Scientific Americans

If you listen to the new We Are Scientists album, “Brain Thrust Mastery,” you’ll hear a band that’s highly contemplative, musically diverse and very much in tune with England’s finest rock bands, from ‘80s stalwarts like ABC to modern superstars like the Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys.

The irony is that the members of We Are Scientists, who are huge in the U.K., are all very much American. They’re based in New York City, but even there, they tend to fly under the radar.

Metromix spoke with the two head Scientists, singer-guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain, about their overseas success, oddball ‘80s musical influences, and the band’s wildly documented “sausage parties.”

You seem to have become legitimate rock stars in England. Why do you think your success in England far outshines your success here?
Chris Cain: I think it’s the time zone difference. They’re on Greenwich Mean Time, and most of the U.S. falls between EST and West Coast time. Of course, that doesn’t include Hawaii and Alaska, but we do well there.
Keith Murray: See, [the] British get up five hours earlier than Americans, so they have five extra buying hours.
CC: The dirty little secret of the record buying industry: people don’t buy music during the second half of the day. GMT is a huge advantage.

I recently referred to your record as a “really good Brit-rock record” in my review…
CC: Well, that’s your opinion.
KM: We get that a lot. It’s like how people are delighted by seeing an anthropomorphic animal. A monkey doing things a person would do, a cat wearing human clothes…Brits just like seeing Americans doing Brit-pop.
CC: Brits like Animal Planet, and they like We Are Scientists.

“Lethal Enforcer,” one of your new tracks, really reminded me of the ‘80s band ABC. Were they an influence?
KM: We were thinking more Hall and Oates, Cyndi Lauper, Spandau Ballet. Whenever people say “ABC,” I initially think of the band Another Bad Creation. So then, my answer to your question would be “yes!”
CC: We kind of consider ourselves the next generation of the East Coast family. ABC, Boyz II Men…we’re of that ilk.

Your Web site offers up a variety of advice and essays. Do you write it all yourselves?
KM: Yes. Well, us and Jonathan Lethem.
CC: He contributes. Sometimes he doesn’t make the cut.
KM: He kind of gives us his shit stuff.

What makes you decide to write, at length, about topics like “alien cinema”?
KM: There’s just not enough out there in the mainstream on it.
CC: That’s what’s wonderful about the Internet; we don’t really [have to] care about commercial concerns. The reason Entertainment Weekly doesn’t write about movies created by aliens is that it’s impossible to see it.
KM: Maybe this is going to sound horribly cynical, but maybe you don’t see it in Entertainment Weekly because alien production companies don’t advertise in Entertainment Weekly.

Your bio claims you spent 2007 in “weight-loss camps, alcoholic dry-out facilities, and a race car school.” How much of that is true?
CC: Only all of it. I’m sorry to be glib.

You guys met in college. What did you sound like when you started?
CC: We sounded like a mix of the Get Up Kids and Alice in Chains.
KM: And a little Archers of Loaf mixed in. And Sublime…I think everyone was listening to them. So there was probably some of that in there. So a little ska-reggae, but no more than other bands.

What’s your bandmate’s biggest strength and/or weakness?
KM: I think Chris’s biggest strength is that he gets over failure very easily. He doesn’t let it get him down; he just plows right through it.
CC: Keith’s biggest…well, only strength is that he was born really good-looking. That makes up for everything else.
KM: It’s been my lifejacket.

You’ve put up numerous videos on YouTube in which you're pulling giant sausages out of your pants. You call them “sausage parties.” When did that start?
KM: The second we started receiving them. If there’s sausage in the room, we have a sausage party.
CC: Been going on for quite some time. We’ve been documenting it since November.
KM: It’s on our tour rider. We request it. One hard sausage. We usually get it…and if we don’t, we’re not as lively.
CC: There’s a palpable disappointment on stage. I mean, we’re professionals, we’ll get over it eventually and do the show, but we’ll mope around a bit.

Do the other guys in the band understand you?
KM: They don’t get us at all.
CC: We spend a lot of time explaining our jokes to them, and why they’re so funny.
KM: That feels like it takes away the innate humor, though.

Are you, in fact, scientists?
CC: What if I said “yes” and didn’t show you any credentials? Would you publish that?

Sure.
KM: Then yes. We’re actually quite famous. Actually, the question we usually get from journalists is “Why do you think you’re more famous in the U.K. than in America?” What I’m always waiting for is, and never get, is “Why do you think you’re more famous in the world of science than in music? Because you write good songs, but your contributions to science…’”
CC: “Yes, why have you been on the cover of Omni five times, and Rolling Stone only thrice?” And the answer is, ultimately, because we are scientists.