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any
other band, it would be a clear joke. With We Are Scientists,
however, it's hard to tell. Their offbeat humour ranges from
dry yet sensible wit to surrealist obscurity - both sides of which
are displayed on the band's official website. Far from a
run-of-the-mill gigs-music-photos-biography page, We Are Scientists
run their own little imaginative hub, containing not only
information on the band, but also the strangest of writings and
thoughts. In fact, the comedy side of things is so prolific
that, recently, rumours have been flying around that the band
started as a fictional endeavour written by the members in their
spare time.
"'Fictional band' is a misleading
phrase," Chris informs. "Were the three band members
real people who were actually alive? Yes. Did they play
instruments together, largely in time with each other, sometimes in
the same key, in a way that yielded song-like sounds?
Yes. Did these song-like sounds kind of suck? At times grievously.
In the sense, then, that we sucked and were not yet roundly awesome,
we were a fake band."
"All this has changed," he
adds. "It's fair to say that we are among the most
realistic, life-like bands in the world today..."
The website is truly bizarre - it can be
found at www.wearesceintists.com,
for anyone interested - featuring reviews of utterly random products
(including, somewhat inexplicably, the current weather situation in
New York), an advice column which I'm yet to decide is fictional or
genuine, and - perhaps the highlight of the lot - an account of the
life of a groundhog. The discussion forums are filled with
similar banter. It's the comedy side coming through |
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again
but, strangely enough, it's still decidedly difficult to take them as
anything but deadly serious. Was the humour an intentional
decision, or - worryingly - is this how We Are Scientists naturally are?
"We knew from day one," explains Chris,
in detail as usual, "that surreal humour alone would never make us
enough money to purchase the goods and services we so badly wanted -
continue to want! We searched rigorously for something with which to
augment the jokes... there was a pro-athlete phase, a phase which taught
university-level ceramics, a dog catching phase... Finally we hit upon rock
music." So they've settled with that? "It turned out
to be hugely time-consuming and, at times, very stressful and
difficult. But we were tired of trying new things." That's
the spirit, eh?
The band's UK tour, entitled 'The Ultimate Return
to the UK Tour (Of Death)', commences on June 12th and hits no fewer than
sixteen towns and cities across the country. It's shaping up to be a
big year for We Are Scientists. "We'd all be upset if we weren't
asked at some point to preside over a ceremony," muses Chris regarding
the next twelve months. "But," he continues, "this
could be anything from a 50th birthday celebration, to the awarding of the
Noble Prize for Brinksmanship, to - you know - the ribbon-cutting of a
commercial real-estate development." Not that they like to be too
precise in their ambitions, or anything. "We have a vision for
the next year that is in some ways very specific," he says.
"We also envision very clearly every living person on the planet
hearing at least one of our songs on their radios, but whether this would
happen on Earth or even necessarily in our dimension is not something we've
really thought about."
With regards to the previous twelve months, Chris
gives a more standard description, describing them as "Epic.
Unforgettable. Friendship-forming. Challenging. Enriching. Frustrating.
Enlightening. Character-building. Eye-opening. Inspiring." I've
come to realise that this is as conformist as We Are Scientists are going to
get. Still, he does redeem himself by, rather perplexingly, stating
that "high school was the best of times and the worst of times - by
comparison the last twelve months have been pretty even-keeled."
A name like We Like Scientists is pretty hard to
miss, and certainly distinctive. As Chris is being very inventive with
his answers, I've been trying to avoid any obvious questions. But the
'where did your name come from' thing has been bugging me. Do they
really like science? "We think science is great," he enthuses.
"Rainbows and black holes, little tadpoles turning into frogs, lava and
lightning, solutions brought
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