Their official bio says it well: “40 years after The Summer of Love (and 30 years after The Summer of Hate), MGMT is celebrating the grand re-opening of the third eye of the world with the duo’s much-anticipated first full-length album, an enigmatic and prophetic collection of hallucinatory sounds and hook-riddled pop tones for the new millennium. MGMT is Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, two psychic pilgrims whose paths first intersected in the green pastures of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, circa 2002.”

Eventually they migrated to Brooklyn, did some home-studio Mbox recordings, finally recorded Oracular Spectacular (easily one of our favorite albums of the year), and became accidental rock stars, touring, it seems, everywhere - forever.
Richard and Weston caught up with Ben over the phone, somewhere in the UK, to ask as many inappropriate questions as they could. Luckily our newest EVB music guru Stef Siepel stepped in and gave us some serious questions to ask, you know, about music.

EVB: Where are you right now?

BEN: On our way to, umm, Scotland.

EVB: What day of the week is it?

BEN: Um, it’s [laughs] oh man… it’s Friday.

EVB: What did you do yesterday?

BEN: We were in Lisbon doing a festival. It was our first time in Portugal. It was really fun - cool place. There’s not too much of an attitude there.

EVB: Where are you playing tonight?

BEN: In Scotland. We’re playing tomorrow night at a festival called “T in the Park”, about an hour outside of Glasgow.

EVB: There’ll be a lot of seriously wasted people there, I can tell you that.

BEN: Yeah, well, judging from the other festivals…

EVB: You’re touring like crazy - you just did Glastonbury. How does that compare to the Princeton show you did a couple years ago that we saw online? It looked like a bunch of douche bags with bottles of beer?

BEN: [laughs] That was a kind of a one-off show. We hadn’t been playing for very long and someone just set the show up for us. It was called Field Days or something - basically every fraternity had a band playing in their backyard - people were falling into garbage cans. So that show - we totally made it up on the spot. We had no idea what we were going to do. Lately we’ve been playing with a five-piece band. We’ve definitely improved. It’s been less of an unstructured mess and a little bit more of a band getting up on stage and playing.

EVB: I presume, as you’re on tour, you have a tour bus?

BEN: Yeah. It’s definitely taken some time to get adjusted to it. Some things I don’t like about it, some things I do. It’s nice to fall asleep in one city and wake up in another and start your day out there, walk around, see the city.
EVB: I’ve been on a few tour buses in my time, and I know the sleeping arrangements can be kind of interesting. Who sleeps on top, and who’s on bottom?

BEN: [laughs] Um… I’ve got a top bunk.

EVB: Andrew is on bottom?

BEN: [laughs] uhh… I don’t… I can’t remember. He may have a top bunk too.

EVB: So you’re both quite versatile?

BEN: [laughs] uhh… you could say that.

EVB: We read in an earlier interview that you guys thought your live performance was still a bit dull and you wanted to make it more theatrical and liven things up. What plans crossed your minds?

BEN: For now it’s still pretty much the same as it has been, except that we’re getting better as musicians - more practiced at getting up in front of people. We’re taking a break at the end of this year and I think we’re going to try some new stuff - hopefully work on some sort of stage presentation.

EVB: I guess there’s got to be a difference between doing a small gig, and playing huge venues with Radiohead or Beck for example, both of whom you’re scheduled to soon be opening for.

BEN: Yeah, I think we’re starting to get over the awkwardness of walking up in front of a crowd. We used to be really nervous because we’re just playing instruments - we don’t really have anything to look at on stage, but I think we’re getting a little more confident about that.

EVB: You need to recruit a Bez - like from the Happy Mondays.

BEN: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

EVB: A guy who just takes loads of drugs and dances like a fool.

While we were doing some research we found a bunch of old tracks from when you were still called The Management. Really minimal, drum machines - most of which we’ve never heard before and was never re-recorded.

BEN: Yeah, yeah - that was the kind of stuff we were making in college.

EVB: There were a few musical references to what’s going on now, but what happened to all that early music.

BEN: It was a lot more kind of goofy, nonsense songs. Kind of pop-satire almost. We weren’t much of a band at that point. We definitely weren’t taking it seriously.
EVB: People are always talking about the “Brooklyn school” - a “school” that includes, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer, Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Boy Crisis, Gang Gang Dance. Does that diversity make the whole idea of a “Brooklyn school” bullshit, or is there something real to that?

BEN: There’s definitely something real to Brooklyn being an influence to certain kinds of bands that live there, in terms of the experience of potentially being an outsider coming to Brooklyn. It would have been much different for me if I had grown up in Brooklyn. I moved there at the end of 2006 and lived there for about a year. I live in New Jersey now, but…

EVB: Oh, we’re not going to print that [laughs]. Do you guys both live in Jersey?

BEN: Well, I live in Jersey but Andrew is homeless right now. He lives on the bus. I do too, mostly. I think being in Brooklyn for a year definitely influenced the way I thought about music and being in a band and being in a big city for the first time in my life. But we never felt attached to the other Brooklyn bands that were coming up at the same time as us - the ones who all started getting buzz at the same time - other than, I guess, Yeasayer because they’re friends of ours, and we maybe have more of a musical connection with them, stylistically.

EVB: We just saw an interview with you where you actually wished bad Karma on Vampire Weekend…

BEN: Yeah, we wanted to start a fake feud with them [laughs]. The British music press got all over it and started spreading around that we were talking shit about Vampire Weekend. We’d never even met them before, we just thought it would be funny. We ended up meeting them and they’re really nice guys and we became friends with them, so any bad karma is gone now.

EVB: It seems the longer you guys play, the richer the music gets, and the more eccentric you seem to get. Usually eccentricity hits when you get older but are you guys are going to be a huge beautiful mess before you’re 30.

BEN: I think we’re uh… I think a couple of things have been happening to us. Since we’ve been on the road we’ve gone a little crazy. I think we’re also getting more confident, which kind of encourages us. We realized nothing bad is going to happen to us if we act like crazy people - at least for now. As long as we don’t develop hard drug habits we’re mostly alright for now.

EVB: About the album - the first part of the album, up to ‘Kids’, has a very poppy sound with catchy choruses and all. The second part is a lot more experimental, and psychedelic, and the lyrics turn from verses with choruses into a more narrative structure. Was that a conscious dividing line on the album?

BEN: Well, it didn’t really start out like that. The “catchy” songs were originally more scattered around the album, with the other stuff in the middle. We ended up changing the order because we had a meeting with Rick Rubin and he strongly suggested we move the single tracks up to the beginning of the album. We weren’t crazy about the idea, but we ended up doing it.

EVB: Have you been asked to remix anyone?

BEN: I did a remix for Black Kids but I used a Kate Bush sample and it didn’t get cleared. I think a rough version leaked out online but we couldn’t release it. We do have a several people who have remixed us, or are working on remixes for us, which is weird because we think of ourselves as more of a rock band, but I guess a lot of people think of us as someone you play in a club - we don’t even go out to clubs much.

EVB: Anything you’d like to tease us with about your side project with Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes?

BEN: He and Andrew have been talking about doing something together for a while. It was before we got a record deal, we weren’t doing anything as a band, and Andrew thought it would be cool to do something together. But now Andrew’s busy touring and I think Kevin is making the new Of Montreal album, so I don’t really know when that’s going to happen.
EVB: Do you guys think that being hot actually makes the music sound better?

BEN: [laughs] I wish it did! There are definitely people in our audience you wouldn’t think would normally be listening to the music we’re playing if people weren’t talking about our band in terms of a style. I also think some people come to the show because they think Andrew is hot. They probably like the music too, but it’s definitely a factor.

You guys probably know the term cryptogay…

EVB: What? No.

BEN: We did an interview in Paris a couple days ago and the guy brought up crypotgay culture, which is where people appropriate popular culture - superheroes for example - and use them in gay sex scenarios. Apparently there’s a movement that’s doing that with music. It’s crazy, but we can’t really read our French press to figure out what’s going on and what people are saying about us over there.

EVB: Wait, so you guys are subjects in some sort of cryptogay fantasy culture?

BEN: Yeah, apparently. We just found that out.

EVB: We’re definitely going to research that. While we’re on the subject, do you have any particular fetish?

BEN: I don’t know, I’m pretty boring in the sack [laughs].

EVB: Do you believe sexuality is fluid? If so which fluid best describes your sexuality?

BEN: [laughs] Yes, I believe it’s fluid, and I would say these days it’s kind of like a fruity, strawberry, champagne drink. With a lot of Vodka in it.

EVB: What’s the golden rule of management?

BEN: Have fun and don’t take yourself to seriously.

EVB: Since Andrew’s not on this call, do you want to start a rumor about him?

BEN: [laughs] He’s probably doing a good enough job on his own.

EVB: He has “Real” tattooed on his chest. What’s the story behind that?

BEN: Yes he does, I saw him get it. I don’t know how long he was thinking about it, but we were hanging out in Athens Georgia, living there for the summer, and he started talking about getting a tattoo, walked in and picked out, like, a cursive font.

EVB: Yeah, but what’s it mean?

BEN: I’m not exactly sure what it means to him, but it seems like [laughs] having a logo that says “Real” on yourself might be life-affirming in some way.

EVB: It seems like Andrew is more of a twink - do you think of yourself as more of an otter?

BEN: [laughs] Did you say otter?

EVB: Yes, thats what I said. Or maybe a mink.

BEN: I don’t understand [laughs].

EVB: What was your earliest gay experience?

BEN: Umm, it’s hard to say what counts as gay when you’re a REALLY little kid, but…

[laughs]

… I made out with a guy in college [laughs].

EVB: We know you guys aren’t gay, but what would it take to recruit you?

BEN: What would it take? Man, that’s a good question. What are you offering [laughs].

EVB: Well, we’ll see you at McCarren Park Pool so we’ll show you then.

BEN: Alright!

MGMT (with The Ting Tings and Black Moth Super Rainbow), plays McCarren Pool in Brooklyn, Sunday July 27. Hot. Sweaty. Love it.

Big thanks to Pavla Kopecna and Phil Ogynist for the photography.

.

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