INTERVIEW: We Are Scientists

We Are Scientists graced Saint Louis with their presence on Friday night at the Old Rock House amid fans who gave up seeing the Cardinals play the Cubs to instead see some great dance rock indie music. We Are Scientists have just released their latest album, ‘Barbara’ and are finishing up touring in the United States in order to jet off to Europe to play some festival dates throughout August.

How Did You Guys Meet? How Did We Are Scientists Come to Be?

Keith: We met in school. Chris was on the swim team and I drank a lot of water, I was a big water drinker, so I went down to the pool one day to, you know, do some laps, because I was going to drink the water and he was splashing around. He was famous on the swim team for making the biggest splashes on the diving and swim team.

Isn’t pool water very dangerous to drink?
Keith: Yeah, well I was sick a lot in college.

Chris: If I could just add a little bit of nuance to Keith’s take, Keith drank a lot of everything in college. Yes, we had a huge container of liquid that Keith was very psyched about and he could tell there were chemicals in it so he was really into drinking that. He also drank a lot of alcohol. I very much doubt if his stomach was ever anything but completely inhospitable to microbes, bacteria, what have you. Keith Murray’s blood was 80 proof in college, we tested it at one point. Kids often would just run up and take a bite and suck on him just to get trashed when it was difficult to find alcohol on campus.

What college did you guys go to?
Keith: Pomona College.

How was that?
Chris: Intoxicating.

You guys also have a mini TV Show going on? Do you want to talk about that?
Chris: Not Really No. [Laughs].

What’s It Called?
Keith: Steve Wants His Money.

And what’s it about?
Keith: It’s about this guy Steve and how badly he wants his money that we have.

Chris: Imagine if we owed a really violent loan shark an undisclosed but very large amount of money and we fled to London thinking we could escape him there, the loan took place in New York, and he caught up to us. What would happen? Well that story is told and then some in the six episodes of Steve Wants His Money.

Is it still going on?
Chris: Six episodes friend, it ended long ago.

Keith: Steve got his money.

Chris: He got his money and the audience got so much more.

Any more T.V. projects on the go?

Chris: We’re aggressively trying to make another TV show happen. We would like to do sort of a half hour sitcom, it probably would be a family thing.

Like Two and a Half Men?

Chris: Like Two and a Half Men meets Full House.

Keith: Chris would have a family and I would be a the wacky neighbor.

Chris: He is always pulling his cock out in front of the kitchen window.

Keith: We actually have written that. I’m the local pedophile that’s just moved into the neighborhood and I have to go door to door and announce that I do have a record of sexually abusing children and that’s how Chris and I become friends.

Chris: I have children and I’m a bleeding heart liberal. So I immediately say its my duty to embrace this person, but its funny as an audience member as you watch Keith sort of leer at my four year old.

Keith: It’s one of the major jokes of the show.

Chris: Whenever he leers at my four year old, drink!

You guys are pretty funny on stage and off stage apparently. Do you plan it out or are you just naturally this way?

Keith: Its all scripted and we do actually have teleprompters down by the monitors. They’re mini teleprompters.

Chris: Mine actually reside in the lenses of my glasses. Keith has to hide his down by the monitors, that’s why he has two monitors.

Why did you guys write a football song for England even though you are American?
Keith: As demonstrated by their performance they needed the f*cking help.

Any more plans for covers songs?

Chris: Sure there are plenty. We’ve got our whole career planed ten to twenty years in advance. Between ten and twenty it becomes foggy, but you cans still see a lot of the major events.

Keith: What’s weird is that we have plans seventeen years from now to do a cover of a song that will be written four years from now. How do we plan this stuff? We just do. We just know.

Do you want to talk about the new album?

Keith: Yes, please.

Chris: Absolutely. This is probably the finest album of the year. Its our best album of all time.

Keith: Its definitely the only thing were putting out this year.

Chris: It’s the perfect blend of our last two efforts. Its upbeat, you can work out to it the way you you could with ‘With Love and Squalor, and yet it’s got the richness and the depth of ‘Brain Thrust Mastery.’ A depth that to be fair alienated a lot of fans who are very shallow and couldn’t f*cking handle a little bit of depth.

Keith: Lesson Learned

Chris: It was our own fault, because there was an answer and its the songs that appear on Barbara, they’re rich, but delectable, like chocolate cake.

Also, in the Nice Guys video Keith is on a scooter, is this a second career option for you in case music goes out the window?

Keith: It’s a hobby, I don’t want to make it a career because then my passion might be tainted the way it has been with music.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Keith: Budweiser King of Beers

Chris: Budweiser is the King of Beers and Bud Light is the Queen. Bud Ice is the young prince-ling who wanders the land slaying dragons and will one day take the throne.

What about Bud Lime?

Keith: Bud Lime is a joker, I suspect bad intentions. I suspect he intends to murder the King. I want him out, I want him off the market.

Like a beer Macbeth.