The Walkmen Interview

Tim Baker – How exactly did The Walkmen come together and form as a band.
Hamilton Leithauser – Well we all went to the same high school, and Walt (Martin) is my cousin, so I’ve know him all my life. I’ve know Pete since I was like in ninth grade, and the other guys knew each other since probably sixth grade.
TB – Is there any story behind the name (The Walkmen)?
HL – It was just a name on a list that we thought would fit.
TB – Has the tour been smooth so far?
HL – Yeah, it’s been very smooth, unusually smooth…it’s the smoothest damn tour we have ever been on.
TB – I know that your writing a book right now (John’s Journey), what’s the story behind that?
HL – Well it’s going to be around fifty pages long probably, if that. It’s just the five us in the band, taking turns and writing whatever we think is funny, that particular day. It’s only entertaining if you can just write whatever you want, any day you feel like writing. The whole idea is to just tell stories that you think are funny. There is sort of a plot to the book, but not really.
TB – When you finish this book, do you think you will incorporate it into the music somehow, or just release it?
HL – Our new idea is actually to do a play and have it on tour with us, as the opening act.
TB – With having five members in your band, does one person usually write the songs or is it more of a group effort?
HL – Walt, Paul and I usually write the songs.
TB – I know that The Walkmen played at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, how was that?
HL – We were mediocre that day even though the festival was great. Our drummer, Matt Barrick’s wife was having a child that day, so we had a substitute drummer which messed us up, because he just didn’t know the songs.
TB – Yeah, that’s a tough situation.
HL – That’s a pretty hand little microphone you got there, where did you get that?
TB – The Apple web site man, it definitely handy tool…I record all my interviews with it.
HL – That’s freaking awesome. It records it straight on to the ipod? Does It sound good?
TB – Yeah, and every time you update your ipod it lists each recording with the date and time it was recorded.
HL – That’s awesome.
TB – Do you see yourself in five years still playing with The Walkmen, or at least doing something musically?
HL – Honestly, probably…yeah.
TB – I know that your in the process of recording a cover album of John Lennon and Harry Nilsson’s album, “Pussycats”, do you see that as a next album or something just off to the side?
HL – Well it’s the next album but it’s a cover record, so it’s not like something we wrote. We actually recorded it the same time as we were recording “A Hundred Miles Off”, so it was of just something we did for fun.
TB – Did something particular influence you to record it, or was just one of those spontaneous things to do.
HL – No (chuckles), it was all our idea.
TB – You grew up around the Washington DC area, what was the music scene like around then…do you think it influenced you?
HL – It was pretty lively when we were younger because we had all the hardcore music, which was big in DC at the time. All the best hardcore bands are from DC. There was Discord Records, which was a big thing back when we were younger. We definitely don’t sound hardcore or listen to hardcore music but I’m sure it has influenced us in ways we don’t really know.
TB – What’s your motivation for being a musician as opposed to a more typical nine to five job?
HL – I don’t know man…it’s like the only thing I wanted to do in high school and college, so I don’t really have much of a back up plan. So if the band goes under then most of us do to (laughs).
TB – Do you have a personal preference to spending time on the road as opposed to spending time in the studio, or spending time at home?
HL – It’s always nice when your staying at home, writing songs, and living the normal day-to-day life. Being able to just go to the studio and then go home and have a normal dinner is always nice. Occasionally its fun to be on the road and just partying every day, but that gets old really quick. It’s weird, because then you get home and it’s not as fun to go out with your friends or do anything because it just loses all its charm, going to bars and drinking—because you do it for a living. At the end of a tour, you kind of just want to go home and do the laundry and make dinner, and play tennis or something.
TB – I’ve looked at your web site a good bit and I really the “van page”, did you guys do that?
HL – Yeah man, its all completely real…we do everything on our web site?
TB – So you have been on the road for a while now, what have you and the band been listening to in the van in your free time?
HL – Nothing new. I have been listening to a lot of reggae and The Band.
TB – I know that you guys did the OC a couple years ago, what was that like?
HL – It was pretty easy. You fly out there and go to the set and “fake play” your song and lip sync, which we were used to from doing a couple music videos. At first it’s weird, but after a while you don’t really care. They have all these really attractive girls dressed up and they fake cheer when your done with the song. So like right after you finish the first time, all the girls cheer really loud and your thinking, “wow, they’re really into this”, but then you realize that they’re all getting paid to cheer and it goes on for way to long.
TB – Did you meet any of the cast?
HL – Yeah, they were nice, but its just so fucking weird, you just feel very out of place.
TB – Is there any new album news or any new projects you can give me the scoop on?
HL – We have some new songs that are slamming, and one of them we actually almost finished last night, that we are going to play tonight. All the really new stuff is up tempo and sort of a has a calypso feel to it. We are all really pumped about it.
TB – Going back to your web site, I saw something about the movie “Snakes On A Plane” with Samuel Jackson, do you think you will go see it?
HL – We were actually just talking about that over dinner. I love the name, but I think the name says it all, so I doubt I will make it to that one. There was a big article about that today, about how they didn’t sell very many tickets for the opening.
TB – Are there any long-standing arguments in the band about music, or movies, or anything like that?
HL – Music we usually agree on, there is rarely a situation where someone in the band really hates something and then someone else really loves it. Movies, we’ll fight over movies. Pete recommended The Terminal to me and it SUCKED, it was so bad I walked out.