About Us

‘Heaven’ Album bio

The detachment you can feel throughout our younger records is gone. We felt like it was time to make a bigger, more generous statement.”

When describing the new album, Heaven, the Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser portrays a band hitting maturity, comfortable in its mastery, after a decade together. Adds guitarist Paul Maroon, “when you’re starting out, you’re sitting there trying to come up with a big idea, but after a while, you learn about the process of writing. You learn about your friends in the band and how they work best.”

It’s been ten years since the Walkmen made their debut album, Everybody Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone. Ten years since they mixed the lovingly recorded analogue tapes down to the cheapest CD burner they could find. Ten years since lead singer Hamilton Leithauser snapped guitarist Paul Maroon’s arm in a celebratory wrestling match. Ten years since critics attached them to a New York scene they never wanted any part of.

But when Leithauser sings “We Can’t Be Beat,” on the opening track of their new album, he means it, like Cool Hand Luke getting up off the floor for one more round. “The world is ours,” he declares. This time, he may be right.

This spring, the band played a series of 10th anniversary shows that demonstrated how far they have outstripped their peers: two sets over two hours, no filler, rapturously received. In contrast, fellow graduates from New York’s celebrated rock revival class of ’02 have burned out or faded from view.

The Walkmen are the great New York band of their generation, and in Heaven, they have delivered their third killer album in a row. Although Leithauser argues that “our biggest accomplishment is just being here,” they are making the best music of their career and filling their largest venues yet. Their spot at the top of the bill at May’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival, curated by The National, demonstrates the respect in which they are held by the current wave of bands making music in the city.

“In The New Year”, a standout track on their fourth record, You & Me, implies that at one point there was pressure to quit: “My friends and my family, they are asking of me, how long will you ramble, how long will you still repeat?” Lauded as a stunning collection of songs, beautifully arranged, the 2008 album revitalized their career.

Lisbon, released two years later, confirmed that trajectory, winning five star reviews for its short stories and spare, Sun Records sound. The clanging tones of Paul Maroon’s Rickenbacker Capri 360 and Gretsch Streamliner set the 1950s mood, as Leithauser channelled Orbison and Sinatra, in all their melancholy defiance.

On last year’s tours with Arcade Fire and Fleet Foxes, the Walkmen formed enduring friendships – and resolved to write a song that would make them headliners, once and for all. “There’s a kinship,” says multi-instrumentalist Pete Bauer. “You feel like someone else is out there taking music as seriously as you’re taking it. You realize that you’re a lifer.”

So when Fleet Foxes producer Phil Ek approached them, asking if they’d like to make a record with him, they traveled to the studio he uses in the woods outside Seattle for the most intense recording sessions they had ever experienced. “He was relentless,” says Maroon. “And in the end, you can hear the difference.”

“We have never been on better behavior,” agrees Leithauser. “When Phil had an idea, we would be ‘OK, let’s try it.’ That’s not who we are! But we came up with a sound that we love.” Although the chime of Maroon’s guitar is unmistakable in the cascading arpeggios of “Song For Leigh” or the driving metallic riff of “Heartbreaker”, the setting is fuller, the production lush.

“There can be something brittle about our sound,” Maroon says. “He made it just a little bit warmer, a little bit stronger. When I play it in my car, it sounds strong, which I love.” On “We Can’t Be Beat”, Leithauser is Dion and his bandmates The Belmonts, singing pitch perfect doo-wop. On “No One Ever Sleeps”, Fleet Foxes vocalist Robin Pecknold plays Don Everly to Leithauser’s Phil, supplying a low harmony at once classic and contemporary.

“Love Is Luck” started out as an attempt to replicate the spacious, reverberating tone of Jamaica’s Studio One in the formative days of The Wailers. “Phil said ‘I hear this as a rock song,’” remembers Leithauser. “Then Matt came up with the drums and it started sounding like the Pixies: a big, loud, bombastic thing.”

The one song that the Walkmen insisted on, over Ek’s objections, turned out to be the track that pulled the record together and gave it a title. “Our children will always hear romantic tales of distant years,” sings Leithauser. “Don’t leave me, you’re my best friend. All of my life, you’ve always been.”

After 10 years, the Walkmen have everything that a great band needs. Leithauser is a mature singer of phenomenal stamina who can trade “The Rat’s” raw anger for the yearning of “Southern Heart” in a beat. Drummer Matt Barrick can pummel ferociously and drop down to Buddy Holly’s tramcar click. Bauer is a consummate sideman, effortlessly switching from guitar to farfisa to piano as required, or trading instruments with bass player Walter Martin, who has also written his most resonant lyrics yet.

All five members of the band have kids now and if the impact of parenthood is hard to pin down in a single lyric, there is definitely a new openness and emotional honesty to the songs. Most importantly, the old gang mentality has deepened, becoming something worthwhile and lasting. “I’m very proud of what we’ve done. We’ve stayed friends and those friendships have grown,” says Bauer. “We have survival experience and real love that children generate in your life.” Heaven is a definitive statement of purpose and commitment, from a band at the peak of its powers that is finally winning the recognition it deserves.

STRANGE LETTERS

Below is a strange correspondence between Pete and Walt that was found in an email on Pete’s computer. These letters were written after an unusually tough couple of days in Europe last summer. We are sharing the correspondence because it provides a rare glimpse into the psyche of a touring musician in his mid-30′s.

Dear Walt,

Remember last night when Matt put petrol in the diesel tank and our car broke down? It was hell. I bet you think so too but I thought I’d ask. We were stuck on the M26 for literally 8 hours. Do you remember that country road that we walked up and down so many times, and then pushed the car up and down so many times? Man, I never thought I would have spent so much time on that road. Do you remember when it was pitch black and we thought an animal was going to attack us? I was hoping it would attack you first. I guess I thought when I found that Sainsbury’s and called that “Dr.Fuel” guy that we were gonna be alright. Do you remember when we walked back there about five hours later and everything was closed and dark and those strange teenagers were eyeing us in the parking lot and those girls were honking at us with that weird clown horn? I think I heard them in the woods around 3am. They were giggling and probably having some kind of teenage drinking party. Remember when we did rock, paper, scissors to see which of us got to go in that cab that showed up at 3:30am (7 and a half hours after the car had died) and which of us had to continue to stay with the car? Man! Demetri sure couldn’t fix our car huh? I wonder what his little kid thought the whole time, sitting on the side of the highway. That sure sucked for him. I was really happy when “Murder” showed up (I guess Matt realized his name was Mert-o or Murtah later but Murder is a little more exciting sounding). Remember how he wore his pants and you could see his whole butt? I really thought he was gonna fix that thing. He was so confident. I mean wow. That whole scene really really sucked. It was probably at least the third worst schmozzle in the last ten years. But you know what they say: L-I-F-E-G-O-E-S-O-N or at least that’s what that cheesy band at glastonbury was singing about on the TV. Do you think that band is American? I mean it seemed so foreign. Do you think they actually speak English or do they just write their songs in English and are actually from Uzbekistan or something? Maybe we should write a song spelling out words like that and we’ll finally get paid for this crap. Anyhow, Murder still really saved our asses. He was a great dude. I’m glad he drank that bottle of whiskey we gave him. I hope he gave Demetri the vodka but I think he kept it for himself. Man, that rental car sure looked like it had been vandalized when we returned it. That was hell. It’s like you think you are finally about to make it through totally intact and then it just has to go and flip the damn script on you.



You know what I’m saying dude?

See you at soundcheck.

Your pal,

Pete



Dear Pete,

Remember that letter you just wrote me about the car breaking down last night and being stranded on the side of the road for 8 hours all that? Remember today when we finally got to Copenhagen and we were starving and dying to rest and it had rained so much that our hotel was literally in 4 feet of water and we couldn’t get within a hundred yards of it. That was surprising. I sure was tired and hungry. I bet you were too. Remember when we then tried to get rooms at that other hotel and there was water pouring from the ceiling in the lobby and everything was soaked and they had no rooms anyway. We were all joking about it seeming like the end of the world but I could tell we were all slightly serious and scared. I think the hotel guy behind the counter was trying to calm everyone down by giving away those big cold Danish beers to everyone for free. Well…everyone but us, actually. I really wanted one. Those beers looked so good. Why do you think he didn’t offer us one of those beers? Why did it rain so hard, Pete? The guy who picked us up from the airport said he’s never seen rain like that. Is something terrible happening? Remember when you yelled at Ham because he didn’t believe you that the hotel by the airport was holding rooms for us? Why were you so mad? What the hell are we doing here anyway? Did our record even come out here? Who knows.

Love,

Walt