3 Times the Yeah

New York band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show the music world that the best things come in threes

By Mitchell Peters

As the lights begin to dim inside the theater-like atmosphere of San Francisco’s Fillmore, the anxious crowd finish buying their overpriced drinks and gravitate closer to the stage where New York City artsy garage punk phenomenon the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are about to perform.

The lights go down and everything is silent.

Emaciated guitarist Nick Zinner and Harvard graduate-looking drummer Brian Chase slowly walk across the stage, man their instruments and, without hesitation, dive into their hour and a half long set with the spacey and mesmerizing song “Y control” from their latest release “Fever to Tell.”

Before the crowd can comprehend the awesome live sound that transcends beyond their recorded albums, the vibrant and peculiarly beautiful YYYs singer Karen O, dashes across the stage dancing and twirling while wearing a throwback ‘80s glam-rock dress, and proudly showing off her mullet hairdo.

Between Karen O’s sinister smiles and screeching vocals, Zinner’s amazing ability to blend guitar riffs into bass lines, and Chase’s simple classically trained drum beats, it’s not hard to see how the YYYs trio have taken the musical world by storm in the few short years they’ve been playing.

The band was first conceived in a bar somewhere in Manhattan where Karen O and Zinner first decided to start a band, Zinner said in a phone interview with Fresno State’s radio station 90.7 KFSR-FM. With their original music sounding quieter than what it is now, Zinner and Karen O decided to “rock things up,” he said.

Being discovered in the wake of garage rock revival bands like the Strokes and Detroit’s the White Stripes, the YYYs humbly made their beginnings playing shows in Manhattan clubs, house parties and small weird spaces in Brooklyn. Despite their recent success and signing to Interscope Records, the YYYs had no idea their band would reach such popularity amongst music fans across the globe.

“ The only real aspirations originally were just to play out in clubs and just write songs really,” Zinner said. “We were just psyched that our friends were coming to shows.”

The first buzz about the band came with their self-titled EP that shook the rock ‘n’ roll music scene after its release in 2001. The five song EP was amazingly recorded and mixed in only two days, Zinner said.

Upon the release of their first EP, the YYYs began touring in Europe and the United States eventually releasing their three-song EP “Machine,” and touring with artists like John Spencer Blues Explosion, Sleater-Kinney, Bjork and The Liars. Zinner said it’s the biggest compliment and the most humbling experience to be playing with such amazing bands.

“ You’ll be caught in this longwinded conversation with them and then you forget they’re actually the person you were listening to in your headphones when you were crying alone,” Zinner said laughing.

The name of the band, interestingly enough, was inspired by the energy and nervousness of New York City dwellers.

“ It’s a New York City response to everything, because everyone is kind of shifty and nervous there all the time,” Zinner said. “They’re always like oh yeah yeah yeah, so I just grabbed it from the air,” he said.

With their latest 2003 full-length release “Fever to Tell,” the YYYs have created a record that allows its listener to be moved by the love-fueled lyrics and intense energy of Zinner and Karen O’s simple approach to songwriting. Their latest tour was kicked off and the end of February where they will be traveling across North America.

While onstage, Zinner said he tries not to think of anything, but sometimes finds his mind wondering if people he knows are in the audience, and which democratic candidate has won the latest primary. Despite his distractions, Zinner tries to remain focused on the music.

“ I kind of want total concentration and total abandonment at the same time,” Zinner said. “Just like pure music man.”

With the constant fatigue that comes along with touring all over the world, Zinner stays sane by indulging his passion for photography and writing new songs. The YYYs are in the process of playing brand new songs live to see how the audience will react to them.

“ They’re kind of darker,” Zinner said. “We want it (the new record) to have its own life without preparation.”

When not on tour, each member of the band works with other musicians on side projects to experiment with different musical mediums to expand their creativity. Zinner and Karen O recently contributed to the new Har Mar Superstar record, while Chase plays in another band called The Seconds. Zinner has also recently collaborated with Bright Eyes.

Despite their worldwide fame and recognition, Zinner said he doesn’t remain optimistic as to where the future for the YYYs is headed.

“ In five years, we’ll probably be on our reunion tour,” he said. “Either that or Nick Zinner’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs will be playing at the town fair near you.”