Getting the Ball Rolling: An Interview with Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen

Are all your instruments vintage? How do you buy them?

Yeah, I think they all are pretty damn old. We find them all over the country. There’s a place in Cincinnati where we buy most of our stuff, actually. We’ve gotten a couple instruments down in Austin before - down on the south side across the river, there’s all those shops.

How did you all fit in the car when you played on Black Cab Sessions? How was that in comparison to all the radio recordings and sessions that are so popular these days?

I think it was just three of us. I honestly don't remember. We've done so many things over the years. I think that was just three of us [in the Black Cab Session]. Yeah, there is this guy in France who started that website called Takeaway Shows, I guess, or that's not what they're called, they're called La Blogotheque -- I think he was the one who really had the idea first, and it was a really cool idea. Then tons of people just started copying him. It really takes away from his site. We were talking about it, I don't think he was thrilled. He says when bands come to France now, they don't want to do it, because they've done so many things like that on their way there.

What was the attraction to covering Pussy Cats? How did you even get involved in that?

Well, I don't know, that was a long time ago -- I don’t know why we did that. We used to have a recording studio and it closed down around 2006, I think, and we had to move out of it because Columbia University had bought the building. We wanted to do something back in the studio, something productive, but we didn't have any material we wanted to write, so it was kind of like a project to get the ball rolling with us.

Did you guys have a "lost weekend?"

It was probably a lot cleaner than the original Pussy Cats Session, but we had a good time. We had a lot of friends come by.

Which is better - performing on Conan or Letterman?

They're both really fun. I guess Dave's legacy is certainly bigger, but Conan is fun because you're at 30 Rockefeller Center.

What was it like to play at MoMA and The Guggenheim?

That was really so, like a special event. It was really fun to do, actually. Both of them. I'm trying to remember -- I guess the sound worked out pretty well. They're definitely not set up for that kind of thing. I guess our sound man, Chris Colbert, was going crazy. He had just flown overnight from Oregon, because that's where he lives, and he would just fly in for those shows. I remember he was yelling at everybody, but it worked out, everybody had a good time.

Did you prefer the sound at one of the locations to the other?

I mean it sounded so bad on the stage at the Guggenheim, but afterward everybody who had seen it was like "Man it was great," so I don't know. Honestly It was fun to do both of those shows around the same time because it really felt like a different animal.

How do you approach the writing process and the orchestration to achieve your full sound? How is your song writing process?

Well, we try to make it different every time. We do it in small groups. We live all over the place. I live in New York, and Walt [Martin] lives in New York, Paul [Maroon] lives in New Orleans, and Matt [Barrick] and Pete [Bauer] live in Philadelphia -- so you spend a lot of time alone trying to get little things together, and when it seems like something is interesting enough that somebody might care about it at all, you send it to them and then they may or may not like it. It's sort of like a process of elimination.

Does it start off with orchestration and then you go back and do the lyrics?

You know, it’s definitely different every time. Usually the lyrics come late and the last thing but recently we’ve been trying to start with them, it’s just different every time. The problem is that it’s different every time -- if it worked one way we would keep doing that, but you get in a rut so fast and then you never see it coming and then before you know it, it feels like you’re just trying to write the same little thing and it’s just so boring that you just want to kill yourself.

With the last album you had a horn section. Do you have a touring horn section, or do you use local talents?

For a couple of years when we showed up into town and four dudes would come by and we’d teach them the new stuff. Teaching them every night got to be too much and some of these places kids would show up and say they could play horns, but if they could play horns, I can play horns. Now we usually bring our own guys to the show.

Do you find yourself inspired artistically by anything in particular, or any writers?

I try to read a lot of poetry and fiction. It’s not necessarily a direct influence, but sometimes you’re just kind of in a rut, you know you’re in a band and you’re brain’s not working anymore and you try to get the ball rolling.

I know that you’re fans of Roy Orbison. Do you have a favorite song or album?

My favorite song is such a boring choice but it’s “In Dreams.” I know that some die hard Roy Orbison fan would laugh at that, but I think it’s my favorite one.

There's an Official The Walkmen blogspot -- who maintains your web presence?

Walt does.

There’s a YouTube of a young kid drumming to “The Rat,” posted on your blog. Have you seen that?

Oh, I think I saw that! Like a little kid in little room playing the drums? Yeah, that’s awesome, we saw it while we were on tour. I thought it was fantastic. A long time ago there was this high school talent show [on YouTube] and they had this band playing "The Rat" and this girl singing who honestly sounded like she had never heard the song before. It's really worth checking out.

After your show at Stubb’s, are you coming back for South By?

We've done our time at SX over the years. I mean, we’ve really, really done South By. There was one year when we played like 3 times a day, or something like that -- the morning coffee show, the backyard barbecue, and like the late night drunk fest, you know.