Q&A: Yeasayer

Most musicians would be proud to be part of one of the most popular up and coming bands in New York's indie rock scene. But not Anand Wilder of Yeasayer. Despite receiving nearly universal praise for his band's debut album "All Hour Cymbals," headlining downtown rock clubs and living smack in the middle of freaking Williamsburg, Wilder says he feels a greater kinship with aging hippies than he does his own neighbors.

"I'm not concerned about the indie rock crowd," the singer/guitarist says, practically spitting out the words. "I never wanted to be in an indie rock band and I'm not into that kind of music. Most of it is garbage. I'd rather go play for a bunch of middle-aged guys who like us because they dropped too much acid in the ‘60s and think we're speaking to them."

While Wilder admits that Yeasayer grew up on indie touchstones The Cure and The Clash, he also cites the Beatles, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson and West African music as major influences. And as many critics hear the world music of Peter Gabriel and David Byrne in his songs, Wilder won't say they're wrong, but insists they're missing the point.

"I don't want to sound like Devendra Banhart denying he sounds like Tyrannosaurus Rex," he says with disdain. "That's bullshit. I'm definitely aware of Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads. But I was influenced more by early Brian Eno records. I feel like if more people heard those records, that's what they'd compare us to, because we definitely ripped them off."

Wilder continued about why he hates his generation's music ("drivel that gets named ‘best new music' on Pitchfork") and the reason pop music and "weird shit" don't have to be mutually exclusive.

You said that before starting Yeasayer, you sang in a barbershop quartet. Is that true?
No. That's just a joke about us being harmonizers. All the bands I've ever loved have been into vocal harmonies, like the Beatles. At the time we were coming out with "All Hour Cymbals" there were a lot of bands that weren't doing vocal harmonies. It was all downtown garage rock. We wanted to have a very vocal-oriented sound and introduce a lot of weird rhythms and not be a standard rock band. But I would challenge anyone to find anything on our album that resembles barbershop.

Do you think harmony has made a comeback thanks to bands like yours and Fleet Foxes?
Maybe. But on our next album we'll probably we react against that and not have as many vocal harmonies. One thing I don't like is Grateful Dead harmonies, where it's like "Look at us. We do harmonies and we can do them throughout the song." I'm into the kind of well-arranged harmonies that the Beatles do to make a chorus more climatic or accentuate a certain part.

It sounds like you think music has changed for the worse.
We've gotten to a state in our culture where people are so bad at making music, it's like "These people can actually sing in tune. That's amazing! They're the best band ever!" That's pathetic. In the ‘70s, people were insulting great bands. Now you look back and think that Rolling Stone dissed Led Zeppelin and Cat Stevens. Those bands sound like masterpieces compared to the drivel that gets named "best new music" on Pitchfork.

"All Hour Cymbals" has been out for over a year. When will we see a new Yeasayer album?
The goal is Fall 2009. I have about six songs I've been sitting on. If we put out an album last year, all six would have made it. Now that I've been listening to them for so long, I'm like "These suck" and I want to write new ones.

What's the new stuff like?
What I was frustrated about with the first album was the muddiness of the whole thing. We didn't bring out certain sounds that were really important or leave out ones that were insignificant. What I'd like to do on the next one is leave out the extraneous noodling. On a less abstract level, the vocals will be higher and the beats will be more banging. We're definitely going to boost the BPM. We want to push the experimental tendencies further and make the pop tendencies more accessible.

Aren't those contradictory goals?
Yes, but you can make it work over the course of an album. Look at "The White Album" or Eno's "Another Green World." There are songs where you're like "That could be a total pop hit" next to some of the weirdest shit you ever heard.