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Cover of Contra
Has 26 years, a "straw" college and the conviction that between indie and "commercial music" since there is not much difference. Forebodes who did not miss that, the second disc, the Vampire Weekend wither. After all, what can four young men in their 20s do to repeat the success of an album that caught everyone off guard, band included? For Erza Koenig, who kindly spoke to BLITZ after Contra, the tome of the two Vampire Weekend, get to first place in the American charts, the answer is not easy, but the mission is completed. Songs like "Horchata", "Giving Up The Gun" or "I Think Ur Counter" give this young phlegmatic and bandmates are sure to be on the right track: that cements the signing of the quartet, while sails new ways. Learn how the head of a group that is so fast compared to the Clash to record a video with a singer of the Jonas Brothers.
After the great success with the first disc, which sort of tried to avoid clichés in the new Counter? We always try to position ourselves at the border between different things, in which case we had to stay on the border between repeating the first album and do something completely different. And I think neither of chance are very good. If you repeat is pathetic, because it will never be as good as the first time. If you do something completely different, it is as if you were to disallow what you did before, as if to say, the first album is a mess, I do not like that! Change is very important, but all the bands I like, as Radiohead and the Clash, they did so very smart. You look at their records and they are all different, but do not you get confused when trying to understand how they went from one to another. You realize that were made by the same people, and when you are fans of a band, like to think that, even if it has changed, is there anything that makes you feel you can trust her. That's what I hope we have achieved with this record.
It was very surprising to get to first place in the American charts? We knew there was a possibility of that happening, but still was not expecting. The person who hit us was the Susan Boyle, who appeared in one of the most watched television programs in the world and sells a dizzying array of disks! You look at the rest of the top and see the Lady Gaga, Ke $ ha ... When you think of the stuff, it really is a surprise!
Said in an interview that "hate the mainstream is out of fashion." Will the indie is the new mainstream? It can be. Nowadays, if you do not like what happens in radio, you can look for other things. But even my friends who enjoy experimental music, also know who the Jonas Brothers also like Lady Gaga, and speak of these things. This makes me think that the distinction between mainstream and indie culture no longer makes much sense. We're an indie label - no one makes decisions for us, we make our own albums and reached number one. Are we mainstream or indie? I think our fans do not care. Until we made a video with the Jonas Brothers and I met the boy: it is a normal type, grown in the same state as me, New Jersey. I think it is outdated to say "oh, I hate everything that's on MTV, I hate what happens in radio," because the truth is what makes Lady Gaga is probably more interesting than a lot of things we call indie. The most important distinction is between what is interesting and what is not. Since we are interesting, I'm glad.
So how were you able to shoot a video - of "Giving Up The Gun" - with the Jonas Brothers singer, actor Jake Gyllenhaal and RZA of Wu-Tang Clan? We invite them! (Laughs) Another idea is outdated to think that people are all disconnected from each other. "Ui, the RZA is the Wu-Tang Clan, do not even know who the Vampire Weekend." Actually, I grew up listening to Wu-Tang Clan! As for Lil Jon [another participant in the video], we have entered into contact with him a few years ago because it made reference in the song "Oxford Comma" and he sent us a few bars of his energy drink, "crunk juice". I know people find it strange all appear in the same video, but not so funny was not even very difficult!
Linked to one of the wealthier suburbs of New York, Vampire Weekend never starved but were not born with a silver spoon. Born in New Jersey, Erza Koenig confesses that she wanted a profession nothing glamorous to be a musician "half-bowl."
Some accuse the music of Vampire Weekend to be too clean and friendly for a wild city like New York. What do you say to that? New York has some of the wealthier neighborhoods and the world's poorest - has always been so, since our ancestors arrived here by boat. And we have that mentality that you can escape the ghetto and climb up to the Upper East Side, what happens to some, not all. That is the contradiction of New York. I could never ignore it, because I was a teacher in a very poor neighborhood, before starting the band. I know that, here, there are people living in poverty. That said, I do not think that the only way to tell the world with negativity is even being aware of how things are. For me, it still makes sense to be optimistic. I do not think our music is naive, just to be happy. So do we hear of so many incredibly rich that ends up killing himself? At many, if these people did a band, their music would be very black. But there are also people who live with many difficulties and make happy music, which makes us realize that there is only one "New York sound." The salsa music, for example, comes from New York - is it rough music? It's a mixed big. Taught English to kids in eighth grade. There is something of the life of a teacher who has missed? There is much that I have not missed any. I have not miss the stress of time. I miss the kids, because after the end what matters is this: try to be a good teacher for our students. I tried to keep me in touch with my students and I got: some kids came to a concert in New York last month, and it was awesome!
How to be an English teacher at a time when, thanks to the Internet and cellphone text messaging, language is increasingly shifting? This is an issue debated in the community of teachers and led me to think about much. In New York, there are people who talk all kinds of dialect. And in the background is all English, but is very different! And most kids who I taught to speak in English that is very different from English in that the tests are done. We have reached a delicate point, because you have a kind of grammar do not know if it's wrong, or just different. My duty as a teacher, was to give students the best possible help, and in our society still have to learn to speak English that is considered normal. But it makes you think: what is right and wrong? And even for sms: do they make the language more stupid, or are developing a new and exciting? I do not know. But it is important to stay tuned, because in America you have many people coming from other countries and whose family may speak a mixed version of English. My parents, for example, still use words "yddish" [Jewish language]. For me as a person who writes letters, it is important to know all the ways the language is spoken and not have any limits.
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