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Beirut! Part Two of an Interview with Zach Condon
Wednesday, June 8
ACL Live at the Moody Theater (310 Willie Nelson Blvd)
$33, doors at 8pm.
[info] | [tickets]
Before hitting the road for their current tour, which brings Beirut to ACL Live this Wednesday, Zach Condon took a few minutes to chat with Austinist about living in Brooklyn, being a bit of a homebody, a sometimes addiction to video games, his love for restaurants, and getting back to work. Just in case you missed it, [here's part one of the interview.]
You've traveled a lot and have picked up a lot of cultural qualities to your music, but what specific cities are the most inspiring to you?
I guess I would divide them up into the cities that I relate to the most and enjoy spending long periods of time in; and then the cities that were just so beautifully foreign and different that they're just kind of great for the imagination.
So obviously I have a huge connection with Paris, just because day to day life there is just this beautiful, well paced thing and its, you know, food and drink and the kind of people and everything is so nice. I wish that life could always be a little more like that, but Brazil has such kind of nervous energy to it, I’m in love with these days, so definitely Rio and Salvador, but, yeah I still have some strange dreams of Moscow actually, it makes me feel like an ant.
Do you like living in a creative community of New York? I know that, like now, it’s so popular to live in New York, in certain boroughs.
Yeah, it’s almost like people are embarrassed especially if they live in Williamsburg [laughs], but you know, I’m not--I’m a little sick of our generation being so cynical of itself, you know.
I remember thinking when my career was starting that there would be some sort of stiff competition between bands and stuff, but I’ve seen actually the opposite. It actually is a really beautiful kind of support system because we’re all traveling around the world for six months a year, especially during the summer months, and you know when you’re running on a promoting spur all over Europe during festivals and shit, its good to have friends that live the same lifestyle as you so you don’t feel like such a weirdo for never being home. So it’s great, actually.
Do you get to collaborate with them much or talk about ideas. Does it lend itself to that?
Yeah, some people are more collaborative, I think, than I am, but I definitely have… yeah, there’s plenty of people people, you know, it’s nice.
What’s next after this tour, I mean, I guess you haven’t really left…You haven’t toured across country that I’ve seen in a couple of years. Is this foreshadowing of something we should be excited about?
[Laughs] Yeah, definitely. There’s something…I’m wondering how much I’m supposed to talk about it, but yeah, there’s been something in the works. We’ll be playing new tunes and stuff.
On the BaDaBing web page I saw the “Beirut Beagle Search.” What happened--did you guys get, well--what did you do?
[Laughs] Well, I'm a beagle owner, and it was for a photo shoot--for a 7’’ that is going to be released at some point in the summer. That did turn out quite funny actually, for quite a while.
How many beagles showed up?
I don’t know. Maybe 8-10 or something like that, not a crazy amount, but enough. And beagles are pretty hard to deal with so, yeah...
You’re a pet owner--do you have a lot of pets?
Actually, yeah. I never thought I would be, but now I have two cats and a dog, so I’d say that’s a lot.
Does that mean you stay home a lot?
When I’m not on tour. Yeah, I only leave the house to go to new restaurants and stuff around the city, so I guess I’m a little bit of a homebody when I’m not touring, but I like doing both, so it’s probably a good thing that I have the time off to do nothing.
Do you work in the studio a lot, or do you do more home recordings?
Not exactly home recordings these days--not the way I used to at least. Basically I just have instruments sprawled around the house, all over the place, and throughout the day--in between and during things--I’ll fiddle around and sometimes things catch and sometimes they don’t. I record them on my hand held recorder-- just hundreds and hundreds of ideas. When we get studio days, which tend to book off and on maybe two or three times a month, I pull out the ideas. I just listen through them and try to find my favorite one them--the ones that really seem like they could go somewhere. So that’s the writing process, more or less. I like that it’s kind of off the cusp after that not as kind of tediously arranged.
What are you listening to these days--is there anything that you are really hooked on?
Yeah, let’s see--I just listened to the new Lykke Li record and it’s gorgeous. I’ve seen her live a couple of times too, and you know she has an amazing stage presence. I think this will a good year for music actually, as far as decent releases and interesting tours I am excited, other than that I’ve just been listening to Brazilian stuff, actually everyone in the band has, it’s just something we’ve all been kind of obsessing about now for a little while--like Chico Baurque.
What do you to prep for tour?
Consistent rehearsals, photo shoots, and press like this, the usual stuff. It’s nice to be working again. Other than that, I don’t know, I'm just trying to stay sane and to not over think anything...and I'm playing Portal 2, how about that?
Whats that?
It’s a video game. It’s a weird, physics, puzzle game.
I know nothing about video games--that’s a whole another world. What are your vices? Are you into video games? I know video games aren't necessarily creative, but it’s a vice of a sort, right?
It’s a modern vice. I was raised in a house that strictly prohibited any video games or TV. So sometimes, I’ll buy a video game for tour, to pass the time, and it's like I'm a kid in a candy store. Like, 'oh my god--all these years, I never got to do this!' And actually, thank god for that. [Laughs] I don't think kids should be playing video games. I think only adults should be playing video games. It’s too time consuming and too addictive--it's not safe for young minds, let's just say that.
Other than that, I don't know--my other greatest passion in life is just food. Where I’m at is a great place to live, but I enjoy cuisines around the world. Often we'll travel to places just to hit one restaurant that we’ve been hearing about.
Do you cook as well?
To be honest, I’m not that great of a cook. I don't know why--I would love to be. I would absolutely love to be a great cook, but at least I’m surrounded by really great cooks.
What’s your favorite restaurant in New York?
Ooh. Let me think. My favorite restaurant. Yeah that’s a hard one for New York. Could you go like by neighborhood specific? For wings there’s this somewhat new restaurant--it might be about a year old--called Traif--which has some amazing dishes. That’s my favorite, most recent restaurant that I’ve discovered.
And what do you order there?
Everything. It's a tapas place so you go in with your friends and you share like 20 dishes that slowly build up throughout the night. Motorino is my other favorite, in Williamsburg.
Do you have a favorite restaurant when you come to Austin?
Not yet, the times I’ve been there thus far we were investing a bunch of time and money and didn’t really get to check out…I think we went to the really famous bar, it was a BBQ place on the south, south side but, I can’t even remember the name of it right now.
I think we might be doing something very interesting this time in Austin. We’ll have to see if it pans out. We’re thinking about popping on a cooking show for something. So, we’ll see. Don’t know if that’s going to happen.
Have you played with Twin Sister before? I’m really excited that you guys are paired together.
Yeah, I mean, We’ve played with them a couple times now. Our biggest show was probably in Salt Lake City. But yeah, we like those guys a lot. It’s like the perfect energy for the two acts. Like, neither of us clash, which is nice.
There’s this blog (a tumblr) called “Fuck Yeah Zach Condon,” and it’s just pictures of you. What do you think of that?
I think that’s great. I think that’s great.
Our sound man has a website that's just him next to sandwiches and waterfalls. I love the internet for shit like that. But, yeah, that’s weird, I didn’t know there was one. But that makes sense because as I kid I wanted to call my band “Fuck Ya” because I thought that was hilarious.
So, you went in a different direction?
Yes.
