New York’s pysch-indie youngsters MGMT are being hotly-tipped for 2008, and it’s no surprise as their debut album Oracular Spectacularproduced by the helping hand of David Fridmann should stop you in your tracks.
They kindly flew into the Crossfire office on a magic carpet fuelled by last night’s booze and had a chat with Zac about dogs and smelly fruit.
Welcome to London fellas…
Hello!
So, we have two members of the band here, Andrew VanWyngarden who sings, plays guitar and writes songs and we also have songwriter Ben Goldwasser who also plays the keyboards, pretty gnarly too…
[Ben] Hey…
So, virgins to London, you’ve just got off of a plane, spill the beans….
[Andrew] We had a great first day. We got scammed trying to buy hash and then we went out in Notting Hill and went to Tesco Disco, which is a small carpeted room underneath the Tesco supermarket. They had free spicy cheese doodles and that was a lot of fun. Last night we played a show at The Social which was pretty cool.
And that was your first ever gig in the UK?
Yeah, our first ever gig…
So, did you enjoy it Ben?
[Ben] Yeah, a lot more people knew about us, more than we expected, which was nice. It was nice that people were there to see us. The sound turned out pretty good considering the place was pretty small. We spent a long time trying to figure out how to get all of our stuff on the stage.
You managed to fit it all thought didn’t you?
Yeah, we managed; we have a massive keyboard though.
Are you aspiring to take over the stage with your keyboard collection?
Are you aspiring to take over the stage with your keyboard collection?
[Ben] Yeah, I want to take up at least half the stage. When we start playing bigger stages then I will think of more things to take up space. Maybe I could play a couple of notes on each one during the whole show?
[Andrew] Yeah, that’s a good idea
Can you ever imagine yourself like KISS being zoomed out into the audience with your keyboard?
[Ben] That would be great. What about being like David Lee Roth on a surfboard out into the crowd?
That would be sick
[Andrew] It’s like the ultimate goal of any musician
[Ben] A hover craft would be pretty cool…
Any more wishes?
[Andrew] Yeah, we want to play a show exclusively for dogs at some point. We aren’t a joke band, but we think it would be really amazing if there was a stadium full of dogs…
I am sure Battersea Dogs Home could hook you up next time you come in. There are a lot of dogs in there. It’s like jail; they don’t get much entertainment stuck behind those bars, so they might be pretty stoked if the yanks turn up with a full band, 40 keyboards and a bag of Baker’s…
I am sure Battersea Dogs Home could hook you up next time you come in. There are a lot of dogs in there. It’s like jail; they don’t get much entertainment stuck behind those bars, so they might be pretty stoked if the yanks turn up with a full band, 40 keyboards and a bag of Baker’s…
[Ben] Dogs love Baker’s!
Do they love Baker’s in America as well?!
Oh yeah!
My dog loves Baker’s, but anyway, let’s talk about how you put the band together. Obviously you two are the main members, would you say that’s correct?[Andrew] Yeah, I mean, we are the founding members and songwriters
[Ben] CEO of MGMT incorporated
How did it all come together, what is your musical background and where are you guys from?
[Ben] Well, I’m from upstate New York, about 5 hours from New York City. I didn’t go down to the city that much growing up although we live there now. Andrew is from Memphis, home of the blues
[Andrew] Birth place of rock and roll as well….
[Ben] And we met at University in 2001, started the band in December 2002 and started writing songs in my dorm room on a laptop. We would sit and make up these weird little electronic loops, play them live and do silly things over the noise. We didn’t sing at that point. Then at some point we decided to start writing pop songs, kind of as a joke, so the whole thing wasn’t that serious to start off, it’s still not
[Andrew] They weren’t joke songs necessarily…
