 Never judge a record by its cover. We Are Scientists hide their faces on the front of their debut album, ‘With Love and Squalor’ behind three kittens. Like a metaphor for their music, crystalline pop melodies mask songs about obsession, destructive relationships and getting wasted. Foppish singer and guitarist Keith Murray, Napoleon Dynamite doppelganger bassist Chris Cain, and hirsute drummer Michael Tapper like to put the fun back into dysfunctional. As Cain menacingly tells UK Music, “This is our escape mechanism baby. We’d all be serial killers if we weren’t in the band…”
The New York trio’s curiously fanatical behaviour extends to a slightly unhealthy liking of power ballads. They’ve been opening their UK gigs with a string of Phil Collins’ best – or worst – including ‘Against All Odds, ‘In The Air Tonight’ and, when UK Music catches them in Brixton, ‘Take A Look At Me Now’. The alarm bells will ring for anyone who’s ever read ‘American Psycho’.
“I think our songs are a sort of experiment in various states of drunkenness,” explains Chris. “Keith’s lyrics are inspired by actual life events but it’s rarely confined. Maybe there’s a blurring of boundaries. They’re based on a number of people I think.”
Very little about We Are Scientists is conventional. They’ve chosen to follow up last year’s critically acclaimed debut ‘With Love and Squalor’ with a b-sides and outtakes record. It would smack of back catalogue-raiding cheekiness, if it weren’t such a wilfully rambunctious, ragbag collection. Fittingly, they’ve called it ‘Crap Attack’.
“The original idea was to have one of those special double discs with music on one side and a DVD of cool stuff on the other, but the guys at Virgin were getting tired of waiting and the album came out anyway,” Chris says. “We didn’t want to leave it mouldering in some dark closet so we thought we’d give the fans a chance to hear the stuff.”
What ‘Crap Attack’ lacks in quality control, it makes up for in curiosity, fitting the band’s penchant for the unconventional. Obsessive behaviour often harbours in creative minds, and We Are Scientists’ imaginations have a tendency to run riot. Appearing in American teen drama The OC is just one of their ambitions.
UK Music asks Chris how this might happen – a friendly chat with the producer maybe. Chris has an entire storyline planned. “The ideal scenario would be for us to start a high class gigolo service for all the disaffected and unhappy moms in the programme,” he offers. “We’d be going about our business in Newport Beach, and Michael and Keith would get hired and everything would be sweet. “But the trust that builds between me and Marissa’s mom would be shattered when we all develop infatuations with the daughters. This all occurs over the Christmas break incidentally, and it would all come out that we’re seeing the daughters and the moms and we’re all bound together by this.”
Not so much a cameo appearance then, as an entire series devoted to We Are Scientists’ uncontrollable sex drives. Strangely, The OC mother’s love-in isn’t dissimilar in subject matter to Keith’s songs. The femme fatales in ‘Lousy Reputation’ and ‘Inaction’ might be familiar to fans, so the band decided to have an advice section on their website.
“It comes back to experiences,” Chris offers. “It’s important to give insight into a scenario I think. Having been through all that relationship crap we can definitely empathise with where our readership is coming from.” UK Music wants to know if inviting close contact with fans can sometimes attract the occasional lunatic.
“We have some messages that would make your blood run cold,” Chris says, emphasising the last three words. “We had one a couple of months ago, from a girl who had been to one of our shows and was claiming she was pregnant with Michael’s child.
“I guess she wanted money or support for the kid but Michael was adamant it wasn’t his. I sent her emails and her story wasn’t adding up. We haven’t heard from her since, but y’know what, I got a feeling she’s going to pop up on the grid sooner or later,” Chris says ominously.
Being such a magnet for relationship carnage and random obsessives therefore, it’s a wonder the trio haven’t developed superhuman powers by now. So the legend goes; the group got its name when renting a van for their equipment, and were asked if they were scientists. Three perplexed, bespectacled faces replied in unison that they were, and the name stuck.
So what would they invent if they were scientists? Over to Chris: “Keith could be a marine biologist as he’s really into sea life,” he says. “One of us would have to have an advanced degree in electronics, because when we’re on tour you are at the mercy of other people’s equipment.
“Let me see,” Chris ponders. “I think I would prefer something abstract like physics. I’d want to be on the edge of antagonistic towards mainstream science – string theory or something. I like the idea of being the thorn in the side of people in the scientific world.”
The band has a string of shows to play this month before heading back to California for Christmas. According to Chris, We Are Scientists will record new material early next year. “I don’t think we write well on the road,” he says. “There’s a bunch of ideas floating around and some of them do stick.
“The biggest hassle being on the road is electrical equipment failing. Amps and expensive guitars breaking equals major drama. I think it will inform our new record’s sound.” UK Music has no idea what Chris means. “The new songs will basically be the same idea as ‘With Love and Squalor’, the same sound, only the entire thing will be a cappella. We’ve been practicing our singing a lot and we’ve decided to eschew tradition by using no instruments,” he adds with unnerving seriousness. “But you know our fans needn’t worry about our new direction, as we’ll be the same in every other regard.” UK Music’s brain is already frazzling at the prospect.
Crap Attack is out now
Words: Alex Donohue
Website: www.wearescientists.com
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Want her number Keith??? xxxxxxxxxxx 
