We Are Scientists Reclaim their Space in the Indie Rock Scene with "Lobes"
Photo by Dan Monick
The word Lobes represents a variety of things: different areas of the brain, parts of your ears, a fabricated cereal brand, and most importantly, We Are Scientists’ newest album! Kickstarting 2023 with a fresh record, We Are Scientists defines Lobes as the darker, synth-based sister to their past release, Huffy. With a 10-song track list and endless amount of energy and electronic sounds, the formidable duo, Chris Cain (bass) and Keith Murray (vocals/guitar) reveal their musical leaps into new avenues of production and exploring different tones. We were able to sit down with Keith Murray to discuss the creative process behind Lobes, and how the vibrant record came to be!
How does it feel to finally have Lobes out into the world?
KM: It feels great, a real weight off my shoulders! It’s funny, the ramp-up to putting out a record is so long and deeply involved that almost by the time the record comes out, I’ve lost track of what’s been released, whether it's out, who I am, did I work on it?
Jumping into the album release, give me a quick rundown on Lobes. How did it start and take shape?
KM: The very beginning of Lobes had occurred in tandem with our last album Huffy. We had written a lot of songs for Huffy, like way more songs than we wanted to be on a single album. We immediately knew we didn’t want to put all those songs on one album, and it also was apparent to us that there were two different vibes of songs, like the Huffy songs are a little bit more guitar-based. We had a batch of songs that were more focused on synthesizers and electronic drums, and felt more like dance songs. So, we set those aside and finished the 10-songs that became Huffy, then just wrote a bunch of songs that suited those four or five leftover songs that we had decided wanted to spearhead the Lobes era with.
With Huffy being the self-proclaimed sister album to this record, take me through the process of writing the darker, dance record that became Lobes. How did the process differ, and what did you like most about the change in tone?
KM: I think I started out being better at pursuing the darker tone. The first two songs I wrote once we decided those songs would be a part of Lobes were “Lucky Just To Be Here” and “Here Goes,” which are maybe tonally the darkest, moody songs on the record. But then after that, I wrote “Turn it Up” and “Less From You,” which are like the pop-y, cheeriest songs. So, I don’t know, I wasn’t really that good at focusing on making it terribly moody. But those songs feel more late-at-night, pop songs rather than a broad daylight, pop song.
You both have been in the game for a long time now and speaking about your shifting tones and melodies, is there anyone or anything you pulled inspiration from while making Lobes specifically? Or have you stuck with the same influences throughout the years?
KM: I think the influences have changed just as much as the stuff that we are listening to changes like anyone else’s. Lobes, and to some degree, Huffy-- the production at least-- were very influenced by the post-hyper pop that has been coming out recently. Chris and I both loved that latest Charli XCX record, we both really like The 1975’s production on, not the latest record, but the two before that. So yeah, stuff like that that we’re just excited about listening to influences us. I think the longer we go, the more the core of songwriting just sounds like us, which maybe wasn’t as true earlier on when we were still figuring out who we were as songwriters. Now, in many ways, part of the challenge is writing a song and then saying, ‘How do we avoid making it sound just like We Are Scientists?’ We’re on our 8th We Are Scientists’ album, we don’t want to make the same record over and over so, how do we adjust our natural songwriting proclivities so that they’re fresh for other people.
Kind of piggy backing off of your history in music writing, do you have any different processes from when you used to create music versus now? Is there anything that specifically stands out for better or for worse during the creative process of Lobes?
KM: My songwriting process has changed pretty dramatically from when we first started out. When we were first writing, we would kind of just write songs as they came. We would say like, ‘I have this idea for a song, let’s work on that idea because that’s what we have.’ Kind of everytime that happened, it felt like that song was life or death, almost like if we don’t make this a song, we won’t have a new song until the next time inspiration strikes. I think we’ve gotten a lot better at just writing all the time now, like sitting down without an idea. It takes the pressure off the individual song you’re working on; it doesn’t need to meet anything, it can just be a song you wrote that day. And also, I used to have the tendency of starting to write a song and then saying, ‘I don’t really see how this would fit for We Are Scientists, so I’m not even going to work on it, it’s worthless to me.’ Whereas now, I’ll finish those songs. They live on a harddrive that I have and I listen to them sometimes, but they’ll never be a We Are Scientists song and I don’t care. I think that tendency kind of makes writing a little more playful than it was, especially right after our first record. I think being less precious about it, and enjoying the actual moments of songwriting is very helpful to the songs you do end up working on.
Deep diving your discography, I noticed that every album from With Love and Squalor to Lobes there was always a little shift sonically or genre wise. I feel like throughout the years you’ve been developing your sound just tweaking it slightly, but always keep that underlying unique aspect that identifies you as We Are Scientists. In regards to Lobes, is this the final genre you’ve always been building to as artists, or do you plan on continuing to explore your sound as you move forward?
KM: I don’t imagine that we’ll ever decide that this is what we must sound like forever. I’m sure, given whatever music we’re going to be listening to over the next year, our tastes are going to be altered by that. We’ve never really been a band that's said from the outset, ‘Oh, we want our next album to sound this way.’ We’ve always just learned as we go what is interesting to us right then.
Looking into some of the songs, “Lucky Just To be Here” and “Here Goes,” have to be my favorite tracks from the record. Not only do they sound like movie soundtracks, but the bridge, guitar moments, and synths combined in both songs work so perfectly together to create that feeling of optimism and excitement. And then it transitions to the funky dance-hit that is “Turn It Up,” which is a crazy transition, but also is such a good lineup. When it comes to layering those different sounds into a tracklist, was there a strategy in deciding order or was it something you felt during the production?
KM: I wouldn’t say there really is a strategy. I mean tracklist design is a horrible, horrible process. At that point you’ve heard all the songs a billion times through like recording it, editing it, having it mixed, so your perspective is already kind of a little skewed. I always get really attached to whatever arbitrary order I’ve had them in. As they’ve come in mixed I’ll just put them in order, and then when you’ve listened to them like that for a while you’re like, ‘Wait, wait, ‘Here Goes’ is supposed to come after ‘Human Resources,’ why is it not now?’ There’s a bit of fighting habit, and then, there’s never once been a situation between like Chris and I or Keith, our drummer, or our management or our mixer; there’s never been a situation where we’ve all had an immediate consensus on the tracklist. It’s always like, ‘What you started with this song? That’s my last song!’ After a while, you kind of just have to be like, ‘I’m going to trust you on these first four songs, but then what if you trust me on these next three songs.’ But yeah, it's kind of arcane to be honest.
Each song on the record is like a new flavor; the album as a whole feels so dynamic and deep into exploring synths and energies. Did you have any specific goals while writing Lobes, and where did the inclusion of so many different and unique inputs come from?
KM: Anytime we’ve ever said ahead of time what we want a record to sound like, it has never ended up actually sounding like that. We did start the second half of the Lobes writing process saying that we wanted it to be dark, to sound like a Knight Rider soundtrack. Then we ended up writing stuff like “Turn It Up,” kind of like blew in the face of what we said we wanted to do. We were like, ‘This song is amazing, and it does compliment the things that we did the way we said we were going to.’ I wouldn’t want a whole album full of “Lucky Just To Be Here” though, it would take away the impact of the one “Lucky Just to be Here.” This was also the first time we ever wrote songs already knowing what some of the songs on the record would be. Usually, we just spend two years writing songs and go in the studio to pick our ten favorite songs. This was the first time we were in a position where we were like, ‘We need to write some songs that will fill in the rest of this album.’ I think that is why peppier stuff like “Less From You,” came out towards the end. We started the record with, I think we had “Operator Error” and “Human Resources,” and I knew these were the singles, so I didn’t really need to worry about making a big banger later on. But then that mindset got me bummed out and I was like, ‘No, I want to beat those songs!’ I think “Turn it Up” and “Less For You” are kind of like now, the two big bangers on the record, so that was very gratifying that I made the biggest bangers on the record later on.
Is there anything you specifically want listeners to take away from this record?
KM: I mean, not really. Far be it for me to mandate how people consume their music. I have my own ideas about the record, but my interest is never like, ‘I want to hold your hand and walk you through this.’ I’m actually always more interested in hearing people’s reactions to things because they’re very often things I would not have conjured on my own or noticed. I say, come at it on your own terms!
You start your tour in Europe in a couple weeks, what are you most looking forward to on this series of shows?
KM: It’s just been long enough that we’ve not been on tour, any show is going to be fun! Definitely looking forward to eating a lot of curries in the UK, they have a good curry scene. Very excited about drinking in some pubs, that’s always good.
Which song from Lobes are you most excited to play live?
KM: I mean, they’re all like new enough that they’re all exciting and terrifying at the same time. We’re doing some acoustic shows and we haven’t learned “Parachute” as a full band, but I think we’re going to do that at some of these acoustic shows. So I’m excited about that, because we haven’t even attempted it yet!
Check out We Are Scientists' new record, Lobes, available now!