Yeasayer's Chris Keating: "It’s all about not getting bored"

Six months after Yeasayer dropped second album Odd Blood onto a largely unsuspecting public, singer Chris Keating is drawing a line in the sand regarding the record’s perceived departure into pop territories. “If someone prefers the first album, it still exists, they can go listen to it,” he rallies. “But if anyone had any perception that that was the type of music we were going to make forever, then they were very wrong.”

Very wrong indeed, as Odd Blood’s crazy-paved, synth-laden, ultra pop has already proven. Though Keating initially plays down notions of progression and accessibility, the past year has seen Yeasayer climb a fair few rungs on the exposure ladder. Heavy air-play of Odd Blood’s cracking lead single Ambling Alp, as well as O.N.E. and Madder Red has ensured that the group have become ‘pop’ in both senses. “We began to write in a way that’s a little more pop orientated,” Keating concedes. “So we automatically started thinking about dance music and love songs being the two defining elements of that genre. Working in that context became very interesting.”

In the past, the band have ruminated on the pros and cons of their debut album All Hour Cymbals. With half a year having passed since Odd Blood’s release, does Keating have any objectivity on it yet? “I remember reading a quote from John Lennon about how he wasn’t happy with any of The Beatles' stuff,” he illustrates. “He said he would redo all of it. I think that’s just the nature of making art or music, even with something like that, which is perfect in my eyes. But by the time you’re done, you’ve already moved onto something else.”

As we talk, the Yeasayer frontman is engaged in one of his own projects: creating “slowed-down, twisted funk music” for a friend’s fashion installation. More pertinently he, along with fellow members Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder, will be entering the studio in October to put the first touches to what could become the band’s third album. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve always got ideas,” responds Keating when asked if he will be going in prepared. “I don’t know if they’re any good but that’s why the band’s there. The other guys will be able to tell me what’s good and what’s bad.”

What we can be sure of is that Keating will not be resting on his laurels, something he confirms when asked if there’s any formula for how the band writes and records. “There’s been no real set way of doing it, and hopefully there won’t ever be,” he states. “I think that’s how you learn a lot; by experimenting with each other and just making sounds. It’s all about not getting bored. I think once you have your formula, then you go in and you ‘do your formula’ and then that’s when things start to sound very tired.”

However the creative process goes, it seems clear the end product will be free from the constraints of any perceived label expectations that Odd Blood’s success may bring. “I think the second album is the one where’s there’s pressure,” suggests Keating. “There’s pressure from ourselves, certainly, and there’s some debate with the label, sure. I mean, they thought that The Children (Odd Blood’s wrong-footing, robotic chug of an opener) might alienate people, but we thought it followed on well from the last song on the first album. And of course, we won. But they’re very supportive and they let us do anything in the end.”

And that ‘anything’ could be something very good indeed if Keating’s current influences make it onto the record. “I’ve been listening to a lot of post-disco stuff,” he says. “Some New York, circa 1980 cuts. Also a lot of amazing dancehall stuff that’s got me very excited lately. I’m always trying to keep my ears open.” A basis for the next record perhaps? “Yeah, if it were up to me, but we’ll see. Otherwise I’ll just have to do my own album.”

More immediately, the New York trio are gearing up for a 27-date tour which will see them arrive at Glasgow’s ABC at the end of the month. It’s a leg up from their previous date at the Òran Mór, something that’s unsurprisingly indicative of their final tour of the year. “In general, we are playing much bigger places,” admits Keating. “In Paris though, I think we’re playing a bigger venue this time, but to less people. Maybe that says something about us or maybe something about France. I’m not really sure.”

Let’s just blame the French. Overall though, it would be safe to say Yeasayer are a bigger band than when they first caught our attention with the single 2080 in, er, 2007. It also means the trio are hob-nobbing with a different class of band, something that’s been an eye-opener for Keating. “We played Reading and Leeds and there were nine or ten bands where these kids were all seventeen years old,” he marvels. “I was asking them ‘how are you playing these things at this age? You’re just finishing school.’ That can be bad because they’ve never worked real jobs in their lives, so they don’t actually know how lucky they are. Also, taking yourself too seriously can go to your head when you’re younger than if you’re a little more experienced.”

Experience Yeasayer certainly have where such youthful folly may escape them. Still, Keating is keen to light a path for such bands rather than merely watch them inevitably stumble. “As long as you don’t end up succumbing to some label’s fleeting idea of what is cool, what sounds good or what sounds interesting. As long as you stay true to yourself, I think everything else will be fine,” he offers. “I think it’s the experienced bands who can brush all that stuff off and keep making music that is interesting.”

Yeasayer can definitely count themselves as one such band.