Ein Interview, das man wohl mehr als gemütlichen und höchst amüsanten Talk im Tourbus im Geleit von Whiskey-Cola on the rocks bezeichnen sollte.

We Are Scientists (kurz: W.A.S.), das sind Sänger/Gitarrist Keith Murray, Bassist Chris Cain und Drummer Michael Tapper. Während der süße Sänger in einer Tour über seine eigenen Kommentare lacht, der bärtige Drummer wortlos an seiner Akustikgitarre zupft, lässt der Bassist mit den „nerdigen“ Aschenbecherbrillen witzig-spritzige Spontankomik nur so heraussprudeln.  - Ein Interview im vorm Flex geparkten Tourbus.

Chris Cain, Keith Murray & Michael Tapper

FM5: You originally come from California…
Chris: We lived in California, we went to university there.
FM5: …and then you moved to New York, why is that? Was it because of the music scene?
Keith: Well, that´s one small facet of what´s better. Everything´s better in New York, so you´re right in saying that the music scene is better in New York. Everything´s better in New York - except for the weather and the Mexican food.
FM5: So you traded sun and beaches for the big city?
Keith: There are beaches in New York and they are beautiful, gorgeous.
Chris: L.A. beaches are filthy, disgusting, more asses, and I mean that metaphysically and physically. (lacht)
FM5: But isn´t L.A. …
Chris (fällt ins Wort): more ass? No, sorry. (lacht)
FM5: ...doesn´t L.A. also have a good music scene?
Keith: There are some good bands there but we just never heard of them. (lacht lautstark)
Chris: No, there are a couple of great bands there and they are not big because they are in L.A. That´s the only reason. (lacht)

Nach drei auf eigene Faust veröffentlichten Ep´s, brachten W.A.S. Ende letzten Jahres - bzw. heuer in Europa - ihr Debütalbum „With Love And Squalor“ heraus („Squalor“ bedeutet soviel wie „Elend, Schmutz“).

FM5: What are the first things that come to your minds when you think of squalor on one side and love on the other side?
Keith: When I think of squalor I think of L.A., when I think of love I think of New York. (lacht)
Michael: When I think of squalor I think of the van we used to tour with, when I think of love I think of this bus.
Alle durcheinander (aufgeregt gackernd): the DVD´s, the DVD player, O.C. Season 1 & 2…
Chris: When I think of squalor I think of my relationship with my girlfriend, when I think of love I think of my relationship with my girlfriend. (alle lachen)

FM5: Do you see yourselves as being scientists in a way?
Chris: Yes, but we recognised we were wrong. (lacht) We know full well that we have not the skills nor the knowledge nor the intellectual discipline to be scientists.
Keith: Ironically our methodology towards proofing that we are not scientists is scientific enough to put that assumption into question...
Chris: ...to actually make us qualified scientists in the eyes of the Lord.
Michael: Maybe in a way we are. (lachen)

FM5: How did it come to that name?
Keith: To impress a girl.
Chris: There was this girl and she loved “men of the cloth”. And we didn´t know what that meant, so we declared that we are scientists. Losing her love forever but gaining an empire of wealth and prestige. Was it worth that? I don´t know. We Are Scientists - guilty condemned to a live of missing that sweet suckling princess. Can I say that on... in this bus? (lacht)
Keith: No, you mustn´t speak of her anymore. (schreit)
FM5: But to impress girls, isn´t it better to be a musician that a scientist?
Chris: No, not with this girl. - Keith: It´s always better to be... a priest. - Chris: Priests do very well.

FM5: Did you get a record contract in New York?
Keith: Yes we did, indeed. (grinst)
FM5: But didn´t you have your first success in the UK?
Chris: That´s true, we accieved a lot of success in the UK.
Keith: We must have had a decent show in New York before that, a show that we could have deemed as a success.
FM5: Well, it seems we have to clarify what success means.
Chris: Yeah, exactly, what is success?
Keith: Is it having played a show to 15 people? Is it having made millions of billions of pounds? If the latter, then we made our first success in England. (lacht)
Chris: Exactly. But we were on a US label, Virgin US and then they sort of loan us to Virgin UK and EMI Austria and so on. It passes around like a stuffed duck. (lachen)

FM5: Did your UK success help you with gaining success in America?
Chris: I think it helped, I think having the UK press gives us a nice thing to send to the US journalists to proof that we are a real band. But we haven´t made a single Pound Sterling in the US yet, millions and billions of dollars, but not a single Pound. (lacht)

Jubel und Gekreische, als der Sound Engineer Cola, Jack Daniels und Halbliter-Pappbecher mit Eis kredenzt: „I want a jack and coke, I want a jack and coke“.
Da sich die Band gerne Filme als Bühnenhintergrund projizieren lässt, hatten wir die Ehre, Zeuge des Filmauswahlprozesses zu werden, was sich etwa so gestaltete, dass sich die drei wie schnatternde Teenager auf die - beachtlich umfangreiche - DVD-Sammlung des Tourbusses stürzten: „Can we put the O.C. (O.C. California, Anm.) behind us?“ - „What about Dawn Of The Dead, Shaun Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead...?“ - alle 3 im Chor: „Dawn Of The Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Dawn Of The Dead…“.

FM5: You watch Horror movies to cheer you up before the show?
Chris: Oh yeah.
Keith: And also when we´re babysitting.
Chris: It puts us in a good mood when we´re babysitting, makes us feel protective. I guess you wanna ask us about our ferrets (Frettchen, Anm.). No, we don´t reap them, yes we do feed them and when they´re sick we bleed them.

FM5: You are talking about the kitties on your album cover?
Chris: Those are ferrets actually, baby ferrets.
FM5: So what did happen to them after the photo shooting?
Chris: We put them on...have you ever seen Rambo?...you know, he has those exploding arrows. We tied the cats to the tips of arrows and we shot them at our enemies. Booom.
FM5: That would have been another nice cover picture or video.
Michael: We have that video, it´s for our next single.
Chris: It will make quite a splash on the animal rights association.

FM5: Do you write your songs toghether?
Chris: It´s mainly Keith here, he´s probably writing a song now in his head.
Keith: Got it! (lacht)
Chris: He usually writes a song and then he shows it to Michael and me and we try to work on it as a band and try to make it good. Yes, it starts with Keith and finishes with Keith crying. That´s the writing process. Once we have Keith in tears, we know we´ve arrived to a satisfied product. We hit record and we got it.

FM5: What do you wanna achieve with your songs, what effect should your music have on other people? Shall people go and dance or...
Chris: They shouldn´t not dance. (lacht) That would be wrong. I don´t know, all our songs aren´t dance songs. In fact none of them are really dance songs. It´s more a side effect...

“Jack and Coke“ wird nachgeschenkt...

FM5: By the way, what´s your opinion on drugs?
Chris: Now you got our attention, what have you got? (lachen) No, we´re actually not much on substance abuse except for alcohol, which we abuse to a degree sufficient to make up for all our other lacks of abuse. (lacht)
Michael: To make it borderline criminal.
Chris: No, we´re not much on the drugs, what kids call “the drugs”. Mainly because we can´t find them. (lacht)
Keith: That is weird, nobody ever offers us drugs. Is it because of, “ahh they got beer”? Chris: Or maybe it´s because they see something in our eyes where they say “uuh, that would be a bad idea, if I offer this guys even a little caffeine pill these guys are going to flip out and slide straight to hell”.
Keith: Album 3 will be the insane drug decline album.
Chris: We´ll call this album “drugs made us do this”.

FM5: What about album 2?
Chris: Album 2 will be a responsible pop masterpiece. It will be called “money made us do this”. (lacht)
FM5: You already work on new songs?
Keith: Yes, we´re done with album 2.
FM5: Is it recorded yet?
Michael: We almost have written one song.
Keith: A nice riff for a new song.
Michael: We were thinking of finishing that song today at soundcheck but we got too late.
Keith: Vienna snow problem screwed us up.
Chris: Thanks Vienna. Keith: You ruined album number 2! Chris: We come back in a year and a half playing “Nobody Move…” 10 times in a row, because Vienna ruined album number 2!” (lachen)

FM5: Thank you very much! Now I´ll have to write all this stuff down.
Keith: It will be an incredibly compelling article. Just transcribe it, staple it together and just hand it out on the street.
Chris: Put on a sack cloth and hand it out to people on the street. (lachen)
FM5: I will take your advice!