EVER WISHED a band would name their album after you? Well, if your name is Barbara, that wish has finally come true. Joined-at-the-hip duo We Are Scientists have just given birth to a new album, and they've christened it Barbara. Up until now that fragrant but somewhat dated girl's name had to share equal billing with Ann in the title of a Beach Boys hit, but now, at last, Babs has a whole album title to herself.
Keith Murray, the singing and guitar- playing half of We Are Scientists, would like to stress, however, that his band’s third studio album is not about any specific person named Barbara. He’s never fallen in love with a Barbara, never had his heart broken by a Barbara, and – honest injun – he’s never stolen anyone’s girlfriend named Barbara.
“I think Barbara was intended to sort of be a representation of an everywoman kinda situation,” says Murray. “And it’s funny, because the reason we chose the name Barbara was that we felt like it was a familiar enough name that nobody would think it was a strange name, but we also suspected that most people wouldn’t know a Barbara. But it turns out that a lot of people actually do know specific Barbaras. One guy said to us: ‘My ex-girlfriend’s name is Barbara.’ What? We don’t even know your ex-girlfriend. Why would we name our record after your ex-girlfriend, you maniac?”
Fans of catchy, crackling guitar tuneology will welcome the return of US indie's oddball couple. Since their 2005 debut, With Love and Squalor, featuring the fab Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt, the LA duo have been flying the flag for animated alt-rock with a demented disco edge. Though outwardly a trio, Murray and bassist-vocalist Chris Cain have always been the nerdy nucleus of WAS, any drummer playing third wheel on this wacky, out-of-control pop vehicle. Their current sticks man is ex-Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows – he must really welcome the comic relief.
After taking a prog-rocky left turn on 2008's Brain Thrust Mastery(not to be confused with Emerson, Lake Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery), Barbara sees them return to the stripped-down, no-nonsense style that, says Murray, works best for them.
“I think the stripping-down was more a response to touring with the second album than with the album itself. Playing those songs as a three-piece was essentially impossible, so we incorporated a fourth guy. I think we sounded better than we ever have, but some of the energy and unpredictability of our live show was lost. So part of the idea for this record was we wanted to write songs that could be bashed out with enthusiasm as a three-piece. We really wanted it to be succinct and catchy, and have as little we could throw away as possible. We wanted a record that was essentially impossible to edit down any further.”
In tandem with their music, Murray and Cain have been maintaining their website, a "hub of weird, humour-based written experiments", developing their Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant side via a series of comedy MTV shorts entitled Steve Wants His Moneyand tapping into their inner Ant and Dec at the NME Awards. And, in the first of a series of blogs for the Guardian, they outlined the essential rules of partying. So, will they soon be following Flight of the Conchords into the comedy-rock firmament?
“I think that would have to entail writing silly songs, which is not part of our genetic make-up. We are averse to the silly song. I do think that there is an impact on the way people view us as a band because of our jocular tendencies. But that is legitimately just the way Chris and I behave and have behaved since before we were a band. If our personalities were a marketing construct, I’d say it would be the worst marketing construct in the world, in terms of selling our band as a serious-minded music band.
"Our website has always been the home for our creative writing – I don't know what other category it would fall into. So when we got the invitation from the Guardianpeople to do the blog, it just sort of seemed we could do the kind of thing we do on our website, and bring it to an audience that isn't necessarily typing wearescientists.com into their browser."
Go to the above web address and you will be plunged into the minds of two guys whose world view doesn’t chime with the usual po-faced rock stance. Delve deeper into their world and you suspect that, for these wild and crazy guys, being in a band is just a small part of a bigger, vividly colourful picture.
“That is definitely the context of our partnership, for sure. We were friends long before we were in a band together, and the band was maybe creative project N0 8 in a line of creative projects. I think the philosophy of the band is to not say no to any opportunity that’s put to us. But if something is pitched to us that’s truly terrible, we’ll try and subvert it somehow.”
-Barbara is out now. We Are Scientists play Oxegen on Friday, July 9
