VAMPIRE WEEKEND - READY FOR THE WEEKEND

“In 25 years time how will people look back on this record? I think they would look at it as the record where Vampire Weekend really went for it and they branched out into many directions at once and they staked new territory as their own.”
Rostam Batmanglij, multi-instrumentalist and sometime vocalist for one of the most exciting bands to emerge from the saturated New York scene over the past few years – Vampire Weekend – is high on anticipation for the band’s second album, Contra: one of the first, and most highly anticipated, records of the new decade.
And it comes just shy of exactly two years after their acclaimed self-titled debut. In that time, they even fitted in an 18-month world tour. In fact, the four-piece started work on Contra only two weeks after their tour wrapped.
“Being in New York was kind of a break after such a long traveling schedule, so we looked forward to spending time [there], and we looked forward to recording as well. So we were able to do both at once,” Batmanglij says. “And we had ideas that we wanted to strike while the iron was hot. So that was our mindset.”
Their ‘mindset’ was to develop on the ideas they explored on the first album, and challenge themselves. “When we started [out] we had a conversation where we said we should have a ska song,” he recalls. “But none of our songs from the first record we would actually call a ska song. So maybe on this second record now, there’s a way in which we’ve, I guess in some ways we’re less self-conscious and we can make that ska song. It’s not in any means strict in terms of like it doesn’t strictly conform to ska music but we would think of it as our ska song, so like a song like Holiday, that’s the example for us for a ska song. So in some ways, I guess, we feel like now we can be more direct with things and I guess maybe in some ways we’re less self-conscious as a band.”
In comparison, the title for their record, as well as the album art, happened by chance.
“It came about very early on in the process and as soon as it came up, I felt pretty strong that it was the right choice.
“It was late at night at the studio once when I found this photograph, it ended up becoming our album cover, and I mocked up our album cover with ‘Vampire Weekend’ and ‘Contra’ on top of this photograph. Then it became clear that we had to name our album Contra and this would be the cover.”
In addition to recording in their hometown, the band also spent a couple of weeks south of the border to work on the album.
“We spent about two weeks in Mexico, we played three shows in different cities in Mexico and we also spent some time recording the song Cousins; it’s our new single. The drums, bass and guitar of that song were recorded in Mexico. So it was something new for us to record outside of New York.”
However, the album’s opening track, Horchata, which was made available as a free download on their website, and named after a Mexican drink, wasn’t actually conceptualised here.
“In fact, we had an idea for that song before we finished the first record. So maybe going to Mexico came out of an interest in wanting to experience Mexican culture in a direct way.”
Batmanglij, as per the first album, mixed and produced Contra. But while in Mexico they also spent some time with producer Toy Selectah.
“We hung out. We got high together and listened to records,” he remembers. (Vaguely.) “We didn’t actually work with him in the creative process of making our album. But what we did do was once [we’d] recorded all of our songs and we mixed them, we sent him all of the tracks and he built these two megamelts, which are these like very strange, kind of like collisions of various songs from our album happening at once. And it’s kind of one of those things you have to hear it to believe it. So look out for that, we’re going to release that soon.”
Before Vampire Weekend embarks on a world tour again the band has “to go back to New York and figure out how to play four of these songs [live].”
“Right now we’re able to play six... I think one of my favourite songs to play live is White Sky. Well, it’s the only one of our songs right now that has a backing track. And it’s fun to listen to the way our drummer walks in to the drum machine and the synth parts and how they interact with each other. There’s something fun about that.”
He also says that they’ll they’ll definitely be back in Sydney this year, following up their promo tour which saw them play the Oxford Art Factory in late November.
“It was fun,” Batmanglij says of the brief trip. “You know, it seemed like there were some drunk people in the audience. [So it’ll be] nice to play some new songs for our Australian fans, who I think are some of the most loyal fans we have.”
With those other four tracks (hopefully) learnt by then, us Australian fans can expect Vampire Weekend to play the “whole album”, apparently.
“[We love] getting the whole crowd involved,” he says. “We have the song Blake’s Got A New Face, which has a call and response, and then we have another song Horchata where it has a lot of vocal parts that are simple so we sometimes we try to teach people to sing that with us.”