| Words: Zel McCarthy
Image: Josh Cheuse
It might be hard to like a band who wear a teabag hanging from their ears one night, capes when they’re doing a TV appearance, and flowers in their hair just because they want to. But New York-based duo MGMT defies expectations as they herald a new age in thoughtful, intelligent, electronic rock.
Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser were just a couple of music making pals at Wesleyan University in Middle-town, Connecticut, and after college, they went their separate ways. Ben to upstate New York, where he worked in construction, and Andrew to Brooklyn where he continued to play music, even signing a deal along with Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes for a joint side project, of sorts. Vanwyngarden and Goldwasser had no plans to reunite, until they got a call from Columbia records.
“We weren’t even a band when we signed,” Vanwyngar-den says matter-of-factly. MGMT inadvertently caught the label’s attention with their six-track EP, Time To Pretend, released independently in 2005. “We weren’t even talking to each other and they just kinda came to us out of the blue. At first they were proposing a digital only EP deal, which we weren’t into at all. But then they came back and offered a more traditional record deal.” (continued) |
