Polyrhythmic
preppy pop

>>NYC’s Vampire Weekend on their eclectic
tastes, clean-cut looks and DIY horror roots

BATTY BOYS: Vampire Weekend

By LORRAINE CARPENTER

Less than two years after Vampire Weekend was hastily assembled to play a battle of the bands, the New York City boys are about to release their debut album on XL (Jan. 29), having already toured overseas with the Shins, had a single of the week on BBC Radio 1 and been profiled up and down the Internet and in dozens of newspapers more respectable than this one. Singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig, keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij, bassist Chris Baio and drummer Chris Tomson met at Columbia University, where they studied English, music, Russian regional studies with a minor in mathematics, and economics/music (double major), respectively. Power pop, new wave and polyrhythmic Afro-pop are their bread and butter, with lyrics referencing Lil Jon, Peter Gabriel, the United Colors of Benetton and dull New England holidays. The Mirror questioned Tomson about the band’s origins, preppy image and the backyard vampire movie that inspired their name.

Mirror: At what point did you feel that this band was really working?

Chris Tomson: From the beginning. We’ve all been in so many bands, but this definitely felt a little different, a little more solid, even from the first couple of rehearsals. The tipping point was somewhere in March of this year, when the percentage of people we knew to not-knew at our shows started tipping in the not-knew favour. The shows got bigger from there.

M: What kind of bands had you been in before?

CT: We’d all been in the requisite embarrassing high school bands—I was in a jam band, my man Chris Baio was in a ska-punk band. Then in college, we just fooled around. There were a couple of permutations of a folk band and Ezra had a rap group that I was in and Ross produced, but there was nothing that we really wanted to invest time in until Vampire Weekend.

M: So how did the African influence come about?

CT: We’d always been musically inclined friends, we would send music back and forth, and that was just one genre that we had all been interested in. I remember the practice when Ezra brought in the guitar part for “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” being like, this is pretty cool, and there’s a lot there if we want to pursue that. It came in in little bits, but we were excited once we started messing around with it.

M: Was Ezra’s Vampire Weekend movie ever completed?

CT: No, it was a pretty half-baked enterprise. The furthest it got was the trailer, which is online. As promised, it should be released Christmas 2005.

M: There’s been some blog backlash about you guys already, but most of it seems to involve your image. The word “preppy” really follows you guys around.

CT: We’re conscious of how we’re presented, both musically and visually, and it’s not entirely a fluke—we do play it up a little bit. In the end, I hope that it comes down to whether or not people like the songs. All the stuff that’s happened for us has been because people have heard the music online and liked it, which is the ultimate goal. We’re just trying to be honest about presenting the music and presenting ourselves, and people can judge for themselves.

With guests at Club Lambi on
Friday, Dec. 14, 9 p.m., $12