We Are Scientists released their second record since 2020 on Friday, January 20th, squeezing in time for New York-based launch show before heading out on a European tour. The album, Lobes, has a close relationship to their previous album, Huffy, though in some ways quite a different mood and vibe. The reason for that is a series of developments that took place during the off-kilter world of the pandemic which left the band self-Producing an approximation of their live, guitar-driven Rock sound for Huffy, and discovering a certain sound world taking shape for Lobes. They’ve described that difference as a brighter, sunlit world for Huffy and a late-night night club lit by neon glow for Lobes.
Both recent album approaches convey the band’s trademark energy, and both show an expanded exploration of Production, introducing new avenues for their musical identity to continue to take shape. With Lobes, some of the rumination and reflection feels very much in keeping with our times, battling our own internal questions, and trying to find ways to reach an equilibrium. I spoke with vocalist and guitarist Keith Murray about the relationships between Huffy and Lobes, the openness of the song’s lyrics, and the dramatic night-world we encounter in their car-focused videos for Lobes made by Dan Monick.
Hannah Means-Shannon: We’re here talking about Lobes, but part of that is talking about Huffy, too, because this whole period of time has been strange for everyone. I heard that with Huffy, you ended up with more time in the studio than expected. Did that lead to discoveries there that you then brought to home recording, too?
Keith Murray: We have a lot of gear at home, so it’s not even that access to the studio space was significant, but it was that we were able to go to a studio for so much longer than was usual. That made us apply that time in a lot of different ways. Normally, we’ll write a batch of songs, whittle them down to the handful that we want to record, then we’ll quickly figure out how we want to record and deploy them. We were in that position with this handful of songs, but then were in no rush to deliver them. Then it just became about trying to figure out what other ways there were to Produce the songs without throwing everything and the kitchen sink into Production. If we didn’t have to immediately perform these live, what could they sound like? That’s an approach that we specifically brought to the Lobes group of songs.
With the Huffy songs, we decided that we wanted to deliver that as a live Rock record as much as possible, though there’s still a lot of Production on those. That made sense to us because we couldn’t play live shows, we wanted to put out some peppy live songs. Lobes were a group of songs that we explored more as Producers for a little longer.
HMS: When you were recording Huffy, was thinking about those songs in a more live way something you hadn’t done in a while?
KM: Our first record was very much just a document of our live show at the time. It was the 12 songs that fit in our 40 minute set and we played them exactly as we played them live. We have moved away from that as we’ve gotten more used to using a studio as an instrument and thinking of a record as its own product rather than a document of a live show.
We often talk to Producers who, in their pitch, say that people like our live show and they want to bring that to a recording. We’ve always been a little put off by that because we spend so much of our time playing live that it almost seems redundant to us. But in this case, we were interested in we, as Producers, exploring that idea. It wasn’t just getting into a room and tracking, but it was imagining in a studio what we think audiences are experiencing out front. We’re the last people who know what We Are Scientists sound like live! So we were capturing it in our imagination what we think a We Are Scientists show sounds like.
HMS: That’s very meta. It’s like A Hard Day’s Night or something, what the public thought The Beatles were like. Did that result surprise you? Did what you saw in the mirror surprise you?
KM: Everything about making Huffy was so new, since we’d been Producing our demos, but that’s a different enterprise than trying to finish songs as Producers. I think we were surprised how satisfied we were by the end result. It didn’t sound like we thought it would. We recalibrated our goals as we went rather than being slaves to a notion. I think it captures that essence of a live show the best of any of our records. But I was surprised how weird it got! That was exciting to me. I think we kept a lot of personal idiosyncrasies that a Producer might have cut, the musical equivalents of in-jokes.
HMS: Out of the songwriting you were doing, how did you decide which songs would be recorded for Lobes instead of Huffy?
KM: There were songs that might be considered experimental songs if they were put on Huffy. They were a lateral step vibe-wise. We took those four or five songs and decided not to put them on Huffy because we liked them so much. We didn’t want them to be considered afterthoughts or experiments. We decided instead to try to write a complementary batch of songs for Lobes. In fact, some of the best songs were written in that second batch to make it feel like a full record.
A lot of Huffy was made when I was in Miami, and a lot of the vibe ended up feeling like daytime, jet ski Miami to me. The Lobes idea was, “What would We Are Scientists sound like at 4am in a Miami night club?” A lot of the songs capture that for me. They sound like they should be in Michael Mann’s 2006 Miami Vice movie, which I consider the greatest compliment to myself. [Laughs]
HMS: I did, of course, notice in the videos for Lobes, that you’re developing those visual ideas. When you all are songwriting, are you open to new sounds to the point that you’ll pursue weird ideas?
KM: When we first started out, we would only write music that sounded like We Are Scientists playing live. Because we were trying to plant that flag, if we came up with sounds that didn’t sound like us, we wouldn’t pursue them. But our method of songwriting has changed so much in the intervening years that anytime we get to the point of making a record, we have 150 songs to look at.
We’re writing all the time and not worrying about whether a song is going to be chosen. We end up with a lot of genre variety in our demos. I think the songs on Lobes do sound like us, they are just not really upbeat guitar Rock, they are upbeat synth and guitar Rock. They sound like what I think our first record would have sounded like if we had a synth or a fourth member in the band. A lot of our vocal parts on the first record were singing harmonies that would have otherwise been a keyboard part.
Actually, before I was even thinking towards Huffy and Lobes, the first two songs that I wrote were “Lucky Just To Be Here” and “Here Goes.” As soon as I wrote those, I could see that I was wanting to write that kind of stuff, so I decided to save it all the keep moving in that direction.
HMS: We’re talking about vibe and mood, and that’s there, but actually the songs on Lobes are very energetic songs. They are on-par in terms of energy, with other albums, they just have a different presentation. “Lucky Just To Be Here” is an interestingly ambiguous song because in some ways it feels like the happiest song in the collection. It has a lot of lift and energy to it.
KM: It is kind of a somber song, but at the same time it’s about contentment and proclaiming contentment where you might otherwise feel loss or distance. I do think it’s a positive song, but it’s approaching moroseness with a positive take. [Laughs] I am, generally, a pretty glass-half-full guy even though I overthink everything and hugely worry at all times. I’m good at compartmentalizing and trying to look at the bright side of things, so that’s something the song is tackling.
HMS: Those are useful survival skills for the past two years.
KM: I think they are.
HMS: “Human Resources” is a little punchier, drawing lines and suggesting that there are things that are potentially going wrong or need to be considered carefully.
KM: There are aspects of that song that are interpersonal, but a big part of that song is trying to shake off second-guessing and spending too much time rationalizing whether to allow yourself or stop yourself from doing things. It’s sort of like a battle between the ID and the Ego.
HMS: There’s the line, “I’m almost done trying to figure it out.” That one doesn’t exactly try to create a certain mood. I think it allows space for back and forth, whereas “Lucky Just To Be Here” ends with a lift.
KM: I’ve always said that I definitely prefer when songs are more of a Rorschach test than anything else. I never want to say, “Here’s this song, what it’s about, and how you should feel about it.” I’m often disappointed when artists parse their own songs and think it’s more reductive than I was expecting. I’m always excited by our songs having open spaces that a listener can pour themselves into.
HMS: “Operator Error” is a song that leaves a lot of room for audiences, too, though there are quotes you’ve given about the conundrum of voicing opinions.
KM: That song’s a good example because I feel two ways about it. That song is kind of about shutting up and not spouting off big ideas that are uncooked. I feel two ways about it because I often hear myself in the middle of a very long diatribe and think, “What the hell am I even saying? I feel passionate but have I examined this?” The other half of it is that I spend a lot of my time listening to other people do that, not talking, and thinking, “What a bunch of idiots! I’m not getting involved at all because I’m so far above it.” Even I don’t know which side the philosophy of “Operator Error” crumbled into.
HMS: The environment in America shows a big trend toward spouting opinions as facts, and social media has a lot to do with that. In the recent film Glass Onion, there’s a line drawn between “truth telling” and just spouting. So this question is very timely and the need to reflect on what we’re saying.
KM: There’s certainly a social media element to the song. I try to stay off social media as much as possible, which is emotionally helpful. But often what I see people post is what I sound like when I’m pretty drunk at 4AM, when I go on tirades. The real victory would be being able to apply these observations in real life, and I’m not sure I am able to do that.
HMS: Does the sequence of the car-related videos matter? Do they go in order of release?
KM: They are not necessarily a narrative arc, but emotionally, they do have a through-line. The latest ones we’re doing now, are back in broad daylight but are the darkest, most dizzying yet.
HMS: Were the car videos filmed at the same time? How did that work?
KM: We have a close friend called Dan Monick, who was our first official photographer ever. He did a lot of artwork for previous stuff. We came to him for this because his vibe is very much the Lobes vibe, with neon, and the seedy underbelly of urban areas. He had a photography series called “Psychic Windows”, which was neon signs in suburban Los Angeles at psychic houses.
We wanted to capture the tenor of those photos and we kind of thought it would be weirder and creepier to have a sign in an old car. It was an LA vibe to advertise Lobes without even saying what “Lobes” are. Also, driving around neon-lit LA felt very ominous to us. That’s where the idea came from, but Dan is such a great photographer that he made it pretty captivating.
HMS: And all the videos are different in feeling despite the commonalities, which is interesting.
KM: Yes, and that was all shot in one stretch. We were sitting in the back of that car while he drove behind us, filming.
HMS: It’s indefinite in a similar way to the songs, leaving things open for interpretation, though as you said, it feels both sinister and dramatic.
KM: Dan’s our go-to sinister, dramatic guy!
