Ralph Lauren has some serious thanking to do to the men of VAMPIRE WEEKEND. Bursting into the world in late 2007, the preppy and pleasant stylings of the four gentlemen made everyone want a piece of their delectable sound and style – one that’s built for consumption – and suddenly happily rethink the polo. Fresh from Columbia and straight from the uppers of New York, Ezra Koenig, Chris Thomson, Chris Baio and Rostam Batmanglij unashamedly embraced a label that was certain to be thrust upon them come debut album time. The clip for Mansard Roof is the epitome of the critics’ argument; it takes place on a sail boat, the men all loafered and cottoned up. Skip to late 2009 and to the image of the undiscernible woman we just couldn’t stop seeing everywhere, wearing the polo and staring into the camera. It was almost like their very own Rorschach test to prepare us all for the sophomore album Contra; the image worked brilliantly at getting our curiosity flowing once again and the album reached the number one chart spot in no time.
Vampire Weekend has always been a band of clashing maximums. Almost everything that could be put in would be, and the filled to the brim style is one they conquered like few others. It’s in this mix of Afro, Soweto, pop, punk, weekends in the fields music, that comes the divide of lovers and haters. When talking to drummer Chris Thomson, he claims “we came to age with Napster and the internet. We weren’t bound by our parents’ records or what was on television. That allowed us to go deeper into music and explore all kinds. And in saying that, I think that as a band we really do. We never say ‘we know what we like’ and that’s that; we look at things and find what we like and are always wanting to explore things that we haven’t before. I can understand why people wouldn’t like that, people enjoy predictability especially in music, but I look at it and think there’s something for everyone in what we make.”
On the eve of their latest Australian tour, Thomson sounds a little worse for wear. He quickly admits “we’ve been playing a lot of shows, yeah; we’ve been on the road since the start of January. But, when we started as a band this was the goal. The basis of touring is that you want to play music for people, and for me it’s really fun.” When I ask if there’s been a break since their inception he says “not really. A few little ones here and there but they generally get filled with other projects [like Koenig’s Discovery and Batmanglij’s collaboration with The Very Best] but we don’t want to take extended breaks and a lot of time out. We’re really happy with where we’re at and we’ve done a lot of work to get here, so we’re just enjoying the ride. We’re especially looking forward to this tour. We love Australia so much anyway, the crowds are always amazing to us, but we get to go to a lot of different places, like Townsville.” After a long pause he continues. “Is it a town or a village?”
Compared with the process of the first album, which took place after working their day jobs, recorded in apartments, studios and basements around the city, the making of Contra was one that brought a lot of new processes to the table for the band. Now with their full time job being in the band, there was, Thomson concedes, a lot more time for testing. “We had 80% of the first album recorded before people started paying attention which was a real luxury, because we didn’t have to worry too much. We’d already done what we had wanted to, but with Contra it was really a mental thing. We knew, yeah, okay there’s an audience and there are existing fans, but we also knew we just had to trust ourselves. There’s some expectation, but it was just getting over the mental aspect of that and learning how to trust ourselves and our instincts, and knowing that we could please people again.”
Solely produced by Rostam Batmanglij, Contra plunges tenfold into the mixed sound delivered on the band’s debut, and adds all sorts of subtle differences to be found only after several listens, and even then several more. It’s a little bit hyperactive in parts, with Cousins pumping you up, up and away and Taxi Cab bringing you wistfully down. “On the last album there was one very constant thing, and that was that drums were always playing. Not having such a predominance on Contra made it really interesting. We were really conscious of wanting to do something else and not repeat what we had already done, but happily build on that,” says Thomson. “And even though I am the drummer I think songs like I Think Ur a Contra would probably sound worse with drums,” he says with a laugh. “But because of it being so heavily constructed in the studio and a lot more electronic, it came time to go on tour with songs like Diplomat’s Son and we were like, ‘okay, how do we perform this?’”
The thing I didn’t realise about Vampire Weekend is just how aware they are of their labels. The preppy Columbia grads, Paul Simon’s bastard children, the clean collared music for East Coast teenagers. But from more and more listens Contra delicately unfolds its intricacies and shameless addictions to pop. “I think on Contra you can tell that there were people in the band listening to a lot of Madonna’s older stuff,” Thomson laughs. “Our main ideal is to have all our future albums sound fresh and show they exist now, in whatever time they are, and whatever influences we have or wherever we feel they belong and in being the band we are that defies a lot of genres.”
You’d be mad not to catch Vampire Weekend as part of the amazing Groovin’ The Moo lineup, held at the UC on Sunday May 9. Tickets through Moshtix.
