CHRIS WALKER VS. BANDS AND BOOZE, ROUND THREE: WE ARE SCIENTISTS

Since the interview series’ inception – way back in August of 2006 – I’ve been trying to get We Are Scientists to do Bands and Booze. In fact, they were one of the first bands I approached. Every time it seemed hopeful however; every time it fell through. I don’t know, maybe it’s because they tour constantly; are huge in the UK; bigger than most indie band in the US, and don’t have time to answer my retarded questions. Whatever the reasons were – it matters not now. Today, for the grand finale of Bands and Booze: Round Three, I present to you: the We Are Scientists interview.

We Are Scientists are Chris Cain (bass, vocals), Keith Murray (vocals, guitar), and Michael Tapper (drums, vocals). If you haven’t heard of them you’re stupid, you need to get out more. We Are Scientists play face-rocking, body-moving, indie rock and roll. They sing about drinking too much, drinking just enough, and scandalous women. If you want to use their bodies – go for it. Today bass player Chris Cain was finally kind enough to talk about high scores on Big Buck Hunter, the World Ice Skating Championship, the band’s upcoming album, and the importance of sports cars. Oh yeah, there’s also a lot of talk about booze. Aside from Dodge’s, of My Old Kentucky Blog, interview – this is probably the best one ever conducted. All other bands I interview in the future should aspire to this level of question answering. In other words, it was “worth the wait”.

Finally. After months and months and months – I’ve got you to do Bands and Booze. Thanks for sharing your time. Now that we’re doing this, I’ll ask the most important question first: before you shaved it off did your mustache have a name?

Chris Cain: My mustache was called Apollo. My mustache was called Helios. It was called Baal, and Amaethon, and Amaterasu. It was Kapohoikahiola and it was Kamadiva. It was Vidar, son of Odin.

Magnificent, I would expect nothing less. So, tell me: what’s your poison?

CC: Personally, I'm a wine drinker. That's not to say I don't drink my fair share of beer and whisky, and yeah, I'll indulge in the occasional mug of gasoline if stuck at a service station. I think what I like about wine, though, is that there are many different delicious flavors. Also, apparently it's good for you, which is weird but not the kind of gift horse whose teeth I'm going to quality-check.

We have a sort of band drink, though, and that drink is the margarita, the drink of the gods. Keith has been spending a lot of time since we came off tour in December working on new songs for our next album; he's been spending even more time, though, on perfecting his margarita recipe. He's getting good, I can tell you that.

That’s awesome. Is there any alcohol that has destroyed you in the past and you absolutely refuse to touch now?

CC: I've never much liked gin, and your question has me wondering whether that's maybe due to having drunk a lot of it when I was a little kid, before I can remember.

I don’t think anyone likes gin – except for my friend Dong Wang. So, you’re from Brookyln; what’s your favorite bar, pub, hangout, place to get a drink there?

CC: For all my fancy talk about wine and margarita recipes that have been workshopped for months, my go-to watering hole in Brooklyn is The Abbey (Driggs and N. 8th), where 2-for-1 Buds, free popcorn, and Big Buck Hunter align to help a man transcend his conditions for a few hours, whatever his conditions may be.

Sounds like heaven, any good drinking stories from The Abbey?

CC: Last night, five beers in, on the bonus round where the targets are pinned to large rotating wheels, I shot Double Perfect (all targets, no wasted shots), catapulting me a thousand points ahead of Keith, who had maintained a decent lead for most of the Big Horn Sheep hunting adventure. I could never have accomplished this without alcohol.

I guess congratulations are in order. Alright let’s say I was at The Abbey and wanted to order a drink called the “We Are Scientists” how would I make one?

CC: You would lay five dollars on the bar and ask for a Bud. When you'd finished drinking it, you'd go back to the bar and ask for another one. There would be no charge. Finish that Bud, have a seat, and take stock. How do you feel? You just drank a We Are Scientists.

Out of all the creative answers I’ve heard for that question your’s could very well be the best. How would you rank yourself, Michael, and Keith in terms of drinking ability?

CC: If you ran a test today, I suspect you'd find that I hold my alcohol the worst, Michael second worst, and Keith best. This is because I haven't been going out drinking much in the last couple of months. Coming off tour, where drinking is a constant, like breathing, I felt an almost spiritual need to cut down. I think Michael was in the same condition. Keith, on the other hand, still drinks as though he were a liquor luge at a very busy party, but there were only a hole for the liquor to be dumped into, not one for it to come out of.

How about on tour?

CC: When we're on tour, Michael is generally ahead of the pack. He really pickles himself. Many has been the time that he has passed out sitting up on a bench in the bus, a large glass bottle with a tiny sliver of whisky stagnant at the bottom cradled in his lap. A good story involves the time we tried to calculate how much Michael was drinking on an average day and discovered that human math was unequal to the task.

That’s amazing. Speaking of tours, you were recently on the road with Bands and Booze alum, Au Revoir Simone. The girls say all they really remember was Keith playing Spinto Dice, a bar fight with blood, and partying ‘til all hours of the night on the tour bus. Can you shine any more light on that tour?

CC: There was also the time that Annie filled a Slurpee cup with Applejack and gave it to the mayor's 13 year old son and then we kidnapped him and extracted a healthy ransom from pops. We used that money to buy a speedboat, which we jumped into a gorge, unfortunately. And I will never forget when Heather and Michael finagled a spot in the World Ice Skating Championships and spent three feverish days preparing a routine from scratch. They lost bad, but they made a lot of new friends and earned the respect of the American coach, who invited them to pull that shit again next year and as a result get killed by him.

Sounds like one hell of a tour! All right, serious question now, which is fiercer: a tiger or Michael Tapper?

CC: A tiger is fiercer in protecting its cubs - Michael doesn't care two wits for stupid tiger cubs - but tigers don't go around picking fights and sending people to the hospital like Michael does, just for the fun of it. As to who would win in a fight, it would depend on whether Michael had his bag of tricks with him, the stuff he brings when he goes out at night - brass knuckles, pepper spray, a cudgel, his switch knife, his ankle-holstered .38, his lumbar-holstered .38, the short-stack of shuriken he keeps under his hat, and the little razor-sharp tooth-caps he puts on his incisors.

You recently released Crap Attack – all your b-sides, variations, and what-not’s – in the UK. Will it see a US release?

CC: Not in the immediate future. We have a larger following in the UK, and it was our UK label who decided that Crap Attack - something we originally conceived as a merch-booth offering - should go to retail. The US company isn't interested in putting it out here, though, due to lack of audience. Presumably, if we manage to get bigger on the next album, the US folks will get around to releasing Crap Attack. In the meantime, we brought some over from the UK and have them available on our website for the US kids who are in need.

Speaking of the new album, I know you said Keith is working on songs and margarita recipes but how’s the new album actually coming along?

CC: We've got a great batch of songs right now, but we're still in the writing phase and don't have a firm idea of when we'll go into the studio to record - hopefully April or May. And once we get into the studio, we don't really know how long it'll take us to record the album. We've decided that in the interest of making a top-notch album, we're not going to rush anything, so right now it's possible it'll be released end of summer, but it's also possible it'd be end of the year.

Look forward to it. So, the ‘Advice’ section of your website is hilarious – as is all of the website. Bo the Snake Tamer – or whatever he is – is fucking awesome. Do you guys all contribute to the site?

CC: We started out collaborating pretty heavily on the written content of the site, but Keith and Michael kind of ran out of stamina for it, I think, and now I do it mostly on my own. I, too, have run out of stamina, though, which is why it gets updated so infrequently these days.

I see. While we’re here is there any wisdom you’d care to bestow upon the kids that might be reading?

CC: My advice to readers at home is to get yourself one of those new sports cars. Get yourself a red one. Or black. These things go zero to 60 super fast, they corner great, and you can get some wonderful decals for them, such as pumas, whips of fire, skulls, or a lake.

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions?

CC: I resolved to work on the website a lot more, but so far I've failed. I'm going to do it, though - wait and see. I will start Monday.

Sounds good. Well, that about does it. One last question, which are better: ninjas, pirates, or Vikings?

CC: If you could build a machine capable of truly human thought, of pattern recognition and so forth, but with a computer's ability to process at breakneck speeds and access and store gigantic caches of information -- imagine the effect such a machine would have on the rate of innovation. It could accomplish in a day what currently takes human scientists a hundred years. That would be superior to both ninjas and pirates, as well as, ultimately, to Vikings.

Excellent choice.

---

For more music, show dates, hilarious videos, how-to videos, advice, Bo the Snake Tamer, and all around awesomeness check out the links below:

[Official Website] We Are Scientists

[MySpace] We Are Scientists