This band is not for turning

MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser wouldn’t change a thing. Three years ago he and Andrew Vanwyngarden, his musical other half, released an opinion-splitting second album, Congratulations. Angry and obtuse, it was an ill-tempered retreat from the chart friendly swagger of their 2008 debut, Oracular Spectacular. Fans and critics were confused – many loathed Congratulations. The backlash rumbled on and on and, it could be argued, continues to this day.

“We learned a lesson,” Goldwasser sighs. “We are still very happy with Congratulations. Ultimately it’s not a very positive record. We were disorientated and disillusioned — that comes across in the music. A lot of the lyrics are about being in a band.”

Bloodied and battered by reviewers, Congratulations did not sell well and the case can be made that MGMT’s popularity never recovered. The subject is foremost on Goldwasser’s mind this morning as he and Vanwyngarden are about to unveil a follow-up. Heavily influenced by late 1960s British psychedelia, MGMT is a fine LP, albeit not nearly as catchy as their early output. On a promotional trip to Berlin, Goldwasser is uncertain as to how it will be received.

“This time around we did not want to write an introverted record,” he says, “We were eager to create a body of work that was looking outward more, that was grounded in the real world. We took a year off and it did us all the good in the world.”

He is right. MGMT is much lighter and less hermetic than Congratulations. However, anyone expecting a return to giddy, glitter-splashed smashes such as ‘Time To Pretend’ or ‘Kids’ may feel let down. That MGMT is gone and isn’t coming back.

“It is not something we are interested in,” says Goldwasser, 30, an amiable but rather wary native of Essex County, New York. “I understand that, for some people, those are the best songs we ever did. We want to try new ideas. It isn’t good to be tied down by your past. I think MGMT is the best record we have made. We are very proud. And I hope it finds an audience that appreciates it as much as we do. It is ridiculous that anyone would compare the music we are making now to what we did 10 years ago.”

Goldwasser and Vanwyngarden met in 2003 at Wesleyan College, a preppy third level institution in leafiest Connecticut. From sensible, middle class families they bonded over their shared love of alternative music and fratboy partying (their early press was dominated by breathless tales of naked dorm-room gigs and freewheeling undergrad jinks).

Eventually they tired of goofing around and grew serious about songwriting. When several hissy demos found their way to Columbia Records, MGMT were snapped up. Nine months later, Oracular Spectacular was released, ‘Time To Pretend’ became a monster radio hit, and life was never the same again.

They recorded MGMT in rural New York, at the facility owned by Flaming Lips producer David Fridmann. They’d collaborated with Fridmann previously. “We had never before made the whole record in a studio with him. Dave brings out the best in us,” says Goldwasser. “He encourages us to go in new directions, to not limit ourselves. On the other hand, he lets us know if he thinks we are full of shit. We trust him to the nth degree.”

In an era of plummeting music sales Oracular Spectacular was a notable success for Columbia and its parent company Sony. You wonder what executives make of MGMT’s continued determination not to be a commercial act.

“They don’t interfere, I’m sure some artists are put under external pressure by their record companies. We have always had complete freedom. We’re not interested in hits for their own sake. The idea of working with a big producer would be an anathema to us. It would be like we’d sold our souls.”

You’d have to suspect Goldwasser and Vanwyngarden genuinely found overnight stardom an ordeal. Worse than that, as ‘Kids’ and ‘Time To Pretend’ became hits, they started to attract a mainstream following – audiences went to their shows expecting a pop group, not an experimentalist double-act. You suspect it was these people they had in mind when they wrote Congratulations’ most notorious cut: the dissonant, 11-minute quasi-instrumental ‘Siberian Breaks’. It was less a song than an attempt to dissuade the wavering listener.

“The most frustrating aspect is individuals going to the concerts expecting one experience while we are presenting ourselves in a completely different way, ” says Goldwasser. “We see ourselves as a band that likes to take chances and improvise live and not play tracks the same way very night. It is annoying if they just want to come and hear ‘the hits’ and won’t tolerate a noise jam in the middle.

“‘Kids’ in particular was a tune we used to play in college to 30 people. For it to go from a song nobody heard, a song nobody judged us for, to a piece of music fans felt they had ownership over and that we were defined by was extremely strange. On the other hand, we understand a lot of people wouldn’t have heard of us it wasn’t for it.”

* MGMT is out now. The band play Olympia, Dublin Oct 19, and Murphy’s Little Big Weekend, Savoy Theatre, Cork, Oct 20.