From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

All hyped up

After a smash debut, could a punky hipster trio deliver another hit? Hell, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

by Larry Getlen

October 11 2006

How does a band survive a hype storm as strong as the whirlwind caused by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The band, fronted by hipster queen Karen O, released its full-length debut, Fever To Tell, in 2003 and received the sort of reviews every band dreams of as the single "Maps" became a radio and video favorite. Karen was quickly regarded as a fashion icon, and soon, the band was hanging with the likes of director Spike Jonze, whom Karen dated for a bit. The crush of media acclaim then created pressure for a follow-up that would prove worthy of the hype.

For guitarist Nick Zinner, there were times when the cultural noise threatened to tear the band apart. "It was pretty confusing," he tells City Link from his home in New York City's East Village. "At the time, it was really difficult to adjust to, because it's a bizarre thing to come from doing something you think is great, and then, four months later, having all these people you don't know telling you you're great. I don't feel we've earned that, in a way."

The hype eventually turned into what Zinner calls a "negative force," something that led to more concern than joy for the band. "It became something we had to try to either control or ignore," he says. "Too much hype really turns people off. Whenever I hear about a band way too much, the last thing I want to do is buy into it. I don't trust that many reporters telling me something is good. It raises people's expectations to something so ridiculous that it can't be gratified. So we end up playing a lot of shows where half the audience is stroking their chin with their arms crossed trying to decide if we're as good as people were telling them, rather than just rocking out."

To the relief of the band, which also includes drummer Brian Chase, the chin-strokers ultimately approved, as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' latest album, Show Your Bones, hit No. 11 on the Billboard charts. To get there, the band took pains to dissociate itself from the madness before refocusing on creative output. "We had to take time off after we toured," Zinner says. "We toured for, like, three years on the first record, then took a couple of months or so off to get back to our lives and let the relative normality settle back in. Hopefully that creates a state where you can focus and concentrate, to just be with your loved ones and not talk about those tired things."

Those tired things, as he calls them, proved to be somewhat-unavoidable once the group hit the studio. Various media outlets, including Spin and Time magazines, have reported on tensions between Zinner and Karen O in the studio, tensions Zinner has trouble recalling in specifics because of the whirlwind of activity. "It was really difficult for all of us," he says. "I'm really not sure what happened, but being so isolated and working so intensively … I don't know. There are moments of tension, extreme lows and extreme highs, and periods of incredible self-doubt that occurred in both of us that made it harder than it should have been. I can't imagine that other bands don't go through that."

As for whether the pressures of the current album weakened his relationship with his longtime friend, Zinner again expresses uncertainty. "I'm not sure -- it's just another aspect," he says. "We've been on tour together for about eight months now, and it's been great. So it's just more hurdles you go through."

Zinner found that the best way to handle those hurdles was to isolate himself from the din. "After probably the first year or so, we learned to stop reading our own press and listening to what other people are saying and to trust ourselves and go with our instincts," he says. "There's always those voices in the back of your head, but you can't listen to them or you'll never get anything done. If everyone who bought or listened to our record had an expectation, if half a million people had expectations, there's no way we'd be able to please everybody. Any good artist should never listen solely to what people want as opposed to finding what they want to say."

In following its muse, the trio has written a record more rounded at the edges than its previous one and less infused with raucous punk energy. But Zinner insists this is less a product of design than just the next step in a natural evolution. "We never really feel like we fit into the underground or the mainstream, so it would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we set out with any of those goals," he says. "We just wanted to make great, catchy songs and put a little more emphasis on songwriting with subtleties and textures than what we were doing, rather than the abrasiveness of it. We can do all that live, and we do. This was an opportunity to create something that wasn't necessarily poppy but maybe did have some aspects that are found in pop, like melody."

Because of their indie-darling rep, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have taken some shit over the years for signing to a major label -- they're on Interscope -- but the band's members are completely at ease with the direction they've taken.

"I don't think one is better than the other," Zinner says of the major and indie labels. "We found that we still have the same amount of artistic, creative control, and we're able to say no to a lot of things that don't feel right to us. But a major label is ultimately about distribution and resources, and that's why we decided to go major -- to give more people the option of hearing us."

With an album scraping the rim of the Top 10, there's no doubt that more and more people are listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the band is slowly learning to handle the fame so the focus remains on making and playing music. "It's always a weird ride," Zinner admits. "There's still things we'll always be fighting for, areas where we're still fighting to be heard. Just because we're on a major label, it doesn't mean that tons of people are buying our records and we're millionaires or whatever. It's not the case."

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will perform 8 p.m. Thursday at Club Cinema, 3251 N. Federal Highway, in Pompano Beach. Deerhunter and Imaad Wasif will open. Tickets cost $30. Call 954/785-5224 or visit Clubcinemaflorida.com.