Riding Shotgun with the Walkmen

ar commercials suck. But on rare occasions, they can be useful. Case in point, my love of the Walkmen. It's hard to believe that nearly five years have elapsed since I first began listening to that bunch of NYC transplants. There was a time in my life when, after seeing the aforementioned ad for a car that I've long since forgotten, I couldn't get the music from said anonymous plug out of my head. The song, the one with the somewhat off-kilter piano and charmingly warbling vocals, grabbed a hold of my grey matter and wouldn't let go. Finally, after I in desperation emailed the car company, I discovered that I was enamored with "We've Been Had," as performed by some guys called the Walkmen. Now, years later, those same guys are preparing the release of their fourth full-length album. My how they've grown. Just another example of local kids made good...once they've left the area. With a new record comes touring, and happily the Walkmen will be in the area twice in the coming weeks, so make sure to be in attendance. Read on to see what Hamilton Leithauser and Walt Martin had to say about the wonderful world of Walkmen (black socks! Sacramento! Popeye's!), and mark March 23rd and April 7th on your calendars.

Touring is:
H: Like being delayed in an airport...which also happens a lot.
W: 90% hell, 10% fun.

Our first gig was:
H: A little sweet in the pants.
W: Terrible, embarrassing and unattended.

Our favorite venue to play is:
H: Schuba's, Chicago.
W: Frat parties.

Hygiene on a tour is:
H: Impeccable for myself, questionable for some.
W: Overlooked.

Our favorite thing about touring is:
H: Long, silent dinners together in the local yuppie neighborhood.
W: Hunting on our days off.

And the least favorite:
H: Impossible to answer.
W: Waiting around constantly.

City with the best audiences:
H: New York.
W: Chicago.

Band member most likely to disappear after a gig:
H: Matt.
W: Matt.

The tour bus/van smells like:
H: A prison.
W: horseshit.

Laundry is: a) washed regularly, b) washed irregularly, c) we go shopping a lot:
H: A.
W: C.

What's the most unusual item on your rider?
H: 5 pairs black socks, one pint chloroform.
W: Gatorade.

Who controls the music in the touring vehicle? And what do you like to listen to while tooling around on tour?
H: The driver usually gets control...he is in a slightly bad mood because he has to drive. Ninety nine percent of the time it is early Johnny Cash, early Bob Marley, or vague late Bob Dylan.
W: The driver controls the music-we listen to oldies radio mostly.

What's your favorite new watering hole that you've found while on tour?
W: All bars on tour feel the same.

And/or the best place to cure late night cravings?
H: If I'm really hungry late night, there is usually some sketchy pizza party over in Pete's room, or Pete has some shady snack figured out, so I usually just go to him.
W: Steak and Egg on Wisconsin Ave.

Most amusing memory from your current or most recent tour?
H: Our manager told us recently that we "do not know how to run a business."
W: I remember Ham and Pete DJing at a huge club full of people and clearing out the room in 5 minutes.

Favorite tour activity (other than the gigs themselves):
H: Driving.
W: We golf.

What bands have you most enjoyed touring with?
H: We've had an especially nice time with Idlewild, Richard Swift, Mazarin, and Rockwell.
W: Modest Mouse, the Pogues.

And what band/s, past or present, would the Walkmen most like to tour with?
W: The Beatles.

Favorite song (Walkmen or otherwise) to play live:
H: All the new songs.
W: "Come Dancing" by the Kinks.

Please name the city you wouldn't ever play in again? Or if not a particular city, which venue (if any) would you not mind seeing razed to the ground?
H: We'll probably never play Sacramento again, because they will probably never have us back. We were just awful when we went through there. Actually, the venue there was brutal as well. I believe it was called the "Boardwalk".
W: I love all clubs.

Apart from the obvious CDs, what's the merch item of yours you think people should shell out for?
H: Now that we don't print t-shirts ourselves anymore, they don't come out blank and shredded after they are washed.
W: The handbags.

Other than friends and family, what's the thing you miss most about DC?
H: My dogs.
W: Popeye's.

Have you been to the top of the Washington Monument?
H: Yes, probably twenty years ago.
W: Yes.

What's the latest on Walkmen album number four?
H: In the fall we stopped playing concerts all together so that, for the first time in about four and a half years, we could live at home and really write songs on a daily basis like we did originally when the band got together. It took a period of adjustment, but we got into the swing of it after a couple of months. Touring over the last couple years, we had developed a live reverby-wash sound that really permeated our entire last record, "A Hundred Miles Off."
That's the sound we wanted on tape for that record and I think we did it pretty well. But anyhow we really wanted to make a change in our sound for this new record and give each song it's own unique sound. So anyhow now we're about halfway done with the recordings and I think we've done it better than ever before.
W: It's the best thing we've ever done and we're 3/4 finished with it.

What would you like people to be saying about the Walkmen in 50 years?
H: "Wow, it's very clear now that those guys were the Velvet Underground of their time. I love that fucking band and all their fucking records."
W: "Their 4th record was the best."

If we weren't in the Walkmen, we'd be:
H: Hosed.
W: Happy.

Do any of you still have Walkmen?
H: iPods.
W: No.

Please recite a line of poetry:
H: "Andra poi ennapei moosa, pollutropon has malla polla, plangthei epei troyase, hieron pltoliethron eperson." I had to learn that in ninth grade. I'm sure it's very rough. It's the first line of the Odyssey.
W: I am the Walrus.

And finally, it's BigYawn's round. What's your poison?
H: Brandy Alexanders.
W: Gin and Tonic.

For more Walkmen goodness, peruse www.thewalkmen.com, and www.myspace.com/thewalkmen.

 

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