MGMT : interview with Ben and Andrew
In a dusty parking lot at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the California desert, a shiny tour bus sits in the sun, engine running to power the air conditioning. Inside, the founding members of the Brooklyn electro-psychedelic band MGMT relax on leather couches having just performed to an adoring crowd at one of America’s biggest rock festivals. Several attractive young women climb aboard, smile sheepishly at the two guys and head straight for the room at the back of the bus. As the door opens and closes, a whiff of marijuana escapes. It is a scene fitting for the young musicians, whose meteoric rise to stardom has been fueled by their hit single “Time to Pretend.”
"Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives," Andrew VanWyngarden sings on that song. "I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and f*** with the stars/You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars/This is our decision to live fast and die young/We've got the vision, now let's have some fun."
The album broke the top 10 in several countries. At one point earlier this year, “Time to Pretend” was the most requested song on the Los Angeles legendary rock station KROQ. So are these guys the new hedonistic rock stars, out to resurrect the Sunset Strip party days of the 1980s or are they just making fun of that lifestyle? Officially, they’re on the fence, but the glistening in bassist Ben Goldwasser’s eye gives a hint on which way they might be leaning.
“I’ve had this whole thing playing around my head whether I want to keep myself grounded in real life or if I wanted to completely let go and go insane and be like ‘hey I’m in a band on the road’,” says Goldwasser. “It’s hard to tell where to draw the line. I don’t want to be completely unrealistic in my view of the world, which I think kind of happens when this is all you do, but on the other hand if you’re in a band you’ve got to go a little crazy.” Goldwasser and VanWyngarden formed MGMT at university in Connecticut and have been friends since 2002. Goldwasser is unassuming but outgoing and garrulous, while VanWyngarden is flamboyant but calm and quiet. They’re the Ying to each other’s Yang.
After playing small local shows and touring a bit during their university years, they started to create a buzz, which only grew once they released an EP that included “Time to Pretend” in 2005. Only a week after moving to Brooklyn in 2006, they signed a record deal with Columbia Records. The label spared no expense and brought Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann on board to make their debut album, “Oracular Spectacular.” Before it even hit U.S. stores in February, the record sold about 20,000 copies as a digital release. It’s a warm and hazy album that pays homage to the great forefathers of psychedelic music, but still feels fresh, with catchy tracks like “Kids” and “Electric Feel” giving “Time to Pretend” a run for its money.
And here they are, in the California desert, having just played to thousands of people into a sweaty tent packed way over capacity, with L.A. B-list celebrities lining up backstage to check them out.
“I’ve never experienced something like that before, it was really crazy. I was smiling the whole time,” says VanWyngarden. Goldwasser is still on a high from the show. “It wasn’t stressful at all. Usually we have some catastrophe before our shows, but this time everything worked,” he says. “There’s been all this hype, people categorizing us as a buzz band, and that can seem all fake or like it’s not happening. People are telling you numbers, or who said what about you, but to see a crowd of people like that really getting into it and knowing the lyrics to our songs, that’s really special.”
With the notoriety of course comes the press attention. Before me on the bus, a loud and hyper woman from Rolling Stone magazine kept jabbing at MGMT with her tape recorder. “Is this is like your dream come true, or what?” she asked at one point. The boys took it all in stride, as they do the constant questions about their ridiculous name.
“The dumbest question is when people asked why we picked our band name,” says Goldwasser. “It’s not so much that it’s a dumb question, but it’s a dumb answer and people should know that. It’s not an exciting answer. It’s very boring, but everyone asks.” Well we didn’t ask about the name, but we did want to know how they came up with their sound. Was it deliberate, or did it naturally fall into place?
“We weren’t thinking about musical direction when we first started, it was really informal,” says VanWyngarden. “We just wanted to make some music together on our laptop computers. That was the easiest way for us to record songs, so it was electronic by nature. A lot of it was instrumental. That all changed when we graduated and signed to a label and were going to make a full length album. We didn’t want to do electronica.”
Adds Goldwasser: “We listen to a lot more rock and psychedelic stuff, old music, and we wanted to represent ourselves a little more and play the kind of music we would want to listen to.” VanWyngarden, who is a fan of Neil Young and a mish-mash of 60-70s mellow psychedelic music, nods in agreement.
As relaxed as they seem lounging on their tour bus and joking around with the road crew, the two know that they are under a lot of pressure to keep up the momentum and not become a one-hit onder.
“I’m excited to record and make another album, but that won’t happen for a while,” says VanWyngarden. “I think we’re going to be around for a while. I hope so. We just need to put out a strong second album.”
“When we recorded the first album we weren’t thinking that tons of people were going to love it,” says Goldwasser. “We were just making the music that we liked and as long as we keep doing that hopefully things will keep going well for us, but at least we’ll be happy and still have fun.”
Sure, that sounds good, but what about a backup plan? After all, they confess they don’t know exactly how much money they’re making, just that the record label is giving them a monthly payment.
“My back up plan is to learn how to surf and live on a beach,” says VanWyngarden.
“I want to do some really punishing social work. A job that drives me crazy but is helping people. I have friends who are social workers. They love it but it’s really hard work,” says Goldwasser.
But for now, it’s time for another kind of hard work, and quite a lot of fun, too. The band has a whole list of summer festivals in Europe ahead of them, including Denmark’s Roskilde – one of the festivals that inspired Coachella’s organizers. VanWyngarden professes to be a camping fan, so this summer’s schedule should suit him fine. Besides the three songs mentioned above, he’s looking forward to rocking the song 'Of Moons, Birds & Monsters', a spaced-out jam that seems tailor-made for festivals. “It’s great for people stoned in a field,' VanWyngarden says with a smile.
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