AV: Yeah, we recorded in upstate New York. We were shooting BB guns in between recording and eating a lot of pizza and chicken fingers, and it kind of just felt like fun times.
TCR: Do you feel if the label hadn't come your way, you guys would have just gone off on separate paths and the band would have ended?
AV: Oh, yeah, most definitely. That's what I had assumed was going to happen. Even six months before we signed our deal, we were in very different places, and I remember rarely even talking to Ben, because he didn't have a phone out in the woods where he was working at a construction job. I was in Brooklyn, wanting to do music stuff, and he wasn't really into it. I remember him saying he wanted to do some sort of social work, something noble for a good cause. I was like, "C'mon, man! Where's your selfish ambition?" Eventually I got him to come to New York. We were just going to go work on a few songs, and then he was maybe going to go to California. Then Columbia Records sent me an e-mail out of the blue. Then we got offered a record deal.
TCR: Wow. It also must have had a lot to do with the Time to Pretend EP, which got so much attention from the music press. Can you imagine that your career would have been totally different if you'd never written that?
AV: Yes. When the label people were talking to us, we knew that they liked us because of that EP. That's all they had heard. They hadn't seen us play live. We kept telling them over and over that we weren't necessarily going to make music like that again, just because we were kind of over the ironic-pop-song thing.
TCR: You guys have been touring nonstop for a little over a year now. What have been some of the most surreal moments for you?
AV: [laughs] This whole last week was some of the most surreal, amazing stuff that has ever happened in my life. Playing Glastonbury was just unbelievable. I've heard so much about that festival, and I was kind of starting to doubt if it was actually as good as people said it is, but it's the ultimate crazy stuff. The second show we played there was probably one of my favorite shows ever. The crowd was just insane. Then we went to Manchester and opened up for Radiohead the next night.
TCR: Wow.
AV: The show took place on these big cricket grounds that held 45,000 people, and, when we were playing, there were maybe 25,000 or 30,000 people, and we were just freaked out. I was so intimidated opening for Radiohead because I couldn't convince myself that they really wanted us to play. I thought it was some mistake with the booking. They're really nice guys. When we got to talk to Thom [Yorke] and Colin [Greenwood], hearing about how much they like our record was really strange for me.
TCR: Yeah, that's hard to top. Radiohead is arguably the greatest band in the world right now.
AV: I saw Radiohead play last night in Amsterdam. After the show, I was standing there with our drummer, and Thom was talking to all of R.E.M. They were sitting together at a table and I was like, "Man, I really want to meet R.E.M." All of a sudden Thom Yorke gets up and walks over with Michael Stipe, and they start talking to us. I almost couldn't take it.
TCR: You felt like your brain was going to collapse on itself?
AV: Yeah. I kept thinking, This isn't really happening.
TCR: That's amazing. I know you guys are touring through the end of the year. Are you dying to write songs and make a new record?
AV: Yeah, I'm actually feeling it coming on-like I just got pregnant or something. I can tell I've got some songs that are about to come out. That's usually how it happens-there'll be a whole lot of ideas in my head for a long time, and then all of sudden they kind of spew out. I can tell it's gonna happen soon, and I'm really excited.
TCR: I get the sense that in the very earliest days, when you guys first started doing this together, it was more like a performance-art sort of thing. You've come a long way.
AV: It wasn't as thought out as performance art. It was just us fucking around-like you do when you're a kid in your living room, but doing it in front of small groups of people.
TCR: To go from that to opening for Radiohead-that's a leap.
AV: I know. It's funny, but I still feel we're total little amateurs and we're still fucking around, but to fuck around at this scale is just really absurd. At the Radiohead show, during our opening set, we're running around with big tie-dye ponchos acting like fools, and Ed O'Brien, the guitar player from Radiohead, was on the side of the stage watching. Afterward he was like, "You guys are really, really brave to do what you just did." It's like, "Um, yeah . . . That's not bravery, that's us being silly and not knowing any better." We're still just fucking around.
TCR: Do you feel if the label hadn't come your way, you guys would have just gone off on separate paths and the band would have ended?
AV: Oh, yeah, most definitely. That's what I had assumed was going to happen. Even six months before we signed our deal, we were in very different places, and I remember rarely even talking to Ben, because he didn't have a phone out in the woods where he was working at a construction job. I was in Brooklyn, wanting to do music stuff, and he wasn't really into it. I remember him saying he wanted to do some sort of social work, something noble for a good cause. I was like, "C'mon, man! Where's your selfish ambition?" Eventually I got him to come to New York. We were just going to go work on a few songs, and then he was maybe going to go to California. Then Columbia Records sent me an e-mail out of the blue. Then we got offered a record deal.
TCR: Wow. It also must have had a lot to do with the Time to Pretend EP, which got so much attention from the music press. Can you imagine that your career would have been totally different if you'd never written that?
AV: Yes. When the label people were talking to us, we knew that they liked us because of that EP. That's all they had heard. They hadn't seen us play live. We kept telling them over and over that we weren't necessarily going to make music like that again, just because we were kind of over the ironic-pop-song thing.
TCR: You guys have been touring nonstop for a little over a year now. What have been some of the most surreal moments for you?
AV: [laughs] This whole last week was some of the most surreal, amazing stuff that has ever happened in my life. Playing Glastonbury was just unbelievable. I've heard so much about that festival, and I was kind of starting to doubt if it was actually as good as people said it is, but it's the ultimate crazy stuff. The second show we played there was probably one of my favorite shows ever. The crowd was just insane. Then we went to Manchester and opened up for Radiohead the next night.
TCR: Wow.
AV: The show took place on these big cricket grounds that held 45,000 people, and, when we were playing, there were maybe 25,000 or 30,000 people, and we were just freaked out. I was so intimidated opening for Radiohead because I couldn't convince myself that they really wanted us to play. I thought it was some mistake with the booking. They're really nice guys. When we got to talk to Thom [Yorke] and Colin [Greenwood], hearing about how much they like our record was really strange for me.
TCR: Yeah, that's hard to top. Radiohead is arguably the greatest band in the world right now.
AV: I saw Radiohead play last night in Amsterdam. After the show, I was standing there with our drummer, and Thom was talking to all of R.E.M. They were sitting together at a table and I was like, "Man, I really want to meet R.E.M." All of a sudden Thom Yorke gets up and walks over with Michael Stipe, and they start talking to us. I almost couldn't take it.
TCR: You felt like your brain was going to collapse on itself?
AV: Yeah. I kept thinking, This isn't really happening.
TCR: That's amazing. I know you guys are touring through the end of the year. Are you dying to write songs and make a new record?
AV: Yeah, I'm actually feeling it coming on-like I just got pregnant or something. I can tell I've got some songs that are about to come out. That's usually how it happens-there'll be a whole lot of ideas in my head for a long time, and then all of sudden they kind of spew out. I can tell it's gonna happen soon, and I'm really excited.
TCR: I get the sense that in the very earliest days, when you guys first started doing this together, it was more like a performance-art sort of thing. You've come a long way.
AV: It wasn't as thought out as performance art. It was just us fucking around-like you do when you're a kid in your living room, but doing it in front of small groups of people.
TCR: To go from that to opening for Radiohead-that's a leap.
AV: I know. It's funny, but I still feel we're total little amateurs and we're still fucking around, but to fuck around at this scale is just really absurd. At the Radiohead show, during our opening set, we're running around with big tie-dye ponchos acting like fools, and Ed O'Brien, the guitar player from Radiohead, was on the side of the stage watching. Afterward he was like, "You guys are really, really brave to do what you just did." It's like, "Um, yeah . . . That's not bravery, that's us being silly and not knowing any better." We're still just fucking around.
