Band of the Week: We Are Scientists

This is not an article about We Are Scientists’ music. It contains little to no information about their songs, instrumentation or recording process.

At least, that’s the way bassist Chris Cain would have it if he could. He agrees the classic quote claiming that talking about music is like boogying to architecture is true to a degree—“which isn’t to say that dancing about architecture can’t be descriptive or enlightening,” he adds. This notion seems to propel most of the band’s lighthearted trajectory: its videos are unrelated to its oft-bittersweet lyrical musings, and its website has its own advice section complete with bar graphs.

Experiencing Cain's conversational leapfrog is like a visit to a tangent city, yielding diatribes about the popularity of ham in Spain and plays to destroy the band Liars to acquire taller band members. It's like the music is secondary, unworthy of typical inquiry.

The uprooted Californians—now nesting in the enviable pastiche of Brooklyn music and grime—are one of the few elites that can own those “Big in (insert country)” t-shirts. Fueled by the English post-post-punk revival, We Are Scientists released both their debut With Love and Squalor and latest, Brain Thrust Mastery, in the U.K. before their motherland. “[Virgin Records were] like: ‘We don’t understand your ways, but we’ll let you make the call on this whole release schedule thing, We Are Scientists,” Cain jokes. “Who are we? We’re just Virgin Records.’”

In reality, the label wanted the band closer to home amidst their relentless touring for this week’s release (May 13) of Brain Thrust. “Truly a blessed touring life that We Are Scientists lead,” Cain says. “We always turn mishaps into boons. Bonanzas, even.” After the departure of drummer Michael Tapper, Cain and guitarist Keith Murray have filled the empty tour bus bunks with “semi-permanent” members (until they find taller folk, of course).

The duo will continue traversing in support of Mastery, a less dance-oriented endeavor than the bass-driven throwdowns that comprised their debut. “Many of the songs to me feel like just pop-rock, which is not to say they’re boring,” Cain says. “They’re just not dance-punk or new rave or cyberwave. Cyberwave. That’s what the Liars are, I think.”

Just don’t get Cain started on the disappearance of the '80s power ballad. “People don’t do that anymore and it is a goddamn shame, because that is a magnificent, magnificent genre,” he says. “‘Hungry Eyes’ by Eric Carmen, anybody? Wow. Wow. I’d love our next album to be a power-ballad album, and I think Keith is probably on the same page.”