The Walkmen - Interview

29/10/08/ Manchester Academy 3

It’s a tragic tour holiday for The Walkmen as they arrive on an autumn evening at the Manchester Academy 3. After eight hours on the road from London, Hamilton, Paul, Peter, Walter and Matt begin the Northern leg of their tour lethargic and irritable. Maybe this is not how you would ideally like to feel before a show; a drowsy trend reigns supreme.

By avoiding the glare of the mainstream and maintaining a ‘cult’-like following, The Walkmen have been able to preserve their original blueprint for the band. ‘You & Me’ still retains morose tendencies, still oppressively organ-led, still full with vintage instruments used apparently because ‘they’re more unpredictable’. But the new material is now thinly spread with different lyrical themes: of security, home and aspiration, which alters The Walkmen sound and observes a light heartedness that was so unlikely back in 2004. With ‘Bows + Arrows’ aggression and melancholy, sees a calming of sorts between all band members for ‘You & Me’.

As Hamilton Leithauser growls on ‘New Years Eve’, ‘Keep replaying through the days, and it brought you to this place, You wandered down an open road

And you kept going, What happened to you?‘ they wait for a rebirth and calm. He still growls because it’s been a long time coming, his voice even more guttural, croaking and aching. He solely remains aggressive, his vocals are indescribably mesmerising, still with melody so loud and brutally clear that he probably wouldn’t need a microphone in rehearsal time. And there’s none of the nonchalance of the cool NY, but only the raw power of Iggy as it delivers straight from the guts, squeezed up and spewed out as he stands straight up, tipping slightly forward, uncomfortable and oozing a charismatic, bruised brilliance.

The gig is a whirlwind of sought emotion, with everlasting organ and biting strings as they concentrate on the new album. With highlights ‘New Year’, ‘Seven Years Of Holiday (For Stretch)’, ‘the sweet Canadian Girl’, and ‘The Blue Route’, and no inclusion of their celebrated cover of the Nilsson/Lennon produced album ‘Pussycats’, The Walkmen finish with an encore of older tracks, ‘Thinking Of A Dream’, ‘The Rat’, ‘My Old Man’ and ‘What’s In It For Me’, a song that still sees Hamilton throb with life’s confusions.

After the gig, I reflect to the strange interview - before The Walkmen were refreshed by the stage and a good sweating session. I’d been restlessly trying to get it for a couple of hours, having seriously badgered an American stranger/manager, who promised they’d arrive ‘in 30 minutes’. Me and the sound guy ended up collaring the manager as he peeped from backstage, probably feverishly fretting, ‘mustn’t get caught, mustn’t get caught.’

Stepping into what’s known as a dressing room, we saw bruised bear-like Paul lowering his eyelids and with a yawn and a scratch, standing to greet me. They all look dishevelled, with no hint of tidy casualness, just plain dirt. The plaid shirts and jeans haven’t been peeled off for a few months while they’ve been touring the U.S and Europe.

4ortherecord: So (as I irritatingly ask) how are you feeling today guys?

Paul: Not so good right now to be really honest. We’ve been feeling really fucking hung-over; I think we all had some bad beer last night. It was like wheat beer, but it was really, really bad.

4ortherecord:     Was it home brewed?

Paul: No, no. We also drank a ton of scotch so maybe it was that. We’ve been here in this very room before, feeling pretty much the same. Right on this very spot. It’s got great character.

(The room consists of two sofas, one a mottled green and one orange, with bare cream walls and a solitary kettle in the corner)

4ortherecord: How are you finding Manchester?

Matt: Yeah we think it’s all right, we love the unusual range of Japanese and Chinese food here, there’s so much! We also usually just go to the Peak District, that’s awesome. We’re big fans of the pies there.

4ortherecord: Yes. The pies. Are you looking forward to tonight’s performance?

Hamilton: Yeah definitely, although we’re in the middle of our tour that has been pretty hectic. We went to London for a week and then we did Europe. What’s strange is that in all big cities in England, the audience are always really quiet. It’s embarrassing really.

4ortherecord: It’s called London infiltration. Kate Moss is the epitome of cool here, and she hardly ever talks. It’s weird, isn’t it?

Paul: Yeah, definitely weird. In San Francisco and Los Angeles everyone jumps around, and they don’t give a shit. But the British just stare at you. Stand there and don’t react.

Matt: And they buy so many T-shirts. There are so many grown men buying Walkmen T-shirts, it’s so sad.

4ortherecord: Well at least they’re enthusiastic. So, the new album, You & Me, is quite different from 2006’s A Hundred Miles Off and 2004’s Bows + Arrows. Can you say that anything particularly inspired you to make the record? Or was it something planned, a natural progression?

Paul: I don’t know what inspired us. It took a lot longer. That inspired us. We like to take a lot of time over things and get it just right, by constantly re-editing and then getting it all balanced. We listened to a lot of 50s and 60s rock in that time, Bob Dylan, early Led Zeppelin, that kind of thing.

I find it a bit annoying that some press will just describe you as one artist, or say another has massively influenced you. I know it’s difficult to describe something that you can’t actually touch, but you’ve got to be creative. I have to say that if I find a band that I think are really awesome and my friend hasn’t heard of them, I say well, they sound like this person or that person. It’s the best way. But when you’re writing, you can’t be so specific like that, you can’t change words on paper, and you’ll just categorise an artist.

4ortherecord: I found some interesting feature in a British magazine that say you made a transition from pop to chamber music, how does that interesting concoction make you feel?

Paul: I don’t think we’ve ever been pop. Or classical. Is chamber music in a small room with a five-piece band? Well, I suppose you could call us chamber music then.

4ortherecord: So is there a new Rat on You & Me?

Walter: No new Rat. None of it sounds as aggressive as The Rat. We are a lot less aggressive now. Less mean. Nicer. A lot more mature. We still are mean personally. But our music’s nicer.

4ortherecord: Well, you know people will be eagerly anticipating it, are you going to play it tonight?

Hamilton: Yeah we are, just because people love the song. But we’re going to focus on our new album I think.

4orthercord: Spin Magazine says that Hamilton sounds like Robert Plant on the new album. We’ve recently heard the news that John Paul Jones wants to tour Led Zeppelin again, but Plant refuses this time around. Do you think Hamilton could fill his tight trousers?

Paul: Hmmm. Some girl told us that he sounded like Plant, which I suppose he sort of does. We think he also sounds like Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan, if you have to make comparisons.

Matt: Hamilton’s a pretty hairy guy; he’s a bear, a beast. He’d have to wear five vests or something, and wouldn’t fit into the tight trousers.

4ortherecord: Do any of you, including the hairy beast, get any hot action on tour?

Paul: No.

4ortherecord: Do you have a ‘responsibility to make girls cry’, as Uncut Magazine say, with your emotionally charged music?

Paul: I don’t think we have a responsibility to make girls cry. I’m sure we don’t actually have any girl fans. It’s all men. I’d say about 95% of our fans are dudes.

Matt: Maybe 25-year-old men. It’s like staring in a mirror when you’re on stage.

4ortherecord: You toured with The Strokes. Do ever hang out with your New York friends when you’re there?

Walter: When we were on tour we tried to be the older guys and be like cooool and stuff to impress them.

Matt: We didn’t really did we?

Walter: Well yeah, we did. But at the end of the night we ended up throwing up in a metal urinal in front of them all. They were definitely not impressed.

4ortherecord: So I take it The Strokes aren’t too hardcore then?

Matt: Let’s just say they weren’t impressed.

4ortherecord: Julian Casablancas endorses Converse, which is a pretty cool brand over here in the U.K. You have been described as the ‘emotional Strokes’ by a member of the press recently, does this mean that you will be endorsing emotional products? Like poetry books and suchlike?

Paul: Oh shit. We’re the emotional Strokes? No, I don’t think so.

4ortherecord: You had one of your songs on the Major League Baseball 2007 adverts, do you enjoy baseball?

Paul: Yeah we love baseball.

4ortherecord: Tell me a little more about your affiliation with amiestreet.com

Matt: Well that’s a website that used to sell our records, and they asked us if we wanted to do a pre-release and donate money to charity. We had already been thinking about it, so we released ‘You & Me’ as a dedication to our friend who has leukaemia. You’ll notice there are a few songs dedicated to certain people on the record.

4ortherecord: So what’s next for The Walkmen?

Paul: Well we’re going to Bristol tomorrow and then will be zigzagging up and down the country. Then we’ve got a few more shows around the States and then will be back here in January.

4ortherecord: Well we hope all goes well for the rest of the tour, thanks for talking with 4ortherecord.

Walter: It’s been a pleasure.

Interview by Alice White

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