(Rafaël Zeier / 29.5.08) Die Klangschau met Chris Baio and Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire weekend ahead of their brilliant show at the Mascotte in Zurich to talk about possible solo albums, the impact of blogs, short concerts and even learned a little something about a secret movie project.

Für die deutsche Version dieses Interviews hier klicken: Vampire Weekend Interview (deutsch)

Rafaël: Let’s start with your version of Campus. Could you explain to us how you wrote it and how it turned into the final Vampire Weekend Version?

Rostam: I guess I originally wrote the song with strings in mind and then one day we were practicing for a show and we needed a new song. Cause we didn’t want to play the same set. Maybe it was our third or fourth show ever as a band and we were practicing for it. So we learned the song as a band.

Rafaël: So it wasn’t an old project of yours that kinda got adopted by Vampire Weekend?

Rostam: I think it’s something separate and I think I’ll probably release it eventually sometime.

Rafaël: Do I hear the possibility of a solo album?

Rostam: [laughs] I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

Rafaël: But now back to Vampire Weekend so we’re no longer excluding Chris. I first heard you guys back in April 2007 on Stereogum. How did you use blogs to launch your career? I presume it was you guys who sent out those mp3s?

Chris: I don’t know. We didn’t have this big marketing schedule or anything like that. For the most part we recorded our songs, Rostam produced them and we put them online on our Myspace page. I think that early on that there were some blogs that Ezra sent emails to and one Benn Loxo put us up. But for the most part it just happened naturally like going out and playing shows in the city and even getting coverage in more traditional press. It wasn’t like we were emailing blogs every day and sending out packages to every popular music blog.

Rafaël: Did you as a band see some kind of a change in the music business since the whole blog thing began?

Rostam: My personal feeling is that blogs probably don’t change the system but they make things more available or they increase the amount of public discussion about what’s around.

Rafaël: Speaking of blogs I just stumbled across that quarrel between you and the Islands. Is this something serious or just a joke?

Rostam: I think we’ll take anything like that as a joke. But I can’t speak for them.

Rafaël: To be honest I was quite flabbergasted when I read that statement from the Islands’ Nick Thorburn.

Rostam: You have to understand, at this point we’re aware that people have written about us for a year. So at some point you have to say I’m just going to stop paying attention.

Chris: Yeah, we hear about stuff but usually not from ourselves. We don’t talk about that stuff anymore. If it comes to us it usually comes from someone else. We try not to pay attention to what anybody says.

Rafaël: Well now for the poor souls who missed your show tonight in Zurich, could you explain to us how you transform your rich sound with all those strings and exotic instruments into a live set?

Chris: Well when we tour it’s just the four of us and I think that even from the beginning like we always said we treated our live shows and our our recordings as two different things. If you focus too much in the studio on making things that need to be replicated perfectly live it can hold you back in your recording and it could also hold you back as a live artist. So it’s more energetic I would say, stripped down, maybe a little simpler but at the same time a lot of the sounds on the album Rostam does replicate on his keyboard. So it’s different but I like them both.

Rostam: I think we treat it like a garage band. Like an old 60s band with an organ, guitar, bass and drums. I think that’s all you need.

Rafaël: Your album is about 30 minutes long…

Chris: 34! [laughs]

Rafaël: Oh, I’m sorry. But how do you stretch that to concert length?

Chris: Well Ezra talks in-between songs, we tune in between songs, we play every song on the album, we have a B-side that didn’t make it on the album that we play and we have two new songs and it comes out to 50 minutes to an hour. I think that’s fine for a band touring on their first album.

Rostam: I don’t have a problem with playing a short set cause all our songs are good.

Rafaël: You’re currently on an extensive European tour. How did touring change your view of the old continent?

Chris: I think it’s really really awesome to be in a car for 5 hours and you go from Paris to Amsterdam two incredibly different and rich in history cities. I love touring Europe. It’s probably my favourite place to tour.

Rafaël: Did you write some new songs on tour?

(both laughing)

Rostam:  We try to work on stuff. We had to for this movie project. We’ll see what happens. We can’t talk too much about it.

Chris: We have time in sound check. Sound check is like a little practice every day. There are like sketches of songs that we work on and we’ve been working on a new song early on in this tour. It’s definitely not ideal. The ideal way for us to work is to be at home in our rehearsal space just working on music. But we’re making due with the time we have all around tour.

Rafaël: I hope you don’t mind me listening to the sound check. But you mentioned that film project.  Could you tell us a little tiny bit more about that?

Rostam: (smirks) Absolutly not.

Rafaël: But we still have to talk about the future. Are there already any directions you want to move in with Vampire Weekend? You mentioned new songs.

Chris: We have two new songs and one started with a beat that Rostam made. That song we play along to that pre-recorded beat and I think it sounds different from anything on our first album. It’s more electronic. So that’s one example of something that’s different on the next album.

Rafaël: So a little bit more beat-centric?

Chris: At least one song more beat-centric. We probabely can’t speak for the rest of it.

Rafaël: Final question before we come to your Gastklang. Are there any dream-collaborations?

Rostam: Kate Bush. That would be fun.

Rafaël: Why?

Rostam: She’s a legend.

Rafaël: What about you Chris, who would you like to work with?

Chris: I’d like to work with DJ Toomp. He’s my favourite rap-producer. He did a lot of stuff with T.I.  I think he’s a really talented producer.

After the interview Chris and Rostam compiled a whole hour of songs for a special hour of Vampire Weekend on Die Klangschau. We’ll air that special after the summer break of our radio show and publish it soon after on this very homepage.

Chris: Houdini - Five Minutes Funk

Rostam: MGMT – Time To Pretend

Chris: Neu! – Hallo Gallo

Rostam: Dirty Projectors – Depression

Chris: David Bowie – Breaking Glass

Rostam: Annie Lenox – Walking On Broken Glass

Chris: Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill

Rostam: Beck – Loser

Chris: Stooges – I Need Somebody

Rostam: Nick Drake – Road