WORDS: SIOBHAN LEDDY
ILLUSTRATIONS: HAYLEY WARNHAM
PHOTOS: JASON NOCITO
Doing an interview over the phone sucks. As a rule, your signal will cut out at key points throughout the call. This has the knock-on effect of making you sound like a gibbering idiot when have to repeat yourself over and over, like a crack-fed parrot. Now, I’m a big fan of Yeasayer, so I was happy to deal with all of this to talk to frontman Chris Keating in New York – even at a fiver a minute. The following is part of a transcript of that fumbled phone call.
S: Err, sorry about that.
Chris: That’s cool. I’m down in Florida right now, so I don’t know how good my reception is.
S: Well, I’m kind of close to a train station. Apparently my phone can’t handle that. So I think we were talking about the UK, and you were saying there was a really good vibe at Latitude Festival.
C: Yeah, really good.
S: Did you make an effort to see anyone there?
C: You know, I saw the Dirty Protectors, I would have seen Grizzly Bear but they were playing at the same time as us. I also saw Charlotte Gainsbourg.
S: Any potential collaborations from your summer?
C: Nothing really. We’ve been touring so much that there isn’t really the time for that sort of thing.
S: Do you think there’s been a growth in indie labels and that DIY environment in music?
C: I find it very exciting that that more than half of people you see in the Billboard charts now will be on independent labels. I feel like the major label system has been pretty disastrous for artists, and just in general for the way that the whole marketing machine had gotten out of control. It’s been spiralling out of control since the cocaine-fuelled 80s. I think it’s cool that bands like Arcade Fire or even Vampire Weekend, who have become huge, are on independent labels. That’s really interesting to me.
S: Do you think this could help with the illegal downloading issue?
C: Nah, I think the downloading of music is inevitable, unfortunately. The act of buying music is something that’s become devalued by society. People don’t have that thing that our parents did where they would buy like, three albums in a month. People want thousands of albums on their iPods, so they couldn’t possibly afford all of this – so they just download it. I don’t think anyone knows how to save the industry from that. I guess there are always people who are gonna buy vinyl as well as downloading a crappy version from some random foreign website somewhere.
S: How much do you read about yourselves in the press? Do you read reviews?
C: I try not to, honestly. Because you only tend to believe the negative stuff. Even if there’s ten percent negative and ninety percent positive, the negative stuff sticks in your mind. Sometimes we read reviews of shows that we think went very well, just to see what everyone else thought. Like, ‘oh yeah, that was bad’, or whatever. Sometimes you get a great show and the review will be terrible, and you’ll be like ‘I don’t even know what’s right’.
S: Do you have any advice for any struggling bands?
C: Um, I’d just say try to be as original as possible. The thing I really dislike is when people are obsessed with trying to reference the past. You know, when they wholly embrace a very retro way of making music that isn’t really applicable to contemporary culture or their particular experience. There are so many ways to write songs that can be much more forward. I think the most exploratory and original bands more often than not don’t have much monetary success, but will probably have the most respect from the music community.
S: What’s your road trip music?
C: My road music is generally like, Tom Petty. That or The Cars, Cat Stevens. I listen to a lot of classic rock when I feel like I’m on a road trip. It reminds me of my childhood, when I’d be driving around with my parents listening to Bob Dylan and stuff. That classic stuff really gets you in a road mood.
Here my phone cut out again. To read this in greater depth, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. In the meantime, check out www.yeasayer.net.
Special thanks to Sarah Vale for helping with this interview. That’s one school-teacher who knows her stuff.
