Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2006)
Interview Background
His guitar sounds kick serious arse on stage, but away from the spotlights spidery Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner comes across as a wary little chap. Promoting second album Show Your Bones, rumours were swirling that a division within the Yeah Yeah Yeahs almost ended them before the album was even released. Thankfully we’ve since been blessed with a couple more great YYY albums and riveting tours, so whatever issues were tearing them apart in 2006 seem to be in the past. Zinner wasn’t always the most loquacious interviewee, but it sure beat interviewing Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase about his jazz side-project a few years later. Oh dear.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, July 2006.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Breaking The News
by Scott McLennan
It’s really very simple. With their second album Show Your Bones, New York act Yeah Yeah Yeahs have blasted themselves beyond insular ragged rock with the smartest album of hooks and melodies you’re likely to hear all year. Such musical beauty appears to come at a high price.
Interviews with the band at the time of Show Your Bones’ release hinted that the trio of vocalist Karen O, guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase had endured such tension and distress during recording that the end of Yeah Yeah Yeahs was imminent.
Speaking from his New York home a day after returning from an exultant live tour of Europe, Nick Zinner admits rumours of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. US rock magazine Spin, which suggested in an April cover story that the friendship between Nick and Karen had reached breaking point during the Show Your Bones sessions, portrayed a particularly warped view of the band’s current dynamic.
“There’s not much truth in most of what Spin magazine wrote,” Nick begins. “They were incredibly over-sensational and Hollywoodised and there were quotes that weren’t even made in that story.
“That interview was coming off a turbulent writing and recording process which I don’t think is that different from a lot of bands,” Nick continues. “We suffered intense self-pressure from being cooped up and completely removed from the world for weeks and weeks on end with no breaks, but we’ve just had two of the best tours we’ve ever had. They have been the most fun times we’ve had as a band, so it’s definitely a completely different world from the one portrayed in that story.”
Both Karen and producer Sam ‘Squeak E Clean’ Speigel, film maker Spike Jonze’s younger brother, also alleged Zinner’s main focus for Show Your Bones was “keeping that same New York sound”.
“That’s not true at all,” Nick says. “I actually confronted Squeak E about that and he claims that he never said it, which I completely believe, judging from the rest of that article.”
But a lot of other interviews also indicate your friendship with Karen isn’t as strong due to the recording rigours of Show Your Bones.
“Things are pretty good right now,” Nick admits optimistically.
Even though in many interviews you indicate you don’t want to think about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ future past the next couple of months?
“I guess that could be interpreted a lot of ways. Really that’s about us enjoying today and really just being in a band now and doing everything we can now. We’ll think about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”
Well it’s a relief to know that the world of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs isn’t going to come crashing down today then.
“Probably not today, but you never know,” the guitarist giggles.
When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs last hit Australia for a tour in late 2003 to promote the sweaty and debauched debut album Fever To Tell, it was an expedition marred by a life-changing incident during a gig at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. Always a volatile frontwoman with plenty of visual flair and energetic vigour, Karen O fell from the stage and endured severe neck damage that lead to the cancellation of their prospective Adelaide show. Nick laughs when asked if there’s any sense of doom returning to the country where tragedy almost ended the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ burgeoning career.
“I don’t think there is that feeling for any of us. Obviously that was an awful thing, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Australia. It doesn’t lessen our love for the Oz at all!”
Nick admitted that the seriousness of Karen’s fall was not immediately apparent.
“While we were playing when she fell off the stage I didn’t realise what was happening as it was kind of smokey,” Nick recalled. “We were on different sides of the stage during the actual show and it took me a few minutes before I realised what was happening. I knew that it was pretty critical when the ambulances were around and her being rushed off to the hospital. I kind of feared the worst.”
Extra-curricular activities for Nick in the past year have included touring the United States and Europe with Bright Eyes.
“That was fantastic and really educational and fun,” Nick says. “It was kind of spiritually rewarding to hang out with fantastic musicians and sit in the background and play music with wonderful people. Not that that’s much different from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but there’s a lot more demands and pressures that I have to fulfil every night when we play live. With the Bright Eyes shows sometimes there was nine other people on stage and there were some songs where I’d only play for a little bit at the end. I enjoyed the experience in a completely different way and it was a lot of fun.”
During Yeah Yeah Yeahs downtime Nick also went commercial by playing guitar on the soundtrack to Hollywood bomb The Fantastic Four. TFF, a collaboration between Zinner and Antipodean members of The Distillers, The Datsuns and Jet, was a one-off project initiated by the film’s producers.
“That was just a thing where I was asked if I had a few hours free to play on the song for a fuckload of money,” Nick chuckles of his blockbuster additions. “I really wanted to get a new guitar, so it seemed like a pretty cool thing to do.
“Do you know what? I went to go and see Fantastic Four with my girlfriend because I hadn’t heard the finished track, even though I played on it. I went along and kept thinking, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be in the next scene’ and then ‘Oh, maybe it’s in this scene’ and then ‘Oh, it will be the second song at the end of the credits’. But it never came up! I was a little disappointed!”
In spite of the obvious turmoil, tantrums and disagreements that occurred during the genesis of Show Your Bones, the beautiful finale of the album, Turn Into, ends with a hopeful chuckle at the end of the tape.
“If you listen closely we’re all chuckling,” Nick notes with a laugh. “We were all sitting in the room and there’s a toy piano you can hear Brian playing, I’m playing the guitar and it’s all just a mic in the room.”
So after all the hardships, where to from here for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?
“I don’t know,” Nick concludes with tentative optimism. “Hopefully higher and higher, but I can’t predict the future…”
Show Your Bones (Universal/Modular)
Unpublished Interview Material
When you began recording for Show Your Bones in February 2005 did you have any inkling what it would eventually sound like?
“We had no idea how it would turn out. We had no direction, but we had incredibly high expectations. There was no set vision before we recorded though, so the whole record was a process of finding ourselves a vision.”
Turn Into is another beautiful Yeah Yeah Yeahs track and was one of the first written – did that and early tracks like Phenomena change much between early demos and the final recording?
“Turn Into fundamentally didn’t change too much, but there were certain parts in that one that were definitely worked over and hopefully perfected. Phenomena was a little different in the fact that one was a much longer journey that it went through. Some sections of that song were done but then we’d reach a block and we’d have to come back to it later. Slowly but surely it was finished, although it wasn’t properly assembled until towards the end of the recording.”
So your Fantastic Four soundtrack contribution was basically just for the pay cheque to buy a new guitar?
“(laughs) Exactly. Well you know it’s the only time I’ve ever done anything like that, but there’s a first time for everything. I’ve met and hung out with the others at different times. We recorded it in various studios around the world and we weren’t together at all. If I see Jet while I’m down in Australia I’ll have a drink with them. Every time I’ve been to Australia I’ve always explored about for a couple of weeks after, so it’s great. It’s an amazing country that you have. I’ve been able to make some good friends in Sydney.”
With Show Your Bones’ additional layers, do you need an extra guitarist or a DAT for any of the tracks when playing live?
“Actually what we’ve done for these last tours, and what we’ll also do for our tour when we come down there, is that we’ve brought this guy Imaad Wasif on tour with us to play acoustic guitars and keyboards on the new stuff, otherwise we’d be caught in a situation where we’d be playing backing tapes or samplers, which isn’t really our style. It’s been working out really, really well, so it’s good.”
Are you ever surprised by Karen’s fashions on stage or has the amazement passed?
“I’m still amazed actually. The outfits that [designer] Christian Joy has been coming up with recently are really beautiful. They’re like works of art. It’s all part of the package with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.”
How did you feel about the Adidas advert Karen made with her former boyfriend Spike Jonze and Squeak E Clean last year?
“I thought it was great. It was really really amazing and a beautiful piece of music. She told us about it informally, yeah, but she didn’t have to ask our permission or anything. We all encourage each other to do things outside of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all the time.”
I imagine since you’re both photographers you would have quite a lot in common with Spike Jonze – is Spike still a part of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs inner circle?
“I don’t know if it’s really my place to talk about that, but he’s still a friend of the band.”
Mysteries sounds like a live take – even down to the comment ‘Take it away, Nick’ – was it as spur of the moment as it sounds?
“That song is the only song that came out of a jam. One night after two weeks with barely a day off we went to a bar around the corner from Sam [Squeak E Clean]’s apartment and got really drunk. We came back and that song came out from that jam, so the song structure is pretty much as it happened.”
There are plenty of bands coming out now with a ravaged rock sound and a female frontwoman. Do you ever look at bands such as Be Your Own Pet and think they are stealing your bit?
“(laughs) No, not at all. I feel like if there’s one thing that feels really good now is that there are bands that have been inspired by us. That’s one of the main things we aspire to, be it through painting, a book, a film or anything. It’s really flattering that people are inspired by us. It’s a wonderful compliment. I don’t think anybody can sound exactly like us unless they were playing our songs. Not to sound cocky or anything, I think and hope that we are diverse enough not to fall into one schtick.”
His guitar sounds kick serious arse on stage, but away from the spotlights spidery Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner comes across as a wary little chap. Promoting second album Show Your Bones, rumours were swirling that a division within the Yeah Yeah Yeahs almost ended them before the album was even released. Thankfully we’ve since been blessed with a couple more great YYY albums and riveting tours, so whatever issues were tearing them apart in 2006 seem to be in the past. Zinner wasn’t always the most loquacious interviewee, but it sure beat interviewing Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase about his jazz side-project a few years later. Oh dear.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, July 2006.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Breaking The News
by Scott McLennan
It’s really very simple. With their second album Show Your Bones, New York act Yeah Yeah Yeahs have blasted themselves beyond insular ragged rock with the smartest album of hooks and melodies you’re likely to hear all year. Such musical beauty appears to come at a high price.
Interviews with the band at the time of Show Your Bones’ release hinted that the trio of vocalist Karen O, guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase had endured such tension and distress during recording that the end of Yeah Yeah Yeahs was imminent.
Speaking from his New York home a day after returning from an exultant live tour of Europe, Nick Zinner admits rumours of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. US rock magazine Spin, which suggested in an April cover story that the friendship between Nick and Karen had reached breaking point during the Show Your Bones sessions, portrayed a particularly warped view of the band’s current dynamic.
“There’s not much truth in most of what Spin magazine wrote,” Nick begins. “They were incredibly over-sensational and Hollywoodised and there were quotes that weren’t even made in that story.
“That interview was coming off a turbulent writing and recording process which I don’t think is that different from a lot of bands,” Nick continues. “We suffered intense self-pressure from being cooped up and completely removed from the world for weeks and weeks on end with no breaks, but we’ve just had two of the best tours we’ve ever had. They have been the most fun times we’ve had as a band, so it’s definitely a completely different world from the one portrayed in that story.”
Both Karen and producer Sam ‘Squeak E Clean’ Speigel, film maker Spike Jonze’s younger brother, also alleged Zinner’s main focus for Show Your Bones was “keeping that same New York sound”.
“That’s not true at all,” Nick says. “I actually confronted Squeak E about that and he claims that he never said it, which I completely believe, judging from the rest of that article.”
But a lot of other interviews also indicate your friendship with Karen isn’t as strong due to the recording rigours of Show Your Bones.
“Things are pretty good right now,” Nick admits optimistically.
Even though in many interviews you indicate you don’t want to think about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ future past the next couple of months?
“I guess that could be interpreted a lot of ways. Really that’s about us enjoying today and really just being in a band now and doing everything we can now. We’ll think about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”
Well it’s a relief to know that the world of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs isn’t going to come crashing down today then.
“Probably not today, but you never know,” the guitarist giggles.
When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs last hit Australia for a tour in late 2003 to promote the sweaty and debauched debut album Fever To Tell, it was an expedition marred by a life-changing incident during a gig at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. Always a volatile frontwoman with plenty of visual flair and energetic vigour, Karen O fell from the stage and endured severe neck damage that lead to the cancellation of their prospective Adelaide show. Nick laughs when asked if there’s any sense of doom returning to the country where tragedy almost ended the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ burgeoning career.
“I don’t think there is that feeling for any of us. Obviously that was an awful thing, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Australia. It doesn’t lessen our love for the Oz at all!”
Nick admitted that the seriousness of Karen’s fall was not immediately apparent.
“While we were playing when she fell off the stage I didn’t realise what was happening as it was kind of smokey,” Nick recalled. “We were on different sides of the stage during the actual show and it took me a few minutes before I realised what was happening. I knew that it was pretty critical when the ambulances were around and her being rushed off to the hospital. I kind of feared the worst.”
Extra-curricular activities for Nick in the past year have included touring the United States and Europe with Bright Eyes.
“That was fantastic and really educational and fun,” Nick says. “It was kind of spiritually rewarding to hang out with fantastic musicians and sit in the background and play music with wonderful people. Not that that’s much different from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but there’s a lot more demands and pressures that I have to fulfil every night when we play live. With the Bright Eyes shows sometimes there was nine other people on stage and there were some songs where I’d only play for a little bit at the end. I enjoyed the experience in a completely different way and it was a lot of fun.”
During Yeah Yeah Yeahs downtime Nick also went commercial by playing guitar on the soundtrack to Hollywood bomb The Fantastic Four. TFF, a collaboration between Zinner and Antipodean members of The Distillers, The Datsuns and Jet, was a one-off project initiated by the film’s producers.
“That was just a thing where I was asked if I had a few hours free to play on the song for a fuckload of money,” Nick chuckles of his blockbuster additions. “I really wanted to get a new guitar, so it seemed like a pretty cool thing to do.
“Do you know what? I went to go and see Fantastic Four with my girlfriend because I hadn’t heard the finished track, even though I played on it. I went along and kept thinking, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be in the next scene’ and then ‘Oh, maybe it’s in this scene’ and then ‘Oh, it will be the second song at the end of the credits’. But it never came up! I was a little disappointed!”
In spite of the obvious turmoil, tantrums and disagreements that occurred during the genesis of Show Your Bones, the beautiful finale of the album, Turn Into, ends with a hopeful chuckle at the end of the tape.
“If you listen closely we’re all chuckling,” Nick notes with a laugh. “We were all sitting in the room and there’s a toy piano you can hear Brian playing, I’m playing the guitar and it’s all just a mic in the room.”
So after all the hardships, where to from here for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?
“I don’t know,” Nick concludes with tentative optimism. “Hopefully higher and higher, but I can’t predict the future…”
Show Your Bones (Universal/Modular)
Unpublished Interview Material
When you began recording for Show Your Bones in February 2005 did you have any inkling what it would eventually sound like?
“We had no idea how it would turn out. We had no direction, but we had incredibly high expectations. There was no set vision before we recorded though, so the whole record was a process of finding ourselves a vision.”
Turn Into is another beautiful Yeah Yeah Yeahs track and was one of the first written – did that and early tracks like Phenomena change much between early demos and the final recording?
“Turn Into fundamentally didn’t change too much, but there were certain parts in that one that were definitely worked over and hopefully perfected. Phenomena was a little different in the fact that one was a much longer journey that it went through. Some sections of that song were done but then we’d reach a block and we’d have to come back to it later. Slowly but surely it was finished, although it wasn’t properly assembled until towards the end of the recording.”
So your Fantastic Four soundtrack contribution was basically just for the pay cheque to buy a new guitar?
“(laughs) Exactly. Well you know it’s the only time I’ve ever done anything like that, but there’s a first time for everything. I’ve met and hung out with the others at different times. We recorded it in various studios around the world and we weren’t together at all. If I see Jet while I’m down in Australia I’ll have a drink with them. Every time I’ve been to Australia I’ve always explored about for a couple of weeks after, so it’s great. It’s an amazing country that you have. I’ve been able to make some good friends in Sydney.”
With Show Your Bones’ additional layers, do you need an extra guitarist or a DAT for any of the tracks when playing live?
“Actually what we’ve done for these last tours, and what we’ll also do for our tour when we come down there, is that we’ve brought this guy Imaad Wasif on tour with us to play acoustic guitars and keyboards on the new stuff, otherwise we’d be caught in a situation where we’d be playing backing tapes or samplers, which isn’t really our style. It’s been working out really, really well, so it’s good.”
Are you ever surprised by Karen’s fashions on stage or has the amazement passed?
“I’m still amazed actually. The outfits that [designer] Christian Joy has been coming up with recently are really beautiful. They’re like works of art. It’s all part of the package with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.”
How did you feel about the Adidas advert Karen made with her former boyfriend Spike Jonze and Squeak E Clean last year?
“I thought it was great. It was really really amazing and a beautiful piece of music. She told us about it informally, yeah, but she didn’t have to ask our permission or anything. We all encourage each other to do things outside of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all the time.”
I imagine since you’re both photographers you would have quite a lot in common with Spike Jonze – is Spike still a part of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs inner circle?
“I don’t know if it’s really my place to talk about that, but he’s still a friend of the band.”
Mysteries sounds like a live take – even down to the comment ‘Take it away, Nick’ – was it as spur of the moment as it sounds?
“That song is the only song that came out of a jam. One night after two weeks with barely a day off we went to a bar around the corner from Sam [Squeak E Clean]’s apartment and got really drunk. We came back and that song came out from that jam, so the song structure is pretty much as it happened.”
There are plenty of bands coming out now with a ravaged rock sound and a female frontwoman. Do you ever look at bands such as Be Your Own Pet and think they are stealing your bit?
“(laughs) No, not at all. I feel like if there’s one thing that feels really good now is that there are bands that have been inspired by us. That’s one of the main things we aspire to, be it through painting, a book, a film or anything. It’s really flattering that people are inspired by us. It’s a wonderful compliment. I don’t think anybody can sound exactly like us unless they were playing our songs. Not to sound cocky or anything, I think and hope that we are diverse enough not to fall into one schtick.”
Content copyright is retained by the author unless otherwise stated. Republishing content is prohibited unless permission specifically granted by the author.
