Just The Two Of Us: We Are Scientists

“What is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?” asks Mimi, a concerned We Are Scientists fan. “A muffin has a fish centre. A cupcake has icing on top, and has a centre of pork or boar,” respond We Are Scientists, in unison, on a section of their website called ‘Advice’. Mimi is no one off. Trawl your way through the pages of ‘advice’ that We Are Scientists have handed out over recent months and you’ll find plenty of Mimi’s. Jostein, another recent advice seeker for example, “smells bad under her knees”. “Do I eat too much turkey?” she ponders. “You don’t eat enough turkey,” is We Are Scientists' short answer, which rapidly unravels into a more complex explanation involving cell phones and a smell that is “somewhere between pine and freshly laid blacktop.”

There aren’t too many bands like We Are Scientists, who these days consist of just vocalist and guitarist Keith Murray and bass player Chris Cain (drummer Michael Tapper left the group “admirably” in October 2007). In a world where even rock musicians are destined to conform, they seem to exist to show that that simply doesn’t have to be the case. That’s not to say, however, that during the three years since they released their debut album, ‘With Love And Squalor’, they smashed up guitars and threw televisions out of hotel windows. Rather, Murray and Cain’s nonconformity comes in the form of spontaneous university seminars, quirky onstage gimmicks and ironic advice sections on a website; all of which coexist alongside the day-to-day recording and performing duties of being in a band.

There are no gimmicks to be seen as Murray and Cain wriggle to get comfortable in the restaurant booth of a deserted music venue just off Regent Street. Today they’re here to talk about their second album, ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’; an album of eleven songs that at times seem a world away from the post-punk guitar sound of their debut. “I feel like we’ve pulled a fast one with that,” says Murray, about the synth lead ‘Ghouls’, which opens the album. “We definitely wanted to do something, I guess unexpected wasn’t the intention but definitely not doing the same record was important to us.”

Those who are familiar with We Are Scientists will know what comes next here. It’s the area of their personalities that turns often serious answers into comic impasse; where Murray and Cain rebound off each other like a well refined comedy double act.

Still talking about why it was important to move away from the sound of their first record, Murray continues: “Just personally so we weren’t playing the same style and, I’ll be honest with you, junk garbage that we were on the last record. But also because it would be pretty embarrassing to put out a record that sounded very much like our last one. That would seem like we were just riding the wave, sure, that we created…”

“A huge wave,” interjects Cain, stretching each monosyllable. “The tsunami that was born of earthquake We Are Scientists,” describes Murray. “It’s a wonderful wave that I think you’ll notice a lot of bands…”

“It’s a crowded wave these days, not a lot of space on top,” Cain reveals, once again interrupting Murray mid sentence. “And a lot of stoners came out capitalising on our break,” adds Murray. “That pisses me off,” jokes Cain, sipping on his water. This time there’s no response from Murray. Either their material has run out or the scene is over.

Work on ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ began in December 2006 - “kind of immediately” after they had finished two years of relentless touring of, ‘With Love And Squalor’. After four months of recording what Murray calls “really, really basic demos” at their practise space in New York, the band – still with Tapper on drums – moved onto “fairly detailed demos” with a producer before travelling to The Plant in Sausalito, California to record the album proper.

“You expect that the equipment will work” Murray says, about recording at a studio that, since it opened in the 1970s, has seen the likes of Prince, Huey Lewis and Van Morrison entrust it with one of their albums. “You feel like at least they probably will have good equipment, which on our first record was actually a pretty serious problem.”

Among the equipment that clearly worked was a keyboard, an instrument that has given ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ a far greater diversity than their first record; from the subtle synths that ripple in the background of ‘Lethal Enforcer’ to the “Fo-Sho” power-pop melodies of ‘Chick Lit’, it’s an omnipotent presence. “While we were recording we just allowed ourselves to say, ‘Oh, what else would be good here?’ and the answer always was the keyboard,” Murray admits. Cain jokes that by the end of recording they would solve any teething problem by saying: “Let’s throw in the keyboard.”