We Are Scientists

89.9 WLCA PRESENTS:

Friday, August 13 • Doors 6pm • Show 7pm • $12 Advance • $14 Day of Show • All Ages • $2 Surcharge for Minors • Buy Tickets

At a Glance

We Are Scientists, a.k.a. “the We Are Scientists,” a.k.a. “W.A.S.,” sometimes written “tW.A.S.,”

Comprises Keith Murray, guitar and lead vocals; Chris Cain, bass guitar and backing vocals; Michael Tapper, drums and backing vocals,

Generating rock music of the thoughtful, sometimes epic, often loud, vaguely danceable, implicitly humanist variety.

Begun in 2000 in California,

They moved to New York in 2001,

Have issued three self-released E.P.s since then,

Performed shows nationwide,

Are recording a full-length with producer Ariel Rechtshald (of L.A. indie bands Foreign Born and Dirty Little Secret) in January/February,

Playing South by Southwest in March,

And invading England for a week in April,

The Most F.A.Q.

So what’s your story?

In the summer of 2001, we responded to an offer from the band We Are Scientists to relocate, all expenses paid, from Los Angeles to New York City. Brokering the deal from both sides, we quickly accepted and hopped the next steam train out of town. We Are Scientists became the Superman to our unusually pathetic Clark Kent. By day, we fumble pick up lines, choke on cigarettes, and wear those fucking P.E. coach-style shorts. By night, same pretty much, but on stage.

How would you describe We Are Scientists to people who have never seen you before?

A three-tusked mastodon. A triple mohawk. A flight from New York to L.A. with three layovers. Physically, the We Are Scientists are not imposing. We are of medium height and slight build, but together weigh enough to be a linebacker, a linebacker of the steam engine, straight-arming, bone-snapping variety. All of us wear corrective lenses. Each has his driver’s license.

How would you describe your music?

A question no band likes to be asked. Kind of like asking a writer to describe her work using a guitar solo. But there are a couple of things that characterize our sound right now, and we’re prepared to reveal them. First there are melodies, some of them catchy. They can be found in the vocal lines and often, yes, god help us, the guitar lines. Second, and lastly, we try to have each instrument do something distinct from what the other instruments are doing as often as possible. So for example the bass doesn’t just play the root notes of what the guitar is playing, and it doesn’t necessarily hit when the bass drum is hitting. We call this approach, which we didn’t invent, and which many people do much better than we do, Advanced High Level Sectional Articulation. In fact, we don’t call it that; we don’t really refer to it by a special name, we just do it. We did invent that term, though – ‘Advanced High Level Sectional Articulation.’

What was your first show like?

One of our first shows – it may or may not have been the very first, we can’t remember – was in a dorm building’s courtyard at a small college in southern California. There was no stage and Michael had only heard

(over)

the songs a couple of times, most of them for the first time earlier that day. It’s generally considered by rock historians and other people of minimal worth to be the finest, most precise, most explosive, most inspiring rock show of all time, and one of the top two or three performances of any kind, musical or otherwise, ever. People fainted dead away; this sentence is not related to the rest of the paragraph.

How would you describe your fans?

Lucid, discerning people with amazing taste and salacious physiques.

What is in the near future for you?

Over January and February we’re going to record our first proper full-length album. The recording process will take roughly a month. Once it’s done we’ll be looking for a label or government who would like to release it. In March we’re going to drive out to South by Southwest in Austin, play shows at strategic stops along the way, play a show at the festival, play a show or two in the van and some shows at gas stations. We’d like to play a show at some point that’s projected telepathically into the minds of the nation’s youth. We’re going to the UK in early April to do a week of dates. After that, who knows? We’ll need to begin preparing in earnest for the 2006 Olympic Games if the gold is truly to be ours, and of course we’re contractually obligated to 20 live appearances at Disney’s new theme park in Tokyo that they named after us. So a busy year coming up! Several additional facts and loads more disinformation available at WWW.WEARESCIENTISTS.COM

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Past Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.