| VAMPIRE WEEKEND - [ band-geek ] rock and roll, complete control. |
| Written by Shahlin Graves |
| Friday, 28 May 2010 10:09 |
 If VAMPIRE WEEKEND's CHRIS BAIO ever finds himself short of bass-playing and DJ gigs, I would snap him up in a heartbeat as a swagger coach. During the band's first and only New Zealand show, I found myself constantly marvelling at Baio's onstage foot-work. My admiration for his adapted fancy two-step, is boundless. Twenty-five-year-old Baio, graduated from Columbia University in May 2007, with a major in Russian regional studies and a minor in Math - and as the fairy-tale goes - enter the same manager as The White Stripes, a critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, followed up by the #1 U.S. Billboard chart debuting 'Contra', and even a #12 debut for their second album on the official New Zealand albums chart... all point to the fact that Baio and his New York-based cohorts, are living the dream. Not shabby at all, some would say. But Baio still wakes up every day, thanking his lucky stars. "I am definitely still stoked! I have this weird recurring nightmare where I don't get to graduate 'cuz I didn't do enough homework, or I didn't take the right classes. I wake up and it's like - oh shit, I get to play a show tonight for a lot of people - I'm still pretty psyched about it definitely. I'm not that jaded after three years or so, definitely no." Baio's genuine enthusiasm is contagious, even though he admits that Vampire Weekend's non-stop touring schedule can be "a very physically and emotionally draining process".  As all fans (and detractors) know, all four members of Vampire Weekend are Columbia graduates. Lead vocalist Ezra Koenig is an English major, whereas drummer Chris Tomson [ C.T. ] and keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij both majored in music. Baio and Koenig were Columbia suite-mates, Tomson and Batmanglij met as first-years in diatonic theory class, Koenig and Batmanglij met at a party, and Tomson played in the country-band Midnight Hours with Baio, as well as guesting on-stage playing guitar for Koenig's electro-rap project L'Homme Run. Vampire Weekend was inevitable: playing their very first show at a student Battle Of The Bands judged by the President of the Engineering school, placing third out of four. The band self-produced their first album after graduation - holding down full-time jobs as an eighth-grade English teacher, film score composer's assistant, and an archivist for Sony BMG - while Baio, a year younger than the rest of his band-mates, finished his last year of University concurrently. That self-titled debut, would go on to be one of the most universally name-dropped titles, in the music press' Best Of 2008 annual round-ups. Baio is also a dab-hand DJ on the side, originating from a background in college radio, where his own personal D.I.Y. experiences continue to keep him grounded. "It blows my mind! When I had my own radio show, I had maybe twenty people listening to it, right? It was an Internet radio station, and I loved it, and it was really fun. But the idea that I'm in a band that had the Number One record in America for a week - that sold 124,000 copies in one week in America - it still boggles my mind." But 'Contra', wasn't just any number one album. As only the twelfth independently distributed album in U.S. history to reach the top spot on the Billboard 200 (since data began to be recorded in 1991), the triumph was in many ways, much bigger than just a simple measure of the band's success. I begin to say - Twelfth Number One album in the States from an independent - and Baio finishes for me: "label! And that includes some-one like The Eagles. Who I don't consider to be an independent. They're not the most - the [ unauthentic ] forefathers of American independent rock selling - 'cuz they sold their album through Wal-mart. Obviously more power to them, but that's a very different thing than from what we did." The likes of Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Ice Cube, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, as well as the 'Lion King' and 'Pochahontas' soundtracks, round out the 'independent twelve' - and it's plain to see - that Vampire Weekend's Number One is so much more than just another brag-sheet statistic. But Baio, tries not to read any press or blogs relating to Vampire Weekend. "I try my best to not read stuff about our band" - he says, and as for online and media commentary on Batmanglij publicly coming out earlier this year - "as far as that goes, everyone around us has been very supportive of him and I haven't read anything [ negative ] along those lines. But if anyone did say anything like that, I wouldn't want them to listen to our music in the first place." Amen! And Baio would also like you to know the following, before you judge his self-portrait: "I'd like to preface by saying that my sister is a visual artist. But I have none of the same talents as her."  COUP DE MAIN: Was it quite an intense last year at Columbia, having to juggle Vampire Weekend with your studies? CHRIS BAIO: Yeah, definitely. Because at that point, we were taking meetings with record labels, we were playing shows every weekend, we would even drive to other places as well. We'd be recording and I'd go down to Greenpoint where Rostam was living and track stuff... It was a busy time. I felt like in general, I was just super psyched with the prospect of getting to be a musician, that it became a thing that I would think about more than I would think about my studies and stuff like that. I still did fine, but it was an interesting time in my life. CDM: Looks like you've done pretty well for yourself, graduating from an Ivy League... and eating at the same burger joint as Justin Bieber, I hear? CHRIS: Mmmm-hmmm. I did pretty well! I went to Murder Burger yesterday. When I was in there, they were all talking about how I think some-one - I think Justin Bieber played a couple of songs up the block from it - and they said that some-one in his camp came and got him a burger. We had been talking about him a lot. Especially actually, last time we came to Australia, C.T. was on a real big Justin Bieber kick. I just thought it was really interesting to finally cross paths with him in New Zealand. And like really - the TV, everyone's just talking about it on the radio - it's a big deal that he was here. I think he just left... CDM: Yeah, he left last night. The airport on the night of his arrival was mad chaos. You're staying in the same hotel as he did, actually... CHRIS: Oh my god! CDM: Bieber aside, do you have a secret love for pop music? CHRIS: I don't think it's secret. I like it a lot. Someone like The-Dream, I find really interesting, that he's this newer producer/performer/model, that started with I guess you could say Timbaland and The Neptunes, but he really writes music that's incredible for other artists. And then he also releases his own really incredible albums. 'Love vs. Money' is definitely one of my favourite albums that came out last year. He actually has written a few of Justin Bieber's songs. If I interviewed him [ Justin Bieber ], I'd ask him what it was like to collaborate with The-Dream. CDM: ...And a high-five for the Joe Jonas cameo in the 'Giving Up The Gun' music video! How'd that come about? CHRIS: He came to our show, the day 'Contra' came out, in Los Angeles. And he took a picture of us on his Twitter, and posted it. So we knew, that he was at least interested in our music and in our band. We were filming the video out in L.A. and we were just kinda throwing out ideas for celebrity cameos and that was one that came - and he was a super sweet guy. Kinda just rolled up, we hung out with him for a little bit, and filmed his part. I thought he did a great job, it's cool.  CDM: With you being so busy with Vampire Weekend, did you ever feel like you were missing out on the college parties that your peers were attending/throwing? CHRIS: There were people I knew that came to college and had never drank before, and never partied, and maybe got a little bit too carried away with it when they did finally get out of the house... I feel like I got that stuff out of my system when I was sixteen and knew to balance things - but at the same time - it's not like I was out getting my medical degree. Playing in a band, you can still have plenty of fun! CDM: You're at the age, where society deems it appropriate and important, for a grown-up full-time job to be committed to. With the economic recession and downturn, do you have friends your age who are still stuck looking for jobs, post-university? CHRIS: Absolutely. And I think in general, it's just an interesting age to be at, after college. You spend so much of your life, being on this academic trajectory - and then when it's done - all of a sudden the whole world is maybe open to you. But you're the one that's really in charge of your path. And that can be a really scary thing, I think. So I definitely have friends who - they've gone to multiple jobs, they've had trouble finding jobs, some have gone back to school - it's a very transitional period in anyone's life. I think definitely people have, even like my girlfriend for example, she works her job - and just the fact that she has a job - she just feels super lucky in this economy. But it can really shape, I think, the way you view the world. CDM: Maybe the problem is that our generation is so complacent? CHRIS: I'm not the type to generalise about an entire generation. I think the most general thing I can say, is that things are way more dispersed, and way more de-centralised than they were twenty years ago. I don't really feel like people talk about my generation the way people would talk about Generation X in their early 90's when Nirvana blew up. I feel like there was an easier, more coherent narrative to find, than you can now. Do you think there's one? CDM: It's tricky to tell. Things keep changing so fast with technology... Speaking of, it's really great to see Vampire Weekend breaking down the fourth wall between the band and fans - that a lot of other indie bands hide behind - often replying to fans on Twitter via your personal accounts! CHRIS: Yeah! I think you can realise that a lot of people in bands - well - I guess you kinda wanna... There's a lot less mystique in playing in a rock band today, than in the 60's or 70's. I don't think there's any bands that I can think of, that have this rock god myth that like Led Zeppelin had. And maybe it's just a humanising thing to realise that a ton of people in bands that make really exciting music, are just big nerds. And you know, maybe the Internet's done a lot in just exposing that long-held secret. CDM: Aside from bass-playing duties, you also do DJ sets from time to time. Is that an extracurricular you take seriously, or just a fun thing to pass the time? CHRIS: No, I do actually. I've been getting really into mixing, and there's kinda like an art to it I think. I feel like I still have a lot of ways to grow. But you can just watch the way that other people blend songs together, and it can be a pretty mind-blowing thing. And you can hear music in a very different way, depending on the way a DJ presents it. I did it a little bit in college, but now I've been doing it more. But yeah, it's not, I think you can definitely have a sense of humour about it. Like a lot of the time I'll finish my set with 'Sandstorm' by Darude - do you know that song? That's a funny song. People also go apeshit when you play it. But at the same time, it's not like the whole thing is a joke. CDM: What are your thoughts on anyone, being able to 'DJ' as easily as plugging in an iPod? CHRIS: There's still people that do it poorly... and people that do it very, very well. I think there's still an incredible spectrum. I guess there's something that's appealing in it, in that everyone on some level is a DJ. But people still go to clubs, and there's still... it is interesting - with everyone having an iPod now - when music is so personalised and things like Pandora and making your own playlists, there's something really powerful about a room full of people all dancing to the same song. CDM: You also logged time as a college rock director at WBAR (Barnard College Freeform Radio) - what was that like? CHRIS: I really enjoyed it actually. I found in general, I got involved in that station toward the end of my freshmen year, and I just loved how there's this incredible library of music that I'd never heard of from all over the world and different genres. I could go play some songs for two hours every week - play whatever I wanted to - and then also spend that time putting more music on my computer and getting into more things. It definitely informs the way that I think about music and I think in general, made me a more open-minded consumer of music. CDM: Did that work-experience help you in booking early Vampire Weekend tours? CHRIS: Yeah I sent a lot of the e-mails out to venues and tried to get shows and tried to get people interested in it. It can be a tough thing, because you know these people at venues are getting e-mails like that every day, but I think just my experience in working in running a radio station... When you're a music director, you have people constantly sending you music and trying to get - I mean, I'm sure you have the exact same thing when you do a magazine - that you have people constantly wanting to get your attention. And I think I learnt a lot from being on that end of things, when I was trying to book the tour, the first tour we did.  CDM: Auto-tune is used on Ezra's vocals in 'California English'. Have artists like T-Pain given auto-tune a bad name? CHRIS: No! Not at all. I guess in general, because it's such a popular trend in mainstream American pop, that there's been some kind of negative reaction to it. But at the same time, it's a really interesting effect and really interesting texture, and a lot of credit goes to Rostam for producing our music, and all the work that he puts into it, and just trying different things. Ezra did a vocal take, Rostam threw auto-tune on it, and we all liked the way it sounded. It was more just about serving the song, which is sort of the way that we work in general. We wanna do the best that we can with it and make it the most interesting to our ears. And putting auto-tune on 'California English', was just one reflection of that. CDM: In the Battle Of The Bands competition that Vampire Weekend was born in - you had a traitor in your midst! CHRIS: That's Chris Tomson, he played in Lion In The Grass. Which is very controversial! CDM: But, you forgave him eventually? CHRIS: It was very controversial actually, because basically, Lion In The Grass was also a course that you were receiving college credit for. So it was like he was taking a class, but then the class which also has a teacher and everything, was competing with bands that weren't in classes. I didn't get any college credit for playing in Vampire Weekend, you know. So it was definitely an early hurdle to get over with C.T. winning and us losing to C.T.. But I think sorta since then, in the four years since, we've managed to pave everything over. CDM: ...Because his winnings of a twelfth share in $200 got him so far in life... CHRIS: Yeah yeah exactly! *laughs* Before Baio is whisked away to sound-check for Vampire Weekend's sold-out show that night at the Bruce Mason Centre, I ask him to ready his 'best face' for a polaroid photo. He mishears - thanks kiwi accent - and thinks I've asked for his "bass face". As a parting bestowal, Baio offers up an endearing anecdote. "Do you like Metallica at all, or did you ever? No? When Jason Newsted joined the band [ Metallica ], he got hazed a lot. We would joke about this at the beginning of [ Vampire Weekend ] the band, because I was a year younger than the other guys. So there was a joke that he would haze me. So when he [ Jason ] would sign stuff, he would write Jason Newsted, and he would write "bass face" on it. And then either Lars [ Ulrich ] or James Hetfield would cross out the 'b', so it would say 'Jason ass face'. You just reminded me of that."  |
