Last month, Joshua and Jessica got the chance to chat with Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser of the fab dance rock outfit MGMT. The guys turned out to be really awesome despite some hate they get in the press, so hanging with them was more of a long and disjointed conversation rather than an interview. It was a great time nonetheless, have a read:
Joshua Hammond, PopWreckoning: You guys recently appeared on “Live From Austin City Limits” what was it like for you guys to be in the studio…
Ben Goldwasser, MGMT: No, actually we didn’t.
Jessica McGinley, PopWreckoning: Abbey Road.
JH: That’s what I meant — what did I say?
BG: Austin City Limits.
JM: [laughs] We are here.
JH: My bad.
BG: It was cool.
JH: “Live From Abbey Road.” [What was it like] to be in a place where Pink Floyd and The Beatles recorded?
BG: It was really cool. The whole environment of the TV production thing was a little weird, like having cameras in our face while we’re recording. They’d touch up our make-up and stuff.
Andrew VanWyngarden, MGMT: After they left, we all got to hang out in the room where the Beatles did a lot of stuff. We saw the 4 tracks they used. It was really cool.
JH: That is cool.
BG: The whole crew that worked there was real old school studio guys who were just very professional and were real low stress.
JH: I heard that it was really relaxed for you guys, which is out of the norm.
JH: Due to a 30 second sound clip placed on iTunes, there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding your single “Time To Pretend.” How have you guys adjusted to that? Have you guys changed the way that you’ve done it.
BG: It is funny because when it first released it was a ‘Single of the Week’ and they had to take it down. They got all these complaints. We were like, “Come on!” You know? It’s obviously ironic or whatever.
We listened to the clip and it is pretty funny because it’s the only part of the song that’s all about shooting heroin. It’s Apple’s fault for picking it. They should’ve picked a different section.
JH: Yeah, that picked one of the worst 30 second clips they could’ve picked.
BG: They didn’t even bleep out the word “fuck” did they?
AVW: Who knows. It was funny. I dunno, I think a lot of the negative response from that was real overblown. Some sort of website for conservative mothers who, like, got up in arms about it. “If you want your children to stop being exposed to this crap, go post something on iTunes’ bulletin board.” It just didn’t seem very authentic.
JM: Somebody’s always crusading.
BG: Yeah, we just happened to be the target of one of those crusades.
JM: Publicity, though, right?
JH: I was just going to say, do you think the negative publicity helped you in a way?
BG: I think in a way…I dunno. I think we have this kind of weird image of being, like, drugged out freaks. That might be true, but that’s not the image we’re trying to promote.
All: [laugh]
BG: It’s about the music, man. We’re not trying to promote this image of being a party band.
AVW: It’s a little known fact that Tipper Gore signed a 7 page agreement to take that album to trial. She got paid like $60,000.
All: [silent]
AVW: I’m just kidding.
All: [laugh]
JH: Something that happens in music a lot is comparing bands to other bands. You guys get compared to The Flaming Lips quite a bit, but if you could put it in your words, not using other bands, how would you describe your sound?
BG: Um… It’s, uh, it’s changing a lot. I think there’s rock. There’s rock. [laughs]
I think there’s elements of the past, present and future. We get down with a lot of shitty sounds.
AVW: If I worked in a record store, I’d put it in the ‘Rock/Pop’ section.
JH: I read recently that your next album is going to be dual disc and is genre-splitting. Is there truth to this?
BG: It’s something we’re talking about. I think, mainly, we wanna…
AVW: We should say something else now so nobody knows what to expect.
BG: I think mainly now we just want to explore going further in the direction of both pop and in the direction of being more far out.
AVW: One third reggae, one third rock, one third
JM: Opera.
BG: One third opera!
AVW: Our next album is only going to be available on DVD and it’s going to be a rock operetta starring Jack Black.
BG: Produced by The Prodigy.
JH: Gothic overtones with a little polka.
JH: Your song “Electric Feel” was recently covered by The Kooks. Have you heard the recording and are you fans of it?
BG: Haven’t heard the recording.
JM: I know that you have heard the remix that Jorge Elbrecht from Violens did and then you took those guys on tour.
BG: Well we were sort of friends before. We met him a couple times orf something and when we were trying to think of people to do remixes, we approached him. We were fans of Lansing-Dreiden, we didn’t really know him. We just started talking to him about a remix and then he got really into it. He said he almost vomited when he was making it and we said, “This is perfect!”
AVW: It really is the weirdest remix in the world.
JM: I’ve heard it, I think it’s pretty rad.
BG: That’s good! You’re one of the first people who’s said that.
JM: He almost vomited [laughs]. He did not tell me that.
BG: Oh, you talked to him about it?
JM: Yeah, I interviewed him a while back. I’ve hung out with Jorge a couple times.
BG: He’s great! He’s the best.
JM: He’s one of the smartest guys I think I’ve ever met.
BG: He really is! He’s an actual genius. The things that he’s working and producing right now are really cool. Have you heard Violens’ stuff at all?
JM: Yeah, I’ve been to a couple of their shows. They’re pretty good.
BG: We’re touring with them in England, too.
JM: Yeah, that’ll be cool. But enough about that other band.
AVW: They’re better than us! Listen to Violens!
JH: If you guys could tell people one thing about your band that they don’t know, something that’s miscontrued quite a bit, what would it be?
BG: I don’t think that we’re… We’re not hipsters.
AVW: Yeah, we’re not.
JH: I find that people assume that you’re pretentious quite a bit. Just from sitting here, it’s not like that at all.
BG: We’re like the target. There’s all this message board and blog debate about how we’re the most pretentious, hipster band. We’re just…
JM: You’re just cool dudes.
BG: …an example of everything that’s wrong with bands right now.
AVW: We’re just normal, dorky guys.
JM: I think a lot of that comes with the Brooklyn associations.
BG: But we’re not from Brooklyn! We never said we were. People are getting pissed off at us for claiming to represent Brooklyn, but we don’t.
JH: Where are you guys actually from?
AVW: I don’t have a place right now. Ben lives in New Jersey.
BG: Yeah, I live in New Jersey. I’m thinking about moving to [town]. But I don’t wanna print that. I don’t wanna blow it up.
JM: Scratch that.
BG: That’s totally gonna be the cool spot. Do you know [town]?
JM: Yeah, I went to school in New York City.
AVW: Not many people have been there.
JM: Isn’t it…
BG: In [borough]? On [body of water]?
JM: Yeah. There was a restaurant there called [restaurant] — it’s got a different name now.
BG: [restaurant]?!! [laugh]
JM: Yeah, I’ve dined there, [laughs], so I’ve been to [town].
BG: That’s cool.
JM: But I went to school in [borough], so that’s the only reason I know it.
JH: Fordham. You’re a Fordham kid.
JM: [laughs] Yeah, just about every interview I seem to mention Fordham, I don’t know why. Mostly with bands from New York.
BG: You represent the Bronx.
JM: We’ll represent the Bronx, but we won’t tell anyone you wanna move to [town].
JH: We should print everything but the place, and just put a big bleep over it. “I’m gonna move to bleep” just to fuck with people’s heads.
BG: It’s the coolest place in the world. Brooklyn is over. Bleep is now!
JH: Or we should change it to Delaware.
BG: Atlantic City. Or Asbury Park. Somewhere on the Jersey shore. People tend to really blow it up now.
BG: I know the real cool spot: Arkansas, man. No, seriously. Arkansas is cool. I grew up in Nashville and the Ozarks… we could live in the Ozarks.
JH: Right there on that Missouri-Arkansas border.
AVW: It’s so pretty!
BG: We could turn into cartoon bears and rabbits and only wear overalls. We could have three shows a day.
AVW: We could disappear for 6 months and we come back and we’re cartoon animals.
BG: That would be cool. You know that The Bugs had their own store in New York and it was just like Bugs central? We could have the MGMT headquarters.
AVW: We’ve got an office.
JM: So you guys are on tour with Beck!
BG: We were really nervous. We heard all sorts of things about being on tour with Beck. We were under the impression that he was fragile or that he could get mad at us at any moment. He’s like the nicest guy, like he comes and says hi.
In El Paso he had an after show, a secret show in this coffee shop. He played four songs and then we played a few songs. He’s just the coolest. The band’s really cool.
JH: I’m actually really surprised that he is a nice guy. Again with the pretentious thing, he would scare me.
AVW: No, he’s such a nice guy.
BG: With Beck and like, Radiohead, they’re the kind of guys that keep to themselves, so you assume, but he’s really a nice guy.
JH: It would suck to be on a tour with somebody that made you miserable for fucking weeks at a time. If you move his gear six inches to the right, he punches you in the face.
BG: This is actually like the most laid back tour we’ve ever been on.
JH: Good to hear. We’ve definitely taken up enough of your time, so thanks and enjoy the rest of ACL.
JM: Yeah, thanks for hangin’ for so long.
BG: Cool, thanks.
AVW: Thank you! Later.
MGMT: website | myspace | acl 2008
Photo: Jon Bergman
