪
♪ Ten thousand and one, could I possibly bet? ♪
♪ I'm compelled by your love and I haven't lost yet ♪
♪ Clearly you're the one ♪
♪
Feeling this.
Shout out to Serena again.
♪
♪ One in a million don't mean what it meant ♪
♪ And these millions of gold coins don't gleam in the spent ♪
♪ You're left with none ♪
♪
♪ Ten million dollars could win the whole lot ♪
♪ But if ten million dollars is all that you got ♪
♪ You'd be the one ♪
♪
♪ Hundreds of millions of papers to sign ♪
♪ Hundreds of millions of souls left behind ♪
♪ And yet we're the ones ♪
♪
♪ A billion to one, don't the odds make you sick? ♪
♪ To be one in a billion's a terrible trick ♪
♪ You're the wretched one ♪
♪
♪ When I was young I was told I'd find ♪
♪ One rich man in ten has a satisfied mind ♪
♪ And I'm the one ♪
♪ Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig ♪
Love it.
Yeah, that's--
What's that one? I mean, I--
I have trouble following the lyrics the first time I hear a song.
Oh, yeah, sure, sure.
You know?
Well, that one just has a pretty simple conceit.
I actually remember when I first started writing that.
It was when we were at the Grammys for Modern Vampires.
Label put us up at the Chateau.
Oh, yeah? Damn!
It's funny, too.
It's like sometimes you work so hard to come up with ideas,
and, you know, you're down in the mines
just trying to come up with stuff.
Then other times you're just, like, about to leave,
and you're, like, listening to something,
you come up with a little idea.
I also feel like on this long album,
we--you know, songs like this and Big Blue,
they're like these, like, short story songs.
They're, like, moments.
It's just, like, a simple idea.
I like the idea of kind of riffing,
kind of satirizing that, you know,
"So hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind."
And I just kept thinking, like,
it's classic, like, rich people in America vibe.
To be kind of like, "Oh, yeah, yeah,
very few rich people are good,
and most people with power are corrupted by it.
Very few of them can deal with it properly.
I happen to be one of the people who can't."
I just felt like--I just thought that was, like--
It's so real.
Like, everybody's like that a little bit.
Anybody with any type of privilege.
So I just thought there's something funny
about the narrator of the song being, like,
"So hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind."
But I am the one, though.
I got this. I got this.
Nine out of ten. Forget about it.
But, yeah, I'm the one.
And then I just like the idea of the stakes rising.
So every line has been 100 to 1,
1,000 to 1, 10,000, billion to 1.
Following that.
Yeah, and that's also, I think,
what made me want this to be a double album
is just kind of knowing that we have, like, song songs,
like, this life, you know, just like a song.
And then something like this that's, like,
I don't want to call it a poem. That's pretentious.
But, you know, like an idea that unfolds.
And I would actually say in terms of the production,
I feel like you and me,
this is low-key one of our favorite songs.
I think so.
That's top five for me.
Today it is.
I dig it.
I would also say that I think that's the most psychedelic song.
I'm into that song.
It's the trippiest song on the album.
I love the palette.
I love the string break that comes in.
And I love, you know, the references to Satisfied Mind.
And shout out to S.E. Roge.
A classic song.
S.E. Roge, that's who we sampled.
He's no longer alive, but it was cool
because eventually we're trying to find out, like,
who we have to talk to to find out if we can sample the song.
It ends up that his son is in charge,
and his son was, like, super cool and psyched,
and that's kind of a good feeling.
Of Satisfied Mind?
No, no, no, of S.E. Roge, the guitar sample.
Oh.
[singing]
Oh, I didn't realize it was a sample.
Yeah, people described his, like, his genre or his styles.
Palm wine guitar.
Have you ever come across that designation?
What is it?
Palm wine guitar.
I don't know it, no.
Palm wine?
Palm-- yeah, palm wine is like a type of alcohol, I guess.
Huh.
What's next?
Oh, [bleep]
So is this track nine?
Yeah, this is track nine.
You guys are doing double vinyl?
Oh, yeah.
So this is last song, disc one.
I think it's triple vinyl.
No, it's double vinyl.
[singing]
Oh, I remember this.
This is the next duet.
[singing]
So you have heard some version of this? I think I just heard you playing the song in
I heard a recording.
♪ I wanna hear the rumors ♪
♪ Please don't say it loud ♪
♪ I just wanna go out tonight ♪
♪ And make my baby proud ♪
♪ Boy, who's your baby? ♪
♪ Girls, you don't know by now ♪
♪ There's two seats on the midnight train ♪
♪ The gold won't weigh us down ♪
♪ Hanging gardens turn to desert ♪
♪ All that love in turn to hate ♪
♪ We got married in a gold rush ♪
- Woo, that's hot.
♪ And those wedding bells were ringing out our fate ♪
- Great Danielle harmonies.
♪ I wanna hear the rumors ♪
♪ Please don't say it loud ♪
♪ I just wanna go out tonight ♪
♪ And make my baby proud ♪
♪ Boy, who's your baby? ♪
♪ Girls, you don't know by now ♪
♪ There's two seats on the midnight train ♪
♪ The gold won't weigh us down ♪
- Who's that?
- Oh, that's me actually.
- Nice dude, I thought it was you.
♪ Bum bum bum bum ♪
♪ The rush is on to somewhere else ♪
♪ We're running out of time ♪
♪ Everything was ours ♪
♪ Now it's just an empty mind ♪
♪ Animals don't understand the words on the danger sign ♪
♪ For them it's just some shade from the morning shine ♪
♪ I thought you might learn the language ♪
♪ I thought you might learn to see ♪
- Some more great Tommy King keys.
♪ We were born before the gold rush ♪
- He really carried on this one.
♪ So why can't I remember anything? ♪
♪ I wanna put things back together ♪
♪ I wanna give, don't wanna take ♪
♪ Time to disavow the gold rush ♪
♪ And the bitterness that's flourished in its wake ♪
- Damn.
♪ I don't wanna hear the rumors ♪
♪ Please don't say it loud ♪
♪ I just wanna go out tonight ♪
♪ And make my baby proud ♪
♪ Boy, who's your baby? ♪
♪ Girls, you don't know by now ♪
♪ There's two seats on the midnight train ♪
♪ The gold won't weigh us down ♪
♪ I don't wanna hear the rumors ♪
- Dolly and Porter over here.
♪ Please don't say it loud ♪
♪ Please don't say it loud ♪
♪ I just wanna go out tonight ♪
♪ And make my baby proud ♪
♪ Boy, who's your baby? ♪
♪ Girls, you don't know by now ♪
♪ There's two seats on the midnight train ♪
♪ The gold won't weigh us down ♪
- I love that piano.
- Yeah, that's great.
(piano music)
- Wow.
- That's one of my favorites on the album.
- That's big.
- Who was the one that thought that was the same?
- I was just gonna say,
that could have been in the running
if I was running Sony Music.
- Yeah, somebody.
(laughing)
Somebody confusingly high up thought that.
I can't remember who it was.
- I was like, high up.
- No, no, I think.
- Like Ron Perry or somebody?
- Yeah, yeah, no, no.
First of all, I should say,
by the way, all the people who work at Colombian Sony
have been super cool.
Nobody's been on some crazy label.
No, yeah, I think Ron always,
Ron Perry's the head of Columbia.
- Maybe Ian, I'm thinking.
- No, no, Ron always liked that song.
He always showed love to that.
It's just, even for me though, it's like--
- Shout out to Ron Perry, man.
- Yeah.
- Shout out to Ron Perry.
- And Rob Stringer, head of Sony Music.
- Always Rob Stringer.
- And obviously the whole Sony Corporation
goes way beyond music.
- And for that matter, the Apple Corporation, folks.
(laughing)
- This just gives some love to major corporations right now.
- But it's funny too.
It's like, you know,
when people tell me a song like that,
I think that could be a single.
I always just have to say,
listen, I love that song,
but in what universe is it a single?
And I never sweat it too much because--
- We could've changed the game if that was a single.
- I mean, I don't understand what you're asking.
In what universe is that a single?
It's like--
- Old Town Road, Marion and Gold Rush.
- 2021 is a single?
Like, that's a trip.
- No, but 2021 is not a single.
That was the--
- Like a B-side kind of.
- Yeah, I hate singing B-side 'cause it's on the album,
but it's, yeah, it's the B-side to the Harmony Hall single.
- I mean--
- Sunflower was a kind of--
- That's a classic song right there.
- Left Turn, no, this is one of my favorite songs.
I think I also got a tiny--
- It's a classic.
- I got a tiny bit insecure.
Again, I won't name names,
but there's just like a couple people
I played that to in the early days.
Nobody hated on it, but some people,
I think because that one deals with certain
like classic kind of country images.
I think some people on first listen can't see past it.
So some people say,
you're talking about the Midnight Train, Gold Rush.
And especially shout out to Dave Maklovich
'cause he was kind of like my lyrics edit.
Obviously, R.E.L. was involved too,
but Dave, I would like really pour over the lyrics with him.
And I felt like we really worked.
'Cause when I first wrote it, I was like,
I got this unplugged electric I could play.
(guitar music)
Then when I first wrote, I had this,
♪ Something's happening in the country ♪
♪ And the government's to blame ♪
I'd like some good verses, but then I couldn't,
I was so stupid, I couldn't figure out the chorus.
So at first I always went,
♪ I don't wanna hear it, baby ♪
♪ Please don't say it loud ♪
♪ I just wanna go out tonight and make my daddy proud ♪
Then the female voice would go,
♪ Boy, who's your daddy ♪
♪ Girl, if you don't know by now ♪
And then I was like, what's the answer to that question,
who's your daddy?
I was just like, where is this going?
So I had to reign it in.
And I really, I don't wanna go too into detail.
I want people to come up with their own interpretations,
but this song does hold up to my rigorous standards
for song logic. - Oh, that's a relief.
- So anyway, I think like, you know,
once you get past some of the imagery,
Midnight Train, whatever,
that's not really what it's about.
The story is underneath it.
But anyway, I think I played the song for a couple people.
And some people loved it the first time they heard it.
And some people were kind of like,
okay, oh, that's like your country song?
And I swear, we pulled our hair out
trying to make sure the song didn't sound too country.
- It doesn't.
- Yeah.
But, and again, it's also like,
of course, like country duets is a huge influence on this.
I think the line to me that's the most,
I realize now that I misquoted this
when in a conversation I had recently,
or like with an interview,
the line that's the most direct type of like,
country duet banter, like those classic duets,
'cause I always liked them because they're funny.
So the line, that's one of my favorite lines.
It maybe isn't the deepest one,
but it's the part in the last verse where I go,
♪ I thought you might learn the language ♪
And then Danielle goes,
♪ I thought you might learn to sing ♪
I was just like, that reminds me of that kind of like,
ribbing each other vibe. - Right.
- Anyway, that is one of my favorite songs.
I'm curious, obviously, again,
we're recording this two and a half weeks
before the album comes out.
So I'm curious if it'll be a consensus pick,
or if some people will be like,
weirded out by how different, I don't know.
- I thought it was fascinating production-wise.
It is like, such a classic sounding song.
And then there were like, occasionally like,
hints towards like a honky-tonk piano or something.
But then the rest of the production was so not that.
It was cool.
Was it tough, Arielle, to figure that out?
Seems like it was.
- We just played with it, you know?
We played with--
- The first demo sounded like this,
when you had me put it down.
I just, I played acoustic guitar,
released into something like this.
- A, D, B minor.
- That's right.
- F sharp minor.
B minor?
No, that--
- Major.
- B minor, and then E major.
But this is the important part.
- Nice.
- Is putting the G sharp in the bass.
- To the G sharp.
Oh yeah, nice.
♪ Old rush ♪
♪ I'm a man of seven men ♪
- I remember just thinking so long about,
who is the daddy?
It's like before I knew what the song was about.
- What a dummy.
- Boy, who's your daddy?
Girl, if you don't know by now.
I was gonna take it somewhere mystical.
It was like, the morning sky's my daddy,
and we--
It just didn't make any sense.
Track 10.
I don't know if you've heard this one.
My mistake, does that ring a bell?
- No, it doesn't.
Real iPhone (beep) going on here.
- Oh, cool.
Yeah, there's some actual iPhone production right on this.
- There's some room noise.
- Okay.
(phone ringing)
♪ Skin under sun ♪
♪ Summer breeze ♪
♪ Summer break ♪
♪ Oh, I was young then ♪
♪ I'd made my mistake ♪
♪ Unaware of the fall ♪
- Shout out to Apple microphones.
♪ Unaware of my fate ♪
♪ There was peace in the valley ♪
♪ 'Til I made my mistake ♪
♪ Quake in the night ♪
♪ As the stone took its shape ♪
♪ Caught at the border ♪
♪ As I made my escape ♪
♪ It was cold, it was dark ♪
♪ You were cruel, you were fake ♪
♪ Hoping for kindness ♪
♪ Was my greatest mistake ♪
(soft music)
, - Damn. - That's dumb.
♪ I was young then ♪
♪ I'd made my mistake ♪
♪ Unaware of my fate ♪
♪ Caught at the border ♪
♪ As I made my mistake ♪
♪ It was cold, it was dark ♪
♪ You were cruel, you were fake ♪
♪ Hoping for kindness ♪
♪ Was my greatest mistake ♪
♪ I'd made my mistake ♪
♪ There was choice to get out ♪
♪ Or remain in this state ♪
♪ There was springtime and future ♪
♪ 'Til I made my mistake ♪
♪ Quake in the night ♪
♪ As the stone took its shape ♪
♪ Caught at the border ♪
♪ As I made my escape ♪
♪ It was cold, it was dark ♪
♪ I was fooled, mischievous ♪
♪ Hoping for kindness ♪
♪ Was my greatest mistake ♪
(soft music)
- Maybe trippiest vampire song?
- Maybe.
- It's also very-- - Washiest.
- Very simple songwriting. - Is it?
- Well, it's like-- - It sounds like--
- That's another one-- - Like crazy chords or something.
- I wrote the original chords with Ludwig Goranson.
And this is before there was any production,
so it sounded very different.
- "Husband to Serena Kinney." - That's right.
- It's a family affair, this album.
- This album really is a family affair.
♪ It's a family affair ♪
So, like, it was-- - ♪ It's a family affair ♪
- So just picture it like this, 'cause--
- Jake Longstrap on the guitar solos.
(soft guitar music)
- The, uh-- - What's that first chord?
- The compression's really pumping.
Just G major. - Okay.
(soft guitar music)
E minor. - E minor.
- A minor. - A minor.
- Very straightforward.
D7.
Ooh, I like that.
- B minor, and I'm playing minor sevens, but--
- I like that.
D7 to the-- - And then the only--
- Minor seven. - And then you get to E major.
- Okay.
(soft guitar music)
- But I just heard it as, like--
- Kind of like McCartney or something.
- A little McCartney, or a little, like,
pre-rock 'n' roll type pop music.
Like, I thought of, like, Chet Baker or something.
- I had that thought too. - Like--
(soft guitar music)
- ♪ Skin under sun ♪
♪ Summer breeze, summer break ♪
♪ Oh, I was young then ♪
♪ Hadn't made my mistake ♪
- I just thought it was, like, a very--
- I see now. - I can picture, like,
a jazz pop song called "My Mistake."
It just made a lot of sense to me.
But then, yeah, we got funkier with the production.
- Buddy Ross really came through with some arrangements.
- Oh, yeah, Buddy killed it on that.
And then it's also, that's a nice mix of people too.
Like, there's little bits of DJ Dahe production.
That's actually, I forgot as we were listening to it,
there's a Steve Lacey stacked harmonies.
That's some classic Steve harmonies.
We're entering kind of, like, the Steve suite of the album.
And that's actually, I forgot,
that's him playing acoustic too.
Didn't that finger pick the acoustic?
Anyway, "My Mistake," that's one of my favorite songs too, actually.
- Are you guys playing that one live?
- I thought that should be the first song released.
- Are you serious? - That's what I thought.
- Damn. - What?
(soft guitar music)
- I was like, "Come back with 'My Mistake.'"
- Yeah, actually, the live version,
I like where we've got it.
We haven't actually played it out yet.
We literally might be playing it live for the first time
as we speak right now at Webster Hall.
But at first I was like,
"Should we trigger all the weird sounds?"
Then I was like, "There's something cool about just doing
"almost like a real jazz."
You know what's funny with all the "Grateful Dead" talk?
Live, this one actually made me think a little bit
of a certain type of Dead song, like a Stella Blue.
Like, where we're just kind of playing like--
(soft guitar music)
Like a little jazzy, but with light.
Playing that on guitar kind of has a different vibe.
And then next is "Sympathy."
- I'd like to see that one live.
- Which this opens with a-- - You like it?
- Steve Lacey quote.
- Good thing I took myself too serious.
It's not that serious.
- Dig that.
- I feel like I played this for you once.
- Wow.
- Kind of projectors there.
♪ Alone in someone's bed ♪
♪ She found me, took my hand ♪
♪ The isolation and I began to understand ♪
♪ In the ping pong magic I've been sound ♪
♪ Never gonna get ahead 'cause I was looking in the mirror ♪
- Whoa.
♪ Now I got that sympathy ♪
♪ What I'm to you, you are to me ♪
♪ Let's go ♪
♪ Still Christianity ♪
♪ I never heard the words ♪
♪ Enemies for centuries until there was a third ♪
♪ In the ping pong magic I've been sound ♪
♪ Never gonna get ahead 'cause I was looking in the mirror ♪
- Loud?
- This is giving me like a solo Lennon feel.
- Lennon?
- Solo John Lennon feel.
- I think that part of my voice.
- Like this part, right?
- Yeah. - It's like this verse.
♪ Like Christianity ♪
- Yeah, I feel you.
♪ No religion ♪
♪ Lonely in the ocean ♪
♪ But in every other way it was full of love ♪
- Danielle popping up again.
- Nice.
♪ In the warmest of the field ♪
♪ Now I got that sympathy ♪
♪ What I'm to you, you are to me, let's go ♪
♪ I didn't have your sympathy ♪
♪ But I know where to start ♪
♪ Explaining to you patiently ♪
♪ That the one who broke my heart ♪
♪ Would've broken yours ♪
♪ And throw the pieces in the river ♪
♪ Now I got that sympathy ♪
♪ What I'm to you, you are to me, let's go ♪
♪ S-S- ♪
♪ Let's go ♪
- Nice.
♪ Let's go ♪
- Took a break from the guitars for this part.
♪ Let's go ♪
♪ S-S- ♪
♪ This is for an enemy ♪
♪ Too afraid to kill ♪
♪ Use the pain of someone else ♪
♪ And try and fall ♪
♪ Their wings will still fly ♪
♪ Old attic mosquito ♪
♪ Now I got that sympathy ♪
♪ What I'm to you, you are to me, let's go ♪
♪ Let's go ♪
- Fierce drumming.
- Damn.
- That's the most metal Vampire Weekend's ever gotten
with a double bass drum pedal.
- Really?
- I thought that should be a single too.
- Are you serious?
- Dead ass.
- Wow.
- To me it just sounds like normal alternative rock
in the coolest way.
- But that should be the single then?
- Yeah.
- Oh, because it's normal alternative rock.
No, I mean, I just meant like it, well.
- Doesn't have like the pop sensibility that
- But.
- The other ones do.
I mean, it's cool, but it's like,
it reminds me of like deep, deep on a John Lennon album.
And I mean that in like the greatest way.
I love.
- A deep cut.
- Like a deep cut off like mind games.
(laughing)
- Track nine on mind games.
- Yeah, dude.
Well, it is track what?
- This is track 11.
- It's a cool register for your voice.
It's a deep cut on FOTV.
- That's actually one where I do find the impulse to solo
because I do love.
- Oh, yes there.
- In the minor mode where I've been like messing
around a little bit when we've been playing
in the rehearsal, but like, I just love that.
- Uh-huh.
- Very Spanish and also very Jewish.
- Am I just beyond like.
- What scale is that?
- Uh, it's a harmonic minor.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- I just got back from a Passover Seder.
A lot of the songs.
- Live in that mode.
- Spanish, Jewish, Middle Eastern, whatever it is.
It's the.
- Also like a little bit of Bach.
Like that.
- Well, yeah, sure.
The truth is this mode, people use it all over the place.
I mean, maybe on acoustic guitar just sounds Spanish.
- You should crush those solos live.
What's that one called?
- Sympathy.
- Okay.
- Now we got that sympathy.
What I'm to you, you are to me, let's go.
That's going to be fun live.
- Yeah.
- So sympathy into.
- Nice.
- This is my favorite guitar riff to play.
- Do you know who Taylor Parks is?
- Oh, Danielle told me she.
- She wrote Thank You Next by Ariana Grande.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- She's obsessed with this song.
- Oh yeah, Danielle says something about.
- Apparently her and Anderson .Pak did like a video.
They've done a video cover of this song,
but they haven't released it.
They haven't, she hasn't like finished.
- I want to see it.
- I know.
♪ Flower in the morning ♪
♪ Standing in the garden ♪
♪ All before you wait ♪
- Nice.
♪ No power can compare you ♪
♪ Out into the daylight ♪
♪ Let that evil wave ♪
- Is that double track vocal there?
- Well, it's me and Steve Lacey.
- Oh, together.
Two different human beings.
♪ What day is that today ♪
♪ Well, I don't know ♪
- So is that Steve singing that?
- Yeah.
- That's Steve doing the.
- Are you going to do that live?
- Lately, Brian Jones has been doing that live.
- Oh, cool.
♪ Sunflower in the evening ♪
♪ Standing in the garden ♪
- Is that a siren?
- Yeah, Ariel confused.
- I've never heard that before in the headphones.
- It used to go way longer and I made Ariel shorten it.
He was like, "What are you, oh man, that's so lame."
And then all these people were being like,
"It really freaks me out.
"I'm listening to Sunflower in the car
"and I think I hear the siren."
- I hadn't even noticed, wow.
♪ One day, not today ♪
♪ Yes, well I don't know ♪
- This is the most prog that you can get.
- Yeah.
- Kind of the most fish.
- Yeah, you know I've been critical
of certain references people throw at this record.
If people want to say this sounds a little like fish,
I'm with that.
- What was Jerry's reaction when he heard this song?
- Who?
- Jerry Seinfeld.
- He must have said something, right?
- I think Jerry Garcia, I was like, "You know man,
"when Jerry looked down and he first heard that song."
No, Jerry Seinfeld, I don't think really,
he didn't really--
- Played the album for Jerry.
- No, when we did the video,
I just smoked a fatty and I just played the album for Jerry,
man.
(laughing)
- He was right there.
- No, Seinfeld didn't.
We were just talking about all sorts of other stuff.
You know, like on a video shoot.
I don't know if like Jonas sent him the song
ahead of time or anything.
So then you're on the shoot and you're like,
got this weird playback version of it.
- Yeah.
- I don't even know if anybody would be like,
"Oh, cool song, dude.
"We talked about other stuff."
I got to witness a great conversation
between him and Steve Lacey where Steve was like,
"Well, listen man, you know, I'm only,
"how old is Steve, 20, 21 or something?"
- I think he might be 19.
- No, he's in his 20s now.
- I just saw him.
- Steve was like a tiny baby when Seinfeld was on the air.
Or maybe Steve didn't even cross over with Seinfeld.
Did Steve Lacey and Seinfeld cross over at all?
- Steve was born the year Seinfeld ended.
- Did they cross over at all or is it off there?
This is a true number crunch.
I need Steve Lacey's birthday number crunched
with the final date of the last episode of Seinfeld.
- All right, Steve Lacey, born May 23rd, '98.
- Okay.
- Oh, this is gonna be close.
- Series finale of Seinfeld, May 14th, 1998.
- Two weeks before he was born.
- So Steve Lacey is literally Seinfeld,
the TV show reincarnated.
- Yeah.
- So they didn't cross over at all.
- No cross over, week later, nine days later.
- Days between.
- The days between.
(laughing)
Vampire Week and Richard Pictures present Days Between.
It's a two week festival every year
and the Ventura County Play--
- Fairgrounds.
- At the Ventura County Fairgrounds,
we set up shop for two weeks to celebrate
those two weeks on earth between
Seinfeld ending and Steve Lacey being born.
We'll be playing all the greatest hits,
we'll be playing the Steve Lacey songs,
songs by the internet, the Seinfeld theme.
We'll be viewing, the only time Steve Lacey
and Jerry Seinfeld were in the same room
was at the Sunflower video shoot,
so we'll have the Sunflower video on rotation.
No, Steve kept it real with Jerry,
which was awesome 'cause he was like
super psyched to meet him,
and of course he knew who he was,
but Steve was like, said to him like,
you know, I've gotta be honest,
I grew up after Seinfeld was on TV.
I've never really seen it.
So Jerry was kind of like, oh,
and then Steve was like, but I have seen
Bee Movie and that's a great movie.
And yeah, it was cool.
He showed him love, 'cause Steve was probably
the right age for Bee Movie.
- He probably doesn't get that a lot, Jerry.
Never seen Seinfeld, but love Bee.
- And I think Jerry was happy.
He was like, oh, that's cool, that's different.
- Deep cut.
- So you impressed Jerry.
- Yeah.
Also, the truth is, if I met,
well, I haven't been around long enough,
but if I met like a 12-year-old who's like,
oh, I love Harmony Hall,
and I'd be like, oh, that's sick,
and they're like, I'll be honest,
I don't really know your first few albums
because I was a tiny little kid.
I wasn't even alive.
That's what you wanna hear,
is that the work you continue to do
connects with people.
You know, that's why you make Bee Movie,
post-Seinfeld.
- Might be more like someone saying,
I love Neo York, I don't know anything
about Vampire Week.
- That happened once.
(laughing)
- That's tight.
- This is borderline, although--
- And that's like your TC heads that--
- Who don't really fuck with VDub.
- Are not fans of the band.
(laughing)
- I don't know, Ariel, if you saw that,
but I don't think you were here for that episode,
but we're just like thinking out loud,
do you think there's anybody who's like a true TC head
who doesn't really like Vampire Weekend?
And we just kinda put it out there,
and we're like, hey, if there's any fans,
and so people started tweeting at Seinfeld,
and there were like a few people just being like,
and Seinfeld was a little defensive,
which I appreciated, but I had to clear the air.
One person was like, hey, I'll be honest,
never been really a fan of the band,
but I got into TC, and I'm really into it,
and I was kinda like, we asked, and that's cool.
I respect it.
- I dropped a weird flex, but okay.
'Cause I forgot we asked.
(laughing)
- Oh, right.
- Yeah, I just saw that quote.
- 'Cause I asked, but okay.
- Like, who the fuck cares?
Shut the fuck up.
But anyway.
(laughing)
- That's the funniest flex.
Not into vampire.
- Love the show.
- Out of context.
- No, but I love that.
But with Neo Yokio, I mean,
that Neo Yokio is an even more specific weird thing.
- That is, yeah.
- So I swear, I know it sounds made up,
even as I said, it seems weird,
but this was a true sequence of events that happened.
I'm in a hotel in New York,
and a guy gets in the elevator,
and he's kinda looking at me,
and then as I'm getting to my floor,
he quickly, like, goes in bed,
and he goes, hey, by the way, are you Ezra?
And I'm like, yeah.
And he goes, you're the guy who made the Neo Yokio, right?
The show with Jaden?
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah.
And he was like, I love that show.
When's it coming back?
And I said, well, you know, to be honest,
I'm pretty tied up with the next Vampire Weekend album,
and Jaden's doing all this music stuff too,
so, you know, I don't know.
And I was like, but you know,
it's the kind of thing we'd love, you know.
It's so much fun.
We could totally dip back into it
in the future one way or another.
And he was like, oh, cool.
And I was like, anyway, have a good one.
Get out.
And then a week or two later,
I got, it's so bizarre to me.
I got a DM from the dude that was so specific that said,
hey, you might not remember me.
I'm the guy who talked to you about Neo Yokio
and the hotel elevator.
Listen, I hope I didn't seem disrespectful,
but when you told me that you weren't going to be working
on Neo Yokio for a while because your band
was putting out an album, I was pretty disappointed.
And I hope it didn't come across as rude.
And I was like, what?
And then he goes, but, you know, however,
after that conversation, I looked up your band
and I looked up some of your music and I got to say,
like, your new single "Harmony Hall" is great
and I'm looking forward to checking out
the rest of your music.
And I was just kind of like, whoa.
That one was weird to me that--
- Well, he recognized you.
So he must have recognized you from the context of Vampire.
- I feel like it was probably-- - I don't know.
- I think he recognized him from like an article
that had his face in it about Neo Yokio.
- Like a press photo?
- Yeah, if you were like a Neo Yokio head,
you would have looked it up a little bit more.
You would have seen Ezra's picture and Jaden's picture.
- Or Jaden Smith's Instagram maybe.
- Okay, if you're a Neo Yokio head who hates Vampire
and hates TC--
- But are listening to it right now.
- If you're a deep-- - The one album
where I'm like deep on Vampire Weekend.
- On TC. - You're a Neo Yokio head
who's hate listening to this episode of TC.
We want to hear from you. What's your deal, man?
And again, I hope it doesn't come across
as like an ego thing because trust me,
I would truly be happy to never be stopped or recognized.
But yeah, I was just kind of like--
This dude knew my name, said what's up to me.
Well, I guess it's not like he said,
"I didn't know that you were a musician."
He might have at least known that part,
but he truly had not particularly spent time
listening to Vampire Weekend.
But I just love the vibe of being like,
"I hope I was not rude in my disappointment
"to hear that you were working on music rather than--"
- Yeah. - So yeah, there have been people
that have popped up here and there.
So anyway, shout out to Seinfeld and Steve Lacey.
We've been working on some fun live versions of "Sunflower."
We have this one that gets almost kind of like stoner rock.
[imitates guitar]
And then we did kind of--
At first, when we'd kind of start to do a jammier version,
I'd be like, "Eh, I don't know."
But we kind of got a cool one now.
[plays guitar]
This could be a fun one to--
If we ever do a true Vampire Weekend/Richard Pictures crossover,
this would be a good one.
- Oh, yeah. - John just--
- Oh, my God.
[plays guitar]
- Anyway, so this-- "Sunflower" goes right into--
We ended--at the end of the day,
when we were sequencing the album,
we put the "Flower" songs next to each other.
So "Sunflower" goes straight into "Flower Moon,"
also with Steve.
- ♪ Flower moon ♪
- I forgot about this song. - Really?
- I was just playing it in rehearsal,
so I can't forget.
- ♪ Then it's gonna take a year ♪
♪ Gonna take a year ♪
♪ Flower moon ♪
♪ Sacred sand ♪
♪ Coca-Cola and red wine ♪
♪ Now's the time to dance ♪
- Sam Gandel on sax.
- ♪ Gonna take a year ♪
[plays guitar]
- Cool.
- You ever heard this? - No.
I like this.
[plays guitar]
- I'm noodling a little.
[plays guitar]
- ♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
- ♪ It was the right place, wrong time ♪
♪ Another night at the boarding line ♪
- Is that Steve? - Yeah.
- ♪ This way up the flower moon ♪
♪ It was the right week on a Christ day ♪
♪ Another chapter was underway ♪
♪ Another year in the light of the flower moon ♪
- Going kinda Jim Morrison there.
- Yeah.
- ♪ Another night at the boarding line ♪
♪ Another night this way up the flower moon ♪
♪ It was the right week on a Christ day ♪
♪ Another chapter was underway ♪
♪ Another year in the light of the flower moon ♪
[plays guitar]
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
- ♪ It was the right place, wrong time ♪
♪ Another night at the boarding line ♪
♪ Another night this way up the flower moon ♪
♪ It was the right week on a Christ day ♪
♪ Another chapter was underway ♪
♪ Another year in the light of the flower moon ♪
[plays guitar]
♪ ♪
- [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Flower moon, curse the night ♪
♪ If the sun don't make things right ♪
♪ Then it's gonna take a year ♪
♪ Gonna take a year ♪
♪ Flower moon, sacred sight ♪
♪ Coca-Cola and red wine ♪
♪ Now's the time to be a bee ♪
♪ Gonna take a year ♪
♪ Flower moon, curse the night ♪
♪ If the sun don't make things right ♪
♪ Then it's gonna take a year ♪
♪ Gonna take a year ♪
- "Time Crisis" with Ezra Koenig.
- Love that.
That one also has, like, a real Beatles-y feel.
- Oh, I could see-- - Like, harmonically.
Not the rhythm, not the percussion and rhythm.
- Yeah.
- ♪ Flower moon ♪
- I wrote that chord progression with Sam Gendel.
'Cause I had the beginning, I knew I like...
♪ Ba, ba, ba ♪
[plays guitar]
- Yeah, that's nice.
- Yeah, he was adding, like, some of these stuff like that.
♪ Ba, na, na, ba, ba ♪
[plays guitar]
[plays guitar]
- I really like that one. Yeah.
- Yeah, to me, that's one of the weirdest ones,
but I guess that part's just, like, pretty classic.
- I like this part of the album, the, like,
"sunflower into flower moon," these, like--
- Flower songs.
- Kind of, like, sunny, like, melodic, psychedelic stuff.
- This, I would say, is the jammiest part of the album.
♪ Ah ♪
Also, this song came first,
and then I had this feeling like it needed a complementary song.
- Mm-hmm.
- So I was like, "flower moon."
It just started to picture a song called "sunflower,"
just to be kind of like the opposite.
Next, "2021."
We know this. - Yep.
- Check.
- [bleep] classic.
- [laughs]
- It's a [bleep] classic, man.
♪ Boy, boy ♪
♪ 2021, we done had this ♪
♪ Buckwheat, buttered sugar, and went three ♪
♪ Boy, I don't want to be ♪
♪ Boy, mm-mm ♪
- I like this, like, noodling over album.
- Yeah. - That's classic.
- ♪ Copper goes green, steel beam goes rust ♪
♪ Boy, it's a matter of ♪
- Do you noodle on a guitar while you're watching TV?
- Yeah.
- And just, like, start playing along with the commercial music?
- Oh, totally.
Speaking of John Lennon, I think he did that a lot.
- He did that? He noodled in his living room?
- Yeah, he'd just play in front of the TV.
- And, like, record it? - And then, like, mishear--
or, like, mishear advertisements
and, like, start writing them down as lyrics.
- Oh, that's cool.
- Or start playing the music with the ad,
and, like, that turns into a song.
- Cool. - Yeah.
[upbeat music]
- ♪ 2021, what do you think about me? ♪
♪ I could wait a year for a good wedding day ♪
♪ Boy, I don't wanna be ♪
♪ Boy ♪
♪ 2021, what do you think about us? ♪
♪ Copper goes green, steel beams go rust ♪
♪ Boy, it's a matter of ♪
♪ Boy ♪
- ♪ Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm ♪
- That one also we've had to extend live.
- I like that ending.
- ♪ Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm ♪
[upbeat music]
- Oh, "We Belong Together."
- It's number three.
- This is the third duet.
- Oh, cool.
- Ross-Stand production.
- Nice. Shout-out to Matt Zor.
Projects.
Oh, that's a cool tone.
[upbeat music]
- Is that a guitar? - Yeah.
- ♪ We go together like sunset ♪
♪ Black and white, day and night ♪
♪ We go together, lie left and right ♪
♪ Oh, we go together ♪
♪ We go together like give and take ♪
♪ Pains and aches, real and fake ♪
♪ We go together, don't be opaque ♪
♪ It's clear we go together ♪
♪ We belong together ♪
♪ Baby, there's no use in being together ♪
♪ Baby, it don't mean we stay together ♪
♪ ♪
- I love this song.
- Yeah, this is sweet.
♪ ♪
- I think I recorded that electric guitar part
like six years ago.
- That lead part? - Yeah.
- ♪ Circumstance, bothers and kinds ♪
♪ We go together like lions and lions ♪
♪ Oh, we go together ♪
♪ We go together like keats and yeats ♪
♪ Bows and planks, days and days ♪
♪ We stay united like these old states ♪
♪ Oh, we go together ♪
♪ We belong together ♪
♪ We belong together ♪
♪ Baby, there's no use in being clever ♪
♪ Baby, it don't mean we stay together ♪
♪ ♪
[guitar solo]
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Hallelujah, you're still mine ♪
♪ All I did was waste your time ♪
♪ It's not some grand design ♪
♪ Had this pair of stars alive ♪
- It's kind of two different songs that came together,
as is often the case with Vampire Weekend.
So we had this old demo that started with, you know,
the drums he programmed and Rossum having that 12 string.
[guitar playing]
♪ ♪
And then I wrote-- I can't even play it.
It's too high-- up an octave.
[guitar playing]
♪ ♪
So we had that, and then I had this song I kind of play at piano
where I always wanted to do a song that was, like, insanely simple
that was just listing things that go together.
So I'd sit at the piano and go like,
♪ We go together like pots and pans ♪
♪ Bottles and cans, bottles and mines ♪
♪ We go together-- just like-- ♪
- Yeah. - ♪ Oh, we go together ♪
Then we kind of mashed them up.
- "No use in being clever."
- Yeah, that's a-- - That's a good line.
- I think that's kind of what ties the song together.
Maybe, or maybe I just wanted to put a caveat
that this is a song about realizing you can't be that clever.
Although there's a lot of lines that I like in this,
like, also in the vein of, like, some, like, funny old country duets.
It's-- ♪ We go together like bows and plates ♪
Or, uh, Keats and Yates. I just thought that was funny
'cause they're two literary names that don't rhyme, look like they should.
♪ We go together like Keats and Yates ♪
♪ Days and dates, bows and plates ♪
And this is my favorite.
♪ We stay united like these old states ♪
♪ It's how we go together ♪
- You know, it's funny, I was struggling with deciding
whether the song maintained your rigorous, logical...
- Oh, yeah, what do you think? - ...continuity.
Well, I couldn't tell initially if the song was ironic
and that you were listing things that actually didn't go together.
- Well-- - Like, what are the opening lines?
- Some of the things don't go together.
- Absolute enemies.
Lions and lambs?
- Well, the line lies down to the lamb.
- Oh, I thought the line was just gonna rip the lamb apart.
- Well, lions and lambs-- - I don't read the Bible,
so that's lost on me. But no, but there were some that were, like--
- Well, hold on, hold on. - Pots and pans.
- You really should, Jake. No, you're right.
- Avowed atheist over here. - Yeah.
Part of the, uh-- no, part of the song was, at a certain point,
I was like, it's more interesting if--
well, that also gets into some philosophical [bleep] obviously,
like, that things that go together go together,
but so do opposites go together.
We can't shut up about how opposite they are.
We put them together. You know, like--
- Opposites attract. Look at Paul Abdul and, um--
- Uh, the cat. - Yeah.
- The cat man. Yeah, I'm saying, like,
there's things that don't go together, like,
you know, like to quote that line,
a fish and a bicycle, they don't have nothing to do with each other,
but then if you start to be like, you know, pedestrians and cars,
in some ways they're opposites, but they go together.
Yeah, so there's some stuff like, what doesn't go together?
♪ We go together like sound and sight ♪
♪ Days and night, black and white ♪
♪ We go together like left and right ♪
- Yeah. - ♪ Oh, we-- ♪
Yeah, so there's some that are, like, on the pots and pans,
surf and sand, bottles and cans, and then I think also that--
- Left and right. - Left and right goes together?
- Jake's calling bull[bleep]
I'm not calling bull[bleep]
but it was interesting to hear it out of the gate
and just be like, I can't actually decide
if this is, like, completely ironic.
Like, he's listing things that don't go together.
Eventually I got it, and it's like a very--
it's probably the most wholesome Vampire Weekend song.
♪ ♪
Yeah, well, perhaps, yeah.
- Sweet tune towards the end of the album. - Yeah.
- Warm your heart. - ♪ We go together ♪
Harry Nilsson would have loved it.
But then at the end there's also the part that goes,
♪ Hallelujah, you're still mine ♪
♪ All I did was waste your time ♪
♪ If there's not some grand design ♪
♪ How'd this pair of stars align? ♪
So I think there's a few ways to interpret it,
and I think also the song is very contextualized
by the rest of the album, which I won't go into,
but, you know, people can think what they think about that.
But also, just, like, on some basic level,
when I was trying to apply that rigorous logic to the song,
I did kind of picture, as is often the case,
like, the narrator of the song being, like,
a little bit of a goofball, and, like,
just making a hard sell to somebody
about why you go together.
When people try to make a case for something,
they'll literally pull anything out.
We go together 'cause we're similar.
Not buying that? Well, the opposite's tracked.
You know what I mean? Like, if somebody's making a hard case,
they'll literally say contradictory things.
So then I like that in the chorus,
it's the person's kind of, like--
or they're both singing to each other in this song,
and it's the truth-- that is also kind of saying, like,
"Eh, they're almost getting defeated.
"There's no use in being clever.
"I could try to come up with all these reasons.
"It doesn't mean anything.
"I could try to prove to you with rigorous logic
"why we belong together."
And then I think the--
I could cite countless examples.
I think the end kind of puts a fine point on it,
where it's like, "Okay, you know, oh, you're still mine.
"I was just a jealous guy or something.
"I was just wasting your time
"by freaking out about this stuff."
And maybe there is no grand design,
just like sometimes stars align.
It's as simple as that.
There's not always an answer.
That's my interpretation today
of why this song holds up to my rigorous logic.
I know there's probably a lot of top five people
saying, "Oh, new Vampire Weekend song out."
Maybe an Ed Sheeran.
These guys have been doing close reads of my lyrics--
I would say respectfully, in his case--
for years.
Getting all crazy about my word choice.
Ed Sheets.
Yep.
Let's see what this moron has going on under the hood.
They're about to turn the fire hose back on you.
[laughter]
[guitar music]
You're listening to Ed Sheeran Radio
and our donkey of the week.
[laughter]
Yeah, Ed should get a beat show.
That'd be sick.
Just do deep lyrical analysis.
That was, uh--
So what track are we on here?
We are--
That was track 15.
We are rounding third here.
We're in the home stretch.
Okay.
Track 16.
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
I remember this.
♪ Things have never been stranger ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
♪ Things are gonna stay strange ♪
Is this the one that John plays on?
Yeah.
Cool.
The other Richard Pictures appearance is on this song.
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
♪ But things change ♪
[guitar music]
♪ Darling ♪
[guitar music]
♪ ♪
♪ Another night in dust ♪
♪ Another sign of light ♪
♪ I'm wobbling up to the floor ♪
Love the drumming on this.
♪ You ain't your daughter ♪
♪ Hoo, I might get low, low, low ♪
♪ But now I'm true, I know ♪
♪ Tell you, sister ♪
♪ I couldn't face these days alone ♪
♪ You got the right light ♪
♪ Candles burning ♪
♪ We don't need the moon anymore ♪
♪ I used to look for an answer ♪
♪ I used to knock on every door ♪
♪ But you got the way on ♪
♪ Music playing ♪
♪ Don't need to look anymore ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
I thought this was the single.
Yeah, I could see that.
A lot of people have heard this,
and they're like, "I think it's a single."
I was always like, "I love this song,"
but a single in 2019,
or it sounds like a single from, like,
a bygone era, you know?
Well, I like that it's like a super poppy song
kind of deep in the album.
Yeah.
Not a single, just a deep album cut.
Could be a single. It could have been.
♪ I got nowhere to go ♪
♪ I used to freeze on the dance floor ♪
♪ I watched the icebergs storm the shore ♪
♪ But you got the heat on ♪
♪ Kettles screaming ♪
♪ Don't need to freeze anymore ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
Oh, here comes John's part.
It's the response.
♪ I might get it ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
I remember that.
Again, just for listeners.
Okay, that was sick.
The two guitarists in Richard Pictures
are Jake is the Bob,
and then John Nixon is the Jerry.
Oh, yeah.
I've said it some places,
I really have been inspired by Richard Pictures,
and I made sure that I got at least two members
on this record.
So in this moment--
And I was also saying, again,
with people throwing out the Grateful Dead reference,
and we've talked, if all people are saying
is it reminds me of music I like, that's awesome.
I will say that that, to me, is the one true Jerry moment.
More of a Jerry Garcia band moment
where he's like, we have Greg Lees on pedal steel
doing the kind of call, begins it,
and then John has this cool Jerry answer.
Totally.
♪ The house is warmer ♪
♪ The wilderness is colder ♪
[guitar solo]
♪ ♪
♪ Things have never been stranger ♪
♪ Things are gonna stay strange ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
♪ I remember life as a stranger ♪
♪ But things change ♪
♪ Things have never been stranger ♪
♪ Things are gonna stay strange ♪
♪ I remember life as a stranger ♪
♪ But things change ♪
♪ Things have never been stranger ♪
- Sweet, Ezra shredding at the end.
- Yeah, Z-Melo.
A lot of people play guitar in this song, too.
Me, Greg Lees, John.
- That's a classic.
- I think I'm holding out some rhythm guitar.
- Oh yeah, hurry up.
- An ultimate track, "Spring Snow."
- Whoa.
Ooh, I like that piano.
♪ The snow fell last night ♪
♪ Your flight couldn't leave ♪
♪ Come back to the bed ♪
- That was a trippy key change, right?
Between those two songs?
- Oh yeah, 'cause this one's in, is this in C sharp?
- Some like half.
- Yeah.
I think it is.
Yeah, it's in C sharp.
- And what's this live?
I mean, "Stranger, Stranger."
- G, G to C sharp.
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ The words of a song ♪
♪ Prayers that we pray ♪
♪ The lock on the door ♪
♪ Won't keep them away ♪
♪ The snow slows 'em down ♪
♪ If just for a day ♪
♪ But here comes the sun ♪
♪ Those toxic old rays ♪
♪ Trees start to move ♪
♪ Bears start to ring ♪
♪ The seasons we had ♪
- Whoa.
♪ Don't mean anything to me ♪
- Some jazz chords.
- Cool chords.
♪ Ooh ♪
- Hell yeah.
♪ The words of a song ♪
♪ Prayers that we pray ♪
♪ The seasons we had ♪
♪ Don't mean anything to me ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
- Spring Snow.
I really like that song too.
Shout out to Blood Pop.
We started that song together.
- Who was playing piano on that?
- Me a little bit.
Maybe Tommy must've done something.
Maybe you did some stuff?
- No, not on that one.
I shred on Stranger a little bit.
- You know, you'll appreciate this, Jake.
When I first was trying to write that song,
I was trying to do almost like an Eagles song.
- Oh, nice.
(guitar music)
- And this is the beginning.
♪ As the evening sun sets down ♪
(guitar music)
♪ Trees start to move ♪
♪ Bears start to ring ♪
- That doesn't sound like the Eagles, but who knows?
Anyway, here's the final track.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
♪ I know I loved you then ♪
♪ I think I love you still ♪
♪ But this prophecy of ours ♪
♪ Has come back dressed to kill ♪
♪ Three stones on a mountain ♪
♪ Three small holes in a field ♪
♪ You've given me the big dream ♪
♪ But you can't make it real ♪
♪ A wicked world ♪
♪ Just think what could've been ♪
♪ Jerusalem, New York, Berlin ♪
♪ All I do is lose, but baby ♪
♪ All I want's to win ♪
♪ Jerusalem, New York, Berlin ♪
♪ A hundred years or more ♪
♪ It feels like such a dream ♪
♪ An endless conversation ♪
♪ Since 1917 ♪
♪ Now the battery's too hot ♪
♪ It's burning up in its tray ♪
♪ Young marriages are melting ♪
♪ And dying where they lay ♪
♪ A wicked world ♪
♪ Just think what could've been ♪
♪ Jerusalem, New York, Berlin ♪
♪ All I do is lose, but baby ♪
♪ All I want's to win ♪
♪ Jerusalem, New York, Berlin ♪
♪ Our tongues will fall so still ♪
♪ Our teeth will all decay ♪
♪ A minute feels much longer ♪
♪ With nothing left to say ♪
♪ So let them win the battle ♪
♪ But don't let them restart ♪
♪ That genocidal feeling ♪
♪ That beats in every heart ♪
♪ A wicked world ♪
♪ Just think what could've been ♪
♪ Jerusalem, New York, Berlin ♪
♪ All I do is lose, but baby ♪
♪ All I want's to win ♪
♪ Jerusalem, New York, Berlin ♪
- Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
- Well, that's the album.
(clapping)
- Slow clap.
That's a great last song.
- Yeah, that was always like,
kind of the only true contender for the final track.
- I like how much piano is on this album.
- It's funny. - Especially towards the end.
- I think of it as such a guitar album
'cause there's just more guitar riffs than the last album,
but you're right, there's a ton of piano too.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause the last album truly had no guitar riffs
and this has like, Harmony Hall and Sunflower
and you know, I'm very white.
- Stranger. - The Mike Killer part.
I mean. - Stranger.
- Oh yeah, Jake, we got multiple guitarists.
Jake, John. - I mean, I'm crushing it
on there, John's crushing it.
- At this point, I don't know how deep I wanna go
on the album, it's only been out for two days.
I want people to spend time with it.
- I just think we went pretty deep.
- No, we went deep, but it's like,
especially when you're doing like, press and stuff,
people ask you like, about songs,
you always have a choice.
You could really say everything you've thought
or everything that's been on your mind,
every possible interpretation, you know?
And that always strikes me as unnecessary.
Even in the press that I've done on this album,
occasionally I'll be talking to somebody
and they'll have an interpretation of a song
and I'll basically say, yeah, that's a valid interpretation,
it doesn't mean that I, I say like, that's what it means.
And then some, it'll still end up being like,
end up in an article and then another article saying like,
oh, there's a lyric about this or something.
I also just hope that it's human nature a little bit,
but I always feel like a lot of people
be listening to a record and be like, yeah, you know,
it got like, the first half was just way stronger.
But it kinda lost me in the second half.
And some records are legitimately like that,
but there's also, you always have to check yourself,
you're like, you know, your attention span
probably like, ran out of gas in the second half.
- Sure. - I think the second half
is just as strong as the first.
I know with the 18th song album, it's a lot to take in.
I just hope people like, you know,
you listen through it all at once, that's cool.
But then, you know, go spend some time
with the back half on its own.
It's a double album, you know?
- Strong finish. - Yeah.
And I like the middle too.
We got "Unbearably White" into "Rich Man"
into "Married in a Gold Rush" into "My Mistake",
all like, relatively slow songs,
but they're some of my favorite songs.
Then you're also like, oh, are people just gonna be like,
the energy really lagged in the middle.
Like, those are some of the best songs.
Whatever, different strokes.
- Yeah, can't write A-punk every year.
- Yeah, an album of A-punks.
- You'd be a pop-punk band.
- Yeah, A-punk, B-punk, C-punk, D-punk.
I'm curious after you've spent some real time
with the album, Jake, what your top five are on the record.
Do you have a gut feeling now?
- I will get back to you on that.
- Yeah, you need to spend some time.
- I mean, definitely "Harmony".
- Still "Harmony" going strong.
- Oh, absolutely.
Jeez, I have to look at a track listing.
I think I'd have to go "Gold Rush".
- Okay, that's two.
Three more.
- I mean, I don't wanna shortchange things.
I like the first song.
- Oh, "Hold You Now"?
- I think that's probably in there.
- No, I'm glad that you like "Gold Rush" right off the bat.
- It's a little basic, but I wanna say "Stranger".
- No, that's cool.
- I mean, it's real sugary.
- Why is that?
- Yeah, "Stranger" is sweet.
That's, I felt a little bit insecure at the time.
- I feel like it's basic on me, not the song is basic.
It's basic of me to say "Stranger".
- It has the type of hook that you,
it's a very direct hook the first time you think.
I think there's like,
I do think there's some stuff happening under the hood,
but it's like, yeah, it comes across as like fun and upbeat.
- Yeah.
- It's good if you like it.
- But let's just hold off on my definitive top five.
- That's four though.
Like right off the bat, what's your fifth?
- Jeez.
- Should I remind you of something that you like kind of?
- Yeah, yeah, remind me of a few.
- Well, you--
- Your sympathy.
- You liked "Rich Man", you said?
- Yeah, I thought of "Rich Man".
- Oh, "Flower Moon"?
- You didn't?
- Oh yeah, "Flower Moon".
- That's tough, that's,
I mean, I really liked the last two songs on the record too,
so I don't know, I've done that.
- "Jerusalem"?
- I'm really struggling here with this fifth, I can't.
- Well, we know it's not gonna be "Unbearably White".
- Hate that one.
(laughing)
- Hey man, that's why, it's all good, that's why--
- Broke my heart when I played you that one originally.
- We're building--
- Damn, was I just harsh as hell?
- No, you were just you.
- Okay.
- Jake keeps it real.
- I'm neutral.
- You know what, I vividly remember being--
- I respect your taste.
- I vividly remember being in my old apartment
in New York and playing you an early demo of "Unbelievers".
And I just remember at the end, I kinda looked at you
and just kinda, you almost just did like a,
like arms there like, yeah man, it's a song,
I don't know, what do you want me to say, man?
That was good.
- That's a good one too.
Must've been a rough demo.
Wait, is that track two on "Vampire"?
Or "Modern Vampires"?
- Yeah, see the sun go down, it's going on down,
I'm not excited.
- Okay.
- I mean, I could also imagine like--
- Sometimes you miss things first time through, you know?
- No judgment.
- Yeah.
- No, no, and I love playing music for you
because you are a straight shooter.
Like, you're never like overly harsh.
I never have to be like, well, I don't know,
was Jake just trying to like put that song down?
Like that's not your vibe.
So I'm always interested, if something jumps out at you--
- Is Jake in a real bad mood today?
- Jake was just--
- I was just being a dick about yourself.
- Jake was just laying into me.
- Jake, can you get something to eat, man?
You're in a real bad mood about this song.
- I'm low blood sugar right now, man.
- Sucks.
- I really don't like the way you reacted.
Just intense text drama, like,
dude, that really (beep) bummed me out when you told it.
- Bro, I'm gonna keep it real with you
because you're my friend, we've been buddies for a long time.
This new song, "Unbelievers," dog (beep).
And a lot of people aren't gonna tell you that, man,
but I keep it real.
(laughing)
- Straight shooter.
- No, but I could see like an early version
of "Unbelievers" maybe where it just like,
maybe on first listen sounds like too simple
or too straight up.
- Yeah, I don't remember that.
- I don't know.
- I don't remember that at all.
- That song grew a bit as we worked on it.
- That's a great one.
- No, yeah, that's an all-timer.
- We played those at the Bernie rounds.
- Oh yeah, we did.
I know myself, first listen,
if I really like something first listen,
that is meaningful.
It probably means it is gonna be one of my favorites,
but just because something I don't connect first time
definitely doesn't mean it won't crawl up there.
- Some of your favorite songs are the ones
you hear them for the first time
and you're like, what is this?
- Right.
- You know, then they grow on you.
- Track three didn't like.
- What was track, oh, "Bambina"?
- He wasn't feeling it, I could tell.
Saw a look in his eyes.
- Interesting song.
- This was a mildly uncomfortable taping
'cause Ariel was watching me like a hawk.
(laughing)
I would just look across the table
and he'd just be staring at me,
almost with like the same longing
that like a mother looks at her child.
He was looking very intensely at me.
- Just give me something, anything.
- I just had a poker face the entire taping.
- What's going on in there, man?
(laughing)
Let me in.
Well, this is also, because we're recording this
two and a half weeks before the record's out,
this is also a bit of a time capsule.
So I guess to wrap things up,
we could just say anything that we wanna say
before the record comes out
and there's all sorts of reactions.
What are your hopes and dreams?
- I think all my hopes and dreams have come true.
- Oh, I feel you.
I do have a sense of kind of like--
- I made this record for reasons
and those reasons were--
- All the right reasons.
- All the right reasons.
So you could play it for me.
- That's right.
Mission accomplished, tour is canceled.
- This was the culmination of three years of work.
- The album is recalled from stores.
- This episode will never air.
(laughing)
- I kinda feel a little bit like
the only thought that I've had,
and of course you work on things that you matter.
How are people gonna react
and sometimes you're in a good mood
and you're like, oh, I think people will get this
and other times you're like,
oh, people are gonna have
the most uncharitable interpretations
and then the truth is probably somewhere in between.
The thing that happens every time you put something out,
every album, I think the tension is always like,
of course, not everything is for everybody.
Some people are gonna feel passionately positive
or negative, you can't help that.
The only thing that I sometimes wonder is,
are you hope that people just give you
the benefit of the doubt that any decision you made,
you made on purpose?
Like if you make a song that's maybe a little sweet
or something and then somebody hears it
and is just like, losing all control,
they fall head first into a saccharine sentiment
and you're just kinda like,
no, that's the sentiment I wanted to make.
You interpret things differently
if you give people the benefit of the doubt
that they've made decisions on their own
versus other interpretations can be,
oh, this person made that decision
because they lost the plot.
One thing I feel very confident about with this record
is this is 100% the chapter four for Vampire Weekend.
It's the same way I felt about all the other ones.
- That's how I felt.
- There's so many different directions we could've gone in,
even on the first album.
And sometimes you come up with a song
and it's not your favorite song of all time,
like, I don't know, like a song like California English,
like on the second album.
And I just knew that that felt like
a second album song for us.
It felt like part of Contra.
Then you meet people who,
or sometimes I get a fan tweeting,
I really like that new song, I really don't like that one.
And I'm just kinda like, what do you think
we're doing here, man?
We're making a body of work, you know?
So all that matters is that like,
it doesn't matter which song is anybody's favorite,
just matters is that body of work feel like it landed
in the place that the next chapter was supposed to go.
And I think once you have confidence in that, which I do,
in some ways it's like,
it almost feels like out of your hands.
I asked a question, which is, where should this go?
And I made a series of decisions purposefully to get there.
And that's all that you can do.
♪ You can't please everyone ♪
♪ So you got to please yourself ♪
- Wait, what song is that?
- It's like Rick Nelson.
♪ All right now ♪
You know that song?
♪ I learned my lesson well ♪
I think it's called Garden Party.
- Oh, that's a great title.
That sounds like a weaned song.
Garden Party.
♪ Way to a garden party ♪
- You don't know that song?
- I don't think so.
I find myself reverting to that refrain quite often.
Just in my own head.
- Just like if you ever hit a situation in life
where you have to remind yourself.
♪ You can't please everyone ♪
♪ I went to a garden party ♪
♪ To reminisce with my old friends ♪
♪ A chance to share old memories ♪
♪ And play our songs again ♪
♪ When I got to the garden party ♪
♪ They all knew my name ♪
♪ No one recognized me ♪
♪ I didn't look the same ♪
♪ But it's all right now ♪
♪ I learned my lesson well ♪
♪ You see you can't please everyone ♪
♪ So you got to please yourself ♪
- I used to always feel like doing the shows,
like the tour was like this kind of like chore
that you had to do after like the work.
And now for the first time, I'm like,
when we put together set lists
and I kind of see these songs next to the first, second,
third albums, next to the deep cuts,
it's like, that also brings me a lot of joy too.
I see the long-term story.
I also am just glad that I really questioned the instinct
to make a double album a lot over the years.
'Cause sometimes I just be like,
I could just split this up into two albums.
Maybe add a couple songs,
but I just had this feeling like,
no, after six years gone, it's like a bigger statement.
And also now we have 18 songs to choose from.
It just, it feels way better.
I picture coming back with like a 10 song album.
It just feels, it would have been impossible.
I feel like definitely like this was the move.
I couldn't have expressed the same idea in 10 songs.
Maybe the next one will be short.
- Tight.
- A Pink Floyd style five song album.
One of which is 25 minutes.
- Would love that.
Get that out in 2021.
♪ 2021, fifth album drops ♪
- That'll be fun.
♪ Five tracks ♪
♪ Long with a 25 minute jam ♪
- Maybe we'll drop a January 1st, 2021.
And the night before New Year's Eve, 2020.
- Oh dude.
Yeah.
- Richard Pictures, Vampire Weekend.
Who else could we get on the bill?
Hippos Reunion.
- Yeah.
- Very enthusiastic about that.
- Haim.
And we do the New Year's 2020.
That's when we drop the 20 minute,
21 second 2021 version.
Just jam and then just 10, nine, eight,
countdown, New Year 2021.
- Play the new album in order.
- Then we play the new album in order.
- Ian.
- We definitely got to do a New Year's show 2020.
Let's start planning it.
- Definitely got to do a Days Between festival as well.
- Oh, and Days Between.
- That's a huge one.
- Jerry Seinfeld,
master of ceremonies for the opening ceremony.
Steve Lacey closes it out.
- Screening of B movie in between.
(laughing)
Play the whole film.
- It's a two week festival.
We got in the B movie tent.
We're screening B movie.
- 24/7.
- 24/7 for two weeks.
The lineup is a mixture of comedy and music.
We got everything from Vampire Weekend,
Steve Lacey solo, the internet,
Sid, Jerry Seinfeld standup, Newman.
Wait, Seinfeld, did you see that?
This is apropos of nothing.
Did you see that thing I tagged you on, on Instagram?
- Yeah, that sad shirt that was like, goodbye Jerry.
- This was like, I guess this was like,
I don't know if this is bootleg or official merch,
but it was like a final episode of Seinfeld,
maybe like a wrap party shirt,
or maybe NBC was selling it in their store or something.
And it literally just said like, whatever, May 1998.
And it said in like a serious font, goodbye Jerry.
And then on the back, goodbye Newman.
I'm just like, what a weird, weirdly like sad
and sentimental shirt for a show like that.
- And for that moment from that show.
- If Seinfeld was a different type of show,
there actually would have been a weepy final episode
where Jerry's looking around in his apartment,
it's like empty 'cause he's moving,
and Newman comes in and he's like,
I guess you must be pretty happy, Jerry.
You won't have to live in a building with Newman anymore.
Well, I bid you farewell, goodbye Jerry.
And he walks away and Jerry's like,
Newman, come back here.
And gives him a big hug.
- I love you, man.
I love you.
- Goodbye Newman.
And that's like the--
- Fade to black.
- Fade to black.
- Do you remember how the Fresh Prince ended?
- Oh, that does end with him looking in the empty house,
right?
- And flipping off the light switch.
- Aw.
- Silence.
- I feel like Growing Pains also ended
with them moving out of the house.
I guess that's a really easy way
with like a situation comedy.
- Sure.
- It's just like moving time.
- It would have been so sick of it
if the front said goodbye Jerry
and the back said, what a long strange trip it's been.
(laughing)
- That would be a weird Jerry Carse,
Jerry Seinfeld crossover shirt.
- Okay, Seinfeld, I think you gotta make us a few of those.
- All right, I'm on it.
- Oh yeah, dude, with the Seinfeld logo,
like somehow with that yellow oval.
- Yeah.
- And it says like, goodbye Jerry.
And then on the back, just classic.
- Wait.
- What a long strange trip it's been.
- That's like an alternate Days Between is,
when Jerry died, August 8th or 9th, 1995?
- Yeah.
- So between August '95 and May '98.
- Days Between.
- Three years of the Days Between.
(laughing)
- Do we have any idea if Jerry Garcia
ever watched Jerry Seinfeld?
- Oh man, that's such a good question.
Now I'm like dying to know that.
- I bet he did, like in a hotel room.
- Maybe.
- Although the thing is--
- This guy's got real wry sensibility.
- Seinfeld really, Seinfeld really became like
this unstoppable cultural phenomenon,
I feel like '95 to '98.
You know--
- Yeah.
- No, but totally--
- It could have been on the air for five or six years.
- No, you're right, it's totally on the air
and he might have known him.
He might have been like, oh yeah,
I saw that guy in Carson in the early '80s.
- You know, people might have been like,
do you like Seinfeld?
You know, we talk about it all the time, right, shows?
- Mm-hmm.
- You know, I don't have time for a sitcom, man.
- You know, I wonder if he's on record.
We might have to interview his daughter, Trixie.
- Let's get her on the horn.
How old is she?
When was she born?
- She might have been born in the '70s.
- I think she's in her 40s.
- Oh, no way.
So she would have been at home watching it with her dad.
- Oh no, totally.
- I'm sure she probably gets asked
the most psycho questions from deadheads,
probably just being like,
do you understand that when you're dead?
Like, just the weirdest hippie (beep)
so probably if somebody came over and was like,
hey, did your dad ever watch Seinfeld?
Maybe she'd find that a refreshing question.
She'd be like, oh yeah.
- She's just like, God, you guys always ask me this.
(laughing)
The Seinfeld question again?
- I am sick and tired of you deadhead burnouts bothering me,
your weird obsession with my dad,
and whether or not he watched Seinfeld.
- Yeah, they're both named Jerry, I get it.
- Yeah, who cares?
- But Ezra, if a sitcom came out that was called Ezra,
you're gonna check it out, right?
- But it wasn't called Ezra?
- It wasn't called Jerry.
- No, this would be the equivalent of the--
This would be the equivalent--
- It was called K-Dig.
- If there was some show about a character named like--
- No, no, no, it's not the equivalent.
- Ezra Jones and the show was called Jones.
- Right.
- And you kept hearing about some character called Ezra.
- The equivalent would be that if one of these other Ezras
in the mix, like Ezra Miller, got a sitcom called Miller,
you'd be like, "Are you interested in that new show Miller?"
And I'd be like, "I don't know."
- But what if it was like the number one sitcom in the land?
You know, this parallel is kind of falling apart.
- No, no, no, okay, no, that's a fair point.
That's a fair point.
Although, maybe the name Jerry is a little more common.
Maybe in retrospect--
- I don't think it is.
- Well, back then there was like Jerry Lewis.
It's possible that for somebody Jerry Garcia's age,
you're like, "Man, how crazy is it
"that there's this incredibly famous comedian
"with your name?"
You might have been like, "Oh, Jerry Lewis?
"Man, yeah, those movies really,
"we used to take Acid, man, me and Phil,
"we go down in the movies.
"Man, we would be rolling in the aisles, man.
"That Jerry Lewis, he was a cut-up, man.
"He did some good work for the kids, man."
And you'd be like, "No, Jerry Seinfeld."
And he's like, "Oh, okay, okay, man."
I don't know, there are a lot of Jerries.
- Jerry Brown.
- What year was Jerry, Jerry was a race car driver?
'93?
- You might have heard that.
You might have been aware of "Promise."
Man, well now I feel like--
- We are going off the deep end here.
- I feel like I really dropped the ball
in not asking Jerry Seinfeld the opposite question.
- Oh, yeah.
- Although, how would I have even phrased that?
Just like--
- Just random questions, Jerry.
- Out of the blue.
- Hey, man, thanks for being in the video.
You like "The Grateful Dead"?
- You gotta use the song as a linchpin.
Some people are saying, "You know what?
"That wouldn't work either."
I don't know.
- I don't think Jerry Seinfeld likes "The Dead."
- Based on some of his famous personality traits,
being a neat freak, for instance,
doesn't sound like a guy who wants to hear
45-minute playing in the band.
- Nope.
Although neither do I.
(laughing)
- Oh, man.
- Well, this was a pleasure.
- Yeah, thanks for listening to the album.
Thanks to all the TC heads.
We do apologize for that subsection of TC heads
who are not into "Vampire."
Hopefully there are a few interesting kernels
besides the music for you.
I hope we're having fun in New York right now.
Webster Hall all-day show.
- Oh, yeah.
- 'Cause the idea was we're doing three sets,
and the middle set was playing the album front to back.
So that's--
- Psyched I'm gonna be there.
- That's gonna be a good vibe.
Think we're probably gonna play
like Jimmy Fallon this week.
- Oh, very cool.
- This coming week.
- Get out of here.
Harmony?
- I think "This Life" at this point.
- What about "SNL"?
- Maybe later.
We'll see about that one.
- Cool.
- I don't know.
The truth is I'm less interested in playing on TV than ever.
And trust me, I've had good experiences at all these places.
But there's also a part of me that's just like,
you know what, who cares?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's just so hard to make it sound good.
It just always stresses me out.
Whereas I like when you play live,
there is a vibe in the room.
And even if somebody makes a recording
and it doesn't sound the same,
I don't know, it's just a different.
I think as my enthusiasm has risen for touring,
my enthusiasm for other kind of like promotional things
has decreased, but I think we'll find a good vibe on Jimmy.
We'll make sure it's fun.
Maybe we just, it's like with touring.
It's like now we mix up the set list,
do this and that to make it more fun.
Maybe I gotta just have that approach with everything.
Anyway, "Father of the Bride," new album.
Check it out.
A lot more TC coming.
We've been banking the Eps.
We've been down in the Ep mines.
So I hope you enjoy them.
Maybe we'll see some of you on tour.
Peace.
- [Announcer] "Time Crisis" with Ezra King.
Be-be-be-be-be-be-beasts.
One.
(music fades)
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