hris Keating is the lead vocalist of Brooklyn-based Yeasayer. Lauded by the eternally-hip Pitchfork since bursting onto the scene following a rousing SXSW performance in 2007, I caught up with Chris to discuss his band’s place in New York’s indie pantheon and his run in with the law following a singalong with Joe Cocker
Brooklyn seems to be Indie Zeitgeist County. You've been lumped together with a number of contemporaries it appears, without much thought past that of geography......
I think that’s mostly true. At the same time I think that some of the people that have achieved success with their music that are from Brooklyn are friends of mine, you know? I don’t know how often we’ll get together, sit around and talk about music or anything, but we may get together and talk about basketball…..
Seems like Seattle in ’91……
Yeah, it seems to be simply geographical. Aren’t scenes always sort of created as arbitrary afterthoughts?
Is there a stigma surrounding your ‘scene’? I’m thinking of The Strokes and this sponsored-by-parents perception. Have you had to contend with any of that?
No, because my dad doesn’t own a modelling agency. The funny thing about this particular generation of bands is that no-one is actually from New York. I’m originally from Baltimore. The reason I came to Brooklyn is one, it’s cheaper than Manhattan and two, it’s easier to find a job here.
There must be a degree of pressure in terms of expectation simply from association (to the Brooklyn scene) alone?
I feel pressure at times to do well and to not be embarrassed in front of my friends. When you have friends who are musicians they’re all probably talking shit behind your back. Not necessarily about you but you know, they’re probably like ‘Oh do you remember that one song? God, that was terrible!’ you know? Musicians are pretty critical of each other, sure.
You went to school with members of Animal Collective too - how has that affected you?
Maybe not necessarily in terms of song writing, but they were certainly one of the first bands I looked at and thought ‘hey, that’s cool.’ They were doing something different. And it’s great; I mean I’ve made a lot of friends this way. All musicians. I guess if you’re a doctor all your friends are doctors. I guess all my friends are in bands. I think that’s what everybody does. Isn’t everybody in a band? What else is there to do?
You're notoriously difficult to pigeon-hole. You've described yourselves as 'Middle-Eastern-Psych-Snap-Gospel." Are you fucking with people? Where is the value in labelling music?
Yeah, that’s us fucking with people. I place very little value in labelling music. It serves its purpose for record stores or it allows people to write everything off equally: ‘I like everything but I don’t like hip-hop.’ It’s funny. I like the minute genres within House music. I met a woman recently and I asked her what kind of music she liked. She was like ‘Beat-House.’ I don’t even know what that means. I guess it’s House with a beat.
Now that you're revered as 'experimental', how does that affect your next move?
It makes me want to be more experimental because I’ve felt we’ve been working within a very confined genre of Pop music. As much as we like to experiment, real experimenters are a lot more sophisticated than we are. If you’re a Philip Glass or a Brian Eno then that is truly sophisticated.
I picked up a Yeasayer T Shirt when you played Sheffield back in July. I was intrigued when I noticed that it was made primarily of bamboo. Are you advocates of socially responsible manufacturing - or do sustainable fibres just feel nicer against the skin?
I’m not militant about it but I think that it’s always important to acknowledge your impact on your environment. The amount of trash that Americans throw out kind of irks me because it’s so unnecessary. There are a lot problems but it’s not like we’re cycling to gigs.
You were set to visit Gulu, Uganda to learn about the effects of Civil War. This is through the non-profit organisation 'Invisible Children.' Can you tell us about this and your other contributions to Invisible Children please?
We gave some songs to use for some videos that Invisible Children made. We were supposed to have gone there in September to shoot some stuff and work on some music. There were a load of problems in Uganda. Militant Revolutionaries have vacated Uganda and our now in the Congo, I think. Now this radical Islamist group are targeting foreign nationals travelling to Uganda specifically and one of the guys working on the project was killed. It just seemed like this is a major security risk and we needed to re-evaluate how we were going to do it. I think at times when people are trying to do good things in the World they can be so optimistic about things and when something goes so horribly wrong it can freak them out…because they’re just trying to do good things, they’re good people. Americans, foreign nationals and Europeans are being specifically targeted. There’s nothing lower than targeting people providing Humanitarian Aid.
I remember the first time I saw you was on Jools Holland. It's probably been said before, but your mannerisms reminded me of David Byrne at his most erratic. This seems to have been abandoned now - was it a coincidental similarity or were you finding your own on-stage persona?
I think white people only have so many options. Instead of actually trying to be smooth you find other ways of expressing yourself. I change it up with whatever mood suits me. On TV a certain level of absurdity is quite fitting because you see performers so smooth, comfortable, crooning and dancing sexily and I just think awkwardness on TV is much more powerful.
Ambling Alp has led Odd Blood in much the same way that 2080 spearheaded All Hours Cymbals. How does it feel putting out songs as a representative of such varied albums?
It’s a strange idea. It’s like writing a book and then you have to pick one paragraph that sums up the book. At the same time we’re obviously in a much more singles-orientated market. People can dictate what the single would be. I’m probably fonder of the songs that aren’t singles. If you have a hit single then you’d know that 75% of your audience would be 16 year old girls waiting to hear that one song. I’ve seen that happen with friends of mine that have had much bigger hits than I ever will. It’s depressing. I’m guilty of it too. If I go see Interpol I’m going to wait to hear that one song I liked off that first album.
People are consuming more music than ever though and it is still a huge part of Culture though it’s slowly dying in a very strange way.
As a writer I think you have to be a vociferous reader. As a musician, is it important to imbibe as much as possible? Your tastes seem so esoteric and vast - how do you find time to do your reading before even launching into the writing?
I find it hard to keep up. I keep lists of albums and bands I want to check out and when I find something new I’ll put that on my phone and listen to that for a while. I like to listen to live recordings mainly. It’s almost like research. I think it’s just part of growing up. When you’re fourteen years old there’s not a lot else going on than sitting in your room, being miserable and listening to music. You grow up have to go grocery shopping and you wonder why you don’t listen to music so much anymore.
I do most of my listening in the car…
Yeah, I’m into that. Only, being in New York I don’t have a car any more
Listening to music in the car kind of informs my style of driving, shall we say…
I remember one time driving around listening to Joe Cocker, singing along to it trying to sing all the crazy parts Joe sings…and I got pulled over. I was all sweaty and out of breath. This cop thought I was doing drugs. I said ‘No! I’m just listening to Joe Cocker!’
The harmonies are prevalent on Odd Blood. Live, I was awestruck. How do you get the vocal so tight with three singers?
I come up with the melody but the other guys are much better at working out melodies. You have to just mess around.
Am I right in thinking all the other guys had formal musical training?
I’ve had no formal training. I sang a lot in Choirs as a kid and I did a lot of recording and stuff like that in school. I think that naïveté can be better but it depends on what works for you. It’s nice to work with people who have a formal background who can tap into that when they want to and choose to ignore it when they want to. Some of my favourite musicians didn’t have a lot of formal training. They just figured out their own way of doing things.
Tell me about the technology you employ. On Odd Blood's opener 'The Children' there's a really eerie vocal that gives a huge sense of foreboding and mystery. What did you use?
We got into the idea of singing harmonies into a pitch shifting device and through a fan. It was fun to experiment. We felt it was an ominous tone to begin the album which, as a transition from the last song on All Hours Cymbals just made sense. It’s based on the idea of Shadow Life - parallel evolution to human evolution. I’d been watching the Oliver Reed movie The Brood.
Here I was, about to mention the concentrated effort on Odd Blood to create more straightforward, almost love songs…
The one thing I get upset about is when people criticise say the slapdash way the lyrics are written or how simple they appear. The simplistic lyrics are usually intentional! We’re trying to bridge the gap between the obtuse and more simplistic. Humour in music is a very delicate thing as well. People take it all so seriously. Unless it’s Weird Al. I love Weird Al. I think The Beatles were very funny - a very well-considered kind of humour. There’s a culture of cool right now. Whatever.
Brooklyn seems to be Indie Zeitgeist County. You've been lumped together with a number of contemporaries it appears, without much thought past that of geography......
I think that’s mostly true. At the same time I think that some of the people that have achieved success with their music that are from Brooklyn are friends of mine, you know? I don’t know how often we’ll get together, sit around and talk about music or anything, but we may get together and talk about basketball…..
Seems like Seattle in ’91……
Yeah, it seems to be simply geographical. Aren’t scenes always sort of created as arbitrary afterthoughts?
Is there a stigma surrounding your ‘scene’? I’m thinking of The Strokes and this sponsored-by-parents perception. Have you had to contend with any of that?
No, because my dad doesn’t own a modelling agency. The funny thing about this particular generation of bands is that no-one is actually from New York. I’m originally from Baltimore. The reason I came to Brooklyn is one, it’s cheaper than Manhattan and two, it’s easier to find a job here.
There must be a degree of pressure in terms of expectation simply from association (to the Brooklyn scene) alone?
I feel pressure at times to do well and to not be embarrassed in front of my friends. When you have friends who are musicians they’re all probably talking shit behind your back. Not necessarily about you but you know, they’re probably like ‘Oh do you remember that one song? God, that was terrible!’ you know? Musicians are pretty critical of each other, sure.
You went to school with members of Animal Collective too - how has that affected you?
Maybe not necessarily in terms of song writing, but they were certainly one of the first bands I looked at and thought ‘hey, that’s cool.’ They were doing something different. And it’s great; I mean I’ve made a lot of friends this way. All musicians. I guess if you’re a doctor all your friends are doctors. I guess all my friends are in bands. I think that’s what everybody does. Isn’t everybody in a band? What else is there to do?
You're notoriously difficult to pigeon-hole. You've described yourselves as 'Middle-Eastern-Psych-Snap-Gospel." Are you fucking with people? Where is the value in labelling music?
Yeah, that’s us fucking with people. I place very little value in labelling music. It serves its purpose for record stores or it allows people to write everything off equally: ‘I like everything but I don’t like hip-hop.’ It’s funny. I like the minute genres within House music. I met a woman recently and I asked her what kind of music she liked. She was like ‘Beat-House.’ I don’t even know what that means. I guess it’s House with a beat.
Now that you're revered as 'experimental', how does that affect your next move?
It makes me want to be more experimental because I’ve felt we’ve been working within a very confined genre of Pop music. As much as we like to experiment, real experimenters are a lot more sophisticated than we are. If you’re a Philip Glass or a Brian Eno then that is truly sophisticated.
I picked up a Yeasayer T Shirt when you played Sheffield back in July. I was intrigued when I noticed that it was made primarily of bamboo. Are you advocates of socially responsible manufacturing - or do sustainable fibres just feel nicer against the skin?
I’m not militant about it but I think that it’s always important to acknowledge your impact on your environment. The amount of trash that Americans throw out kind of irks me because it’s so unnecessary. There are a lot problems but it’s not like we’re cycling to gigs.
You were set to visit Gulu, Uganda to learn about the effects of Civil War. This is through the non-profit organisation 'Invisible Children.' Can you tell us about this and your other contributions to Invisible Children please?
We gave some songs to use for some videos that Invisible Children made. We were supposed to have gone there in September to shoot some stuff and work on some music. There were a load of problems in Uganda. Militant Revolutionaries have vacated Uganda and our now in the Congo, I think. Now this radical Islamist group are targeting foreign nationals travelling to Uganda specifically and one of the guys working on the project was killed. It just seemed like this is a major security risk and we needed to re-evaluate how we were going to do it. I think at times when people are trying to do good things in the World they can be so optimistic about things and when something goes so horribly wrong it can freak them out…because they’re just trying to do good things, they’re good people. Americans, foreign nationals and Europeans are being specifically targeted. There’s nothing lower than targeting people providing Humanitarian Aid.
I remember the first time I saw you was on Jools Holland. It's probably been said before, but your mannerisms reminded me of David Byrne at his most erratic. This seems to have been abandoned now - was it a coincidental similarity or were you finding your own on-stage persona?
I think white people only have so many options. Instead of actually trying to be smooth you find other ways of expressing yourself. I change it up with whatever mood suits me. On TV a certain level of absurdity is quite fitting because you see performers so smooth, comfortable, crooning and dancing sexily and I just think awkwardness on TV is much more powerful.
Ambling Alp has led Odd Blood in much the same way that 2080 spearheaded All Hours Cymbals. How does it feel putting out songs as a representative of such varied albums?
It’s a strange idea. It’s like writing a book and then you have to pick one paragraph that sums up the book. At the same time we’re obviously in a much more singles-orientated market. People can dictate what the single would be. I’m probably fonder of the songs that aren’t singles. If you have a hit single then you’d know that 75% of your audience would be 16 year old girls waiting to hear that one song. I’ve seen that happen with friends of mine that have had much bigger hits than I ever will. It’s depressing. I’m guilty of it too. If I go see Interpol I’m going to wait to hear that one song I liked off that first album.
People are consuming more music than ever though and it is still a huge part of Culture though it’s slowly dying in a very strange way.
As a writer I think you have to be a vociferous reader. As a musician, is it important to imbibe as much as possible? Your tastes seem so esoteric and vast - how do you find time to do your reading before even launching into the writing?
I find it hard to keep up. I keep lists of albums and bands I want to check out and when I find something new I’ll put that on my phone and listen to that for a while. I like to listen to live recordings mainly. It’s almost like research. I think it’s just part of growing up. When you’re fourteen years old there’s not a lot else going on than sitting in your room, being miserable and listening to music. You grow up have to go grocery shopping and you wonder why you don’t listen to music so much anymore.
I do most of my listening in the car…
Yeah, I’m into that. Only, being in New York I don’t have a car any more
Listening to music in the car kind of informs my style of driving, shall we say…
I remember one time driving around listening to Joe Cocker, singing along to it trying to sing all the crazy parts Joe sings…and I got pulled over. I was all sweaty and out of breath. This cop thought I was doing drugs. I said ‘No! I’m just listening to Joe Cocker!’
The harmonies are prevalent on Odd Blood. Live, I was awestruck. How do you get the vocal so tight with three singers?
I come up with the melody but the other guys are much better at working out melodies. You have to just mess around.
Am I right in thinking all the other guys had formal musical training?
I’ve had no formal training. I sang a lot in Choirs as a kid and I did a lot of recording and stuff like that in school. I think that naïveté can be better but it depends on what works for you. It’s nice to work with people who have a formal background who can tap into that when they want to and choose to ignore it when they want to. Some of my favourite musicians didn’t have a lot of formal training. They just figured out their own way of doing things.
Tell me about the technology you employ. On Odd Blood's opener 'The Children' there's a really eerie vocal that gives a huge sense of foreboding and mystery. What did you use?
We got into the idea of singing harmonies into a pitch shifting device and through a fan. It was fun to experiment. We felt it was an ominous tone to begin the album which, as a transition from the last song on All Hours Cymbals just made sense. It’s based on the idea of Shadow Life - parallel evolution to human evolution. I’d been watching the Oliver Reed movie The Brood.
Here I was, about to mention the concentrated effort on Odd Blood to create more straightforward, almost love songs…
The one thing I get upset about is when people criticise say the slapdash way the lyrics are written or how simple they appear. The simplistic lyrics are usually intentional! We’re trying to bridge the gap between the obtuse and more simplistic. Humour in music is a very delicate thing as well. People take it all so seriously. Unless it’s Weird Al. I love Weird Al. I think The Beatles were very funny - a very well-considered kind of humour. There’s a culture of cool right now. Whatever.