We Are Scientists are coming off a manic weekend playing both Standon Calling and Truck Festival. At the latter, we caught up with lead vocalist Keith Murray and bassists Chris Cain to talk all things We Are Scientists, following the release of their eighth studio album Lobes in January of this year.
How were your Truck and Standon Calling sets over the weekend?
They were monumental, in the sense that they existed in a fixed location where a bunch of people gathered to gaze upon them (our sets) and think about history, society, humankind’s great achievements and tragedies, and a couple of people also bathed in a fountain of mud.
If you told our readers to listen to one We Are Scientists song to make them a fan, which one would it be?
Less From You, off our latest album [Lobes], seems to have a soul-stirring effect. It’s also pretty likely that if you dig this track, you’ll enjoy much of our catalog. It’s what priests would call “dangerously provocative and lustful.”
How has the live reception been to your latest record Lobes?
Exceptionally good. Using a quotient of “percent of audience members singing along” to the inverse of “percent of audience members dancing,” we are seeing results very close to one. Needless to say, that’s quite gratifying.
How would you describe the sound of Lobes to a reader who hasn’t heard your album?
It’s got a danceability to it, but often with a more mid-tempo groove than what you might expect from this band. The melodies are strong, the guitars and synths are constantly hooking, and the songs have just enough unexpected structural features to keep you guessing. just like buttered lobster.
What makes playing UK festivals different to other festivals?
We are more likely to be at them (the UK ones). That’s one big difference. Also, although I’ve obviously seen mud at other festivals, UK fests really splurge on mud. A German festival, for example, might be spending a quarter of a percent of the budget on mud-making, where UK counterparts are at something like half — half of the budget to mud. That makes them more fun, and also slippery.
What new indie bands should our readers be listening out for?
We caught Feet’s set in our tent at Truck and really liked what we saw.
What are your plans for the rest of 2023?
We’re touring the US for a month late in the year. During the downtime before that we’ll be working on music for the next album, and also maybe re-mixing a couple of the tunes off of Lobes as reggaeton, because our Spanish promoter recently told us that Spaniards don’t like guitar music, they only like reggaeton, and we want to play in Spain more.
