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Taken from Connected magazine, March 2006

Such is the anticipation surrounding the release of “Show Your Bones” – the first Yeah Yeah Yeahs album since their 2003 debut “Fever to Tell” – that a slew of hype, rumour, and speculation has left fans genuinely concerned about the band’s new direction. Chiefly responsible for this, one could argue, are the group’s own accounts of in-fighting, creative droughts, and fresh starts. Has “second album syndrome” really set in? Is this to be their sophomore slump? I caught up with guitarist Nick Zinner and asked about the creative difficulties they faced this time out. “There was crazy, crazy self-applied pressure,” he explains. “I think that because we were starting from scratch we all just wanted to make something really great but didn’t know how or what the end result would sound like. Before it was like ‘we have these songs, they’re all done – we need to record them,’ and then this time it was just trying to arrive at that same process. We’re all self-critical people, you know? So it was pretty challenging at times.”

Having rung in the changes with the introduction of acoustic guitar, piano, and even a different vocal style, the overall transformation was distinct enough to have to enlist a new band member. “We didn’t really want to do any of the same things we had done on the last record, we just wanted to experiment and try out different ideas,” says Zinner. “A lot of the new songs have so many layers and crucial elements to them that there’s no way we could reproduce it playing live, so it was just like getting another arm or a foot, having someone else help us out. And it works, it sounds really good.”

It’s clear that a lot has changed since Yeah Yeah Yeahs were first starting out. Back when they had two EPs under their belt, they found themselves in the unusual position of being able to choose what record label they would sign with. It was a process that taught Zinner a lot about how the industry operates: “I guess I kinda learned how everything works and how it’s possible to still have control over it for the large part. You have to be aware about everything that happens, and that there are certain areas where you can have a lot more say in.”

Having had their debut album already recorded, choosing between indie and major labels was always going to be an important decision, but one that split their already burgeoning fan base and prompted accusations of “selling out.” I asked Zinner whether he was surprised to see that opinions were being influenced by what kind of label the album would end up on, rather than allowing the music to simply speak for itself: “Yeah! Definitely. It’s weird now ’cause I know so many people in bands who have been on both; some have had awful experiences on indie labels and great on the majors, and vice versa. Ultimately I feel it shouldn’t affect the music at all, unless you let it.”

Given the extent that the media are purported to have played in shaping the reception of fellow New Yorkers The Strokes’ second album, Zinner has become so weary of the press’ influence that he blocks it out altogether. “I try not to think about it while we’re in the process of recording, and I guess now I’ve made a conscious decision not to read any of our press or anything that’s written about us at all – I just try and avoid all that.”

Asked whether the over-emphasis on fashion is something he’d like to see stamped out, and the guitarist admits it has helped blur the focus of things somewhat. “Yeah maybe a little, but I know it’s also – in a performance sense anyway – something that’s really important for Karen. Ultimately, though, it has nothing to do with the music.”

Farcical hoaxes, on the other hand, are something he would welcome. When producer Squeak E. Clean told MTV (with tongue emphatically in cheek) that “Show Your Bones” was a concept album about a pet cat from Chile, coverage of the story ballooned until things got out of hand. “Yeah, I love that,” laughs Zinner. “I have to say I do really like it when there are weird rumours and stuff about us.” Though Yeah Yeah Yeahs may not be known for their fondness of extensive touring, Zinner is confident that the group have been giving it all they possibly can. “Given what we do put into the shows, I feel like if we toured any more than we’re planning on touring that we’d probably…die! We put in, like, absolutely everything and we’ve kind of learned what our limits are.”

With much-documented accounts of exhaustion, homesickness, and Karen O’s on-stage accident in Australia, the group’s effort levels are certainly difficult to question. “I really try and take everything day by day,” concludes Zinner, somewhat sombrely. “Playing music, being in a band, it’s so unpredictable that I can never really expect things one way or the other, you just do it.” Perhaps it’s the fatigue setting in already, but with Zinner clearly on auto-pilot, his final words can’t help but smack of rock ‘n’ roll cliché. With a long road of promotion surfing still ahead of them, if Yeah Yeah Yeahs are to rise above the growing expectations for them to fail, then the band’s die-hard contingent can only hope that these hints of stale disinterest won’t lead to their ultimate undoing.

Copyright © 2006 – Connected

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