Les Savy Fav: Rated PG

Les Savy Fav's nutcase-in-chief Tim Harrington ponders the scenes of mayhem that always ensue when he and the rest of the New York indie 5-piece play their renowned live sets. Manic screaming whilst hanging from every available fixture, kissing random audience members and on-stage costume; one wonders if he ever gets bored with the exuberant theatrics, perhaps long to come out one evening to just stand there and sing? “Nah, I don't really like singing that much,” he deadpans (or does he?).

But sing he does; also growl, rasp and shriek on each of LSF's five studio albums to date. A true word of mouth success story, the noise-art rockers have foraged their way around small venues since their inception in 1995, eventually coming to more mainstream attention in 2007 with fourth studio album Let's Stay Friends. They've just released Root For Ruin, a record continuing the LSF 'tradition' of high octane surrealism. But it's how this phantasmagoric approach to music translates on stage that is LSF's (well, Harrington's in particular) calling card.

For example, in one notorious incident in L.A. earlier this decade, the frontman saw fit to accessorise his ensemble with a rather foppish cane being wielded by an audience member. Jumping off stage to acquire the stick, he met with stiff resistance, the owner using said cane to smack the singer, with Harrington ultimately punching him squarely in the face to make him stop. Naturally, they were kissing a few minutes later.

Reflecting on the incident and his stage persona in general, he says, “If God has given me any skill, it's an ability to be able to guess what people are and aren't comfortable with at our shows. That one stands out as a situation where it was weird and unexpected, but I'm always amazed how our band's energy makes people very comfortable, even though it's crazy. I think there are some people who would say 'Oh my God that guy scares me', but for every person who feels like that there are those that will say 'Well this guy is officially the biggest jackass here, so I've got nothing to worry about'.”

But should we not be scared a little Tim, you do punch people in the face for fun? “Awwwhhh. I'm a kitten really. My favourite ever band description, or of my style, came many years ago in Germany where it was suggested that I was like a PG GG Allen.” Hmmm...GG Allen (real name, Jesus Christ – honestly) of course, playing in punk bands such as The Scumfucs, The Texas Nazis and The Murder Junkies, was noted for defecating on stage and then consuming said waste matter, self-harming and attacking audience members while singing about racism, misogyny and paedophilia. So LSF are a milder version of that then – you'll be OK as long as you bring your mum.

Given that the madness is an integral aspect of the band's very being, is it something he gives a lot of thought to, perhaps preparing certain routines in advance? “There's no rehearsal. I can imagine if I was operating a pretty demanding and specific dance routine, I'd possibly get tired of it at some point. Really I'm just arbitrarily spazzing out and I have an unlimited resource of that. In the five minutes before we go on stage, I'll try and think of some things I want to do. But really my style of freaking out is pretty low-impact. Sometimes people make suggestions of things they'd like to see me try. But the way to get me not to do something is to ask me to do it. Since grade school, that's always been a real mantra for me.”

OK then, so the 'moves' aren't rehearsed, but Harrington admits it might be possible that the whole LSF sound, and what makes it onto record, is influenced by how they might envision the songs being played out on stage? “Maybe, but it's hard to say. You could spend a really long time in the studio and not stumble upon the correct way you should be singing something, and then the first time you play it live you sing it the right way. I don't know what that is about, little nuances tend to just present themselves because you've got this whole group of people giving you instant feedback. I think on Root For Ruin, it's somewhat of a different record from our other stuff in terms of the way we went 'Let's not really think about this thing too much and let's make a party record'. We wanted to make songs that are really fun to play as opposed to songs that are really designed to make people think, or are complicated and try to really impress people. And since we've been playing those songs it's turned out to be true. They are bitching to play and fun to listen to.”

Admitting that it is a more direct album, lyrically and musically than in their more experimental past, Harrington explains the rationale behind that, feeling that as 'elder statesmen' of the circuit, they're entitled to do whatever they want. “This was my attempt to hit Iggy Pop or Mick Jagger's ability to milk one cliché or phrase out for an entire song. We wanted to get at, for lack of a better word, a total 'naïve' energy. 'Is this awesome?' 'Yeah!'. As opposed to 'Is this awesome, how does this fit in to our milieu?'. I feel like there's a trend towards connoisseurship in music these days. Every hipster has more music on their telephone than probably the biggest most annoying hipster ever had in like 1986, in his whole collection. And that necessarily breeds a kind of annoying connoisseur attitude where everything is dissected and made needlessly complicated and academic. and I think for Root For Ruin, if there was anything we really thought about before going into the studio it was, 'why not just write songs from like the energy we had when we first started the band'. I feel like being an older band, having put out a lot of music and played a lot of shows, it gets easy to end up eating up your own ass, and Root For Ruin is just straight up shitting out your ass, without eating it.

So, is this the Les Savy Fav legacy then, don't eat your own shit? “I don't know if we're trying to leave a message, but the last time we lived in hard times economically, the fallout from that, musically, was punk. Now we're suffering again and we get what? Freak folk? What was an enraged punk energy now seems to be more pacified punk apathy, whatever that means. The 70s was like a baby temper tantrum and this is like a baby with a snuggy rubbing its nose. I'm not sure that's a good thing."