YEAH YEAH YEAHS WILL ROLL

Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase called Rip It Up from New York this week to talk about pecans, pizza and pop music. You can read check out this Thursday’s issue of Rip It Up for a full interview in the lead up to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Tue Jan 5 show at Thebarton Theatre, but for now here’s some of the stuff we couldn’t fit into the magazine.

You personally dedicated your 2009 album It’s Blitz to Zayda Raymond Chase.

“That was my grandfather who passed away earlier this year. He was born in Russia and came over to America when he was young. He lived the life of a musician and spent many of his younger years travelling, so when I was younger he’d tell me all these stories. I think I have the same blood in me.”

Is it true the It’s Blitz song Little Shadow was written about a kitten in the Texas studio where you recorded the album?

“Yeah, there was a kitten that found its way onto the farm where we recorded and it was cute and irresistible, so it became a favourite of ours. It was called Squeaker and the song really doesn’t have any connection to the cat, but we’ve been seeing the owner of the farm every now and then and he gives us updates on Squeaker. We played a show in El Paso and went back to visit as well.”

You’ve previously had fans create Yeah Yeah Yeahs videos and album covers. There’s obviously a strong bond between the band and fans?

“Well we’ve always been impressed by the creativity and imagination of our fans. We like to have them involved in any way we can and most recently we had a T-shirt contest to design a T-shirt for our tour. We had so many great entries and we felt that was another great way to get the fans involved.”

Apparently two different versions of Show Your Bones was recorded. How many earlier Yeah Yeah Yeahs songs remain in the vault then?

“There’s quite a few. There’s definitely a number we’ve written and recorded, but we kind of run hot and cold based on instinct. We’ll try out a lot of ideas that might work at the time, but for whatever reason we won’t take them past that point, won’t play them again or won’t even record them.”

Check out the Thu Dec 17 issue of Rip It Up for more Yeah Yeah Yeahs love!

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