As we join them, The Virgins are passing through Milwaukee en route to Madison, Wisconsin for the 12th date of their current US tour. That’s Violent Femmes and Ed Gein country, and this quintessentially New York quartet – all abrasive guitars, white funk rhythms, savvy words and sasssy vocals – aren’t stopping at any diners.

“For the food alone I wouldn’t,” chuckles guitarist Wade Oates. “But the shows have been great. We play to all these kids who most of the time get it, no one ever hates us. I’ve heard three people on this tour go, ‘Wow, not my genre, but I loved you guys,’ which is always cool. In New York a lot of hip-hop kids like us too. But there’s cool kids anywhere – you go to these towns where 50 kids might show up, but it’s the 50 indie kids in Iowa. They’ll go, ‘Come to our house party,’ and it’ll be the best fun you ever had.”
Downtown boys to the tips of their shiny winklepickers, The Virgins grew up steeped in the vibrant Manhattan arts scene: singer Donald Cumming served as DP for Jennifer Vendetti’s documentary Billy The Kid, and the band’s first show was opening for Patti Smith during Paris Fashion Week. Did growing up in New York give The Virgins a confidence that bands from the boonies don’t automatically inherit?
“I’d have to assume so,” Wade concedes, “there’s such a long history of art and music in New York, no matter where you are you’re brought into it, especially in Manhattan, your foundation is in art or music or fashion, that’s what most people end up doing. It probably made it easier, especially in the pre-internet days, it was what was around you and what people talked about.”
Asked to namecheck the first bands who made an impact on him, Wade mentions “Richard Hell, who I never saw, and even the Rolling Stones and a lot of hip hop acts of the ‘90s.”
An unlikely combination, but clearly audible in songs like ‘One Week Of Danger’ and ‘Private Affair’, roughly halfway between the Dandy Warhols and latter day Talking Heads, the rawness of the guitars offset by the fluency of the rhythms. Shades of when the rockers went uptown to mix with the clubsters in the early 80s, resulting in Coati Mundi and Tom Tom Club and the Was Brothers. Indeed, The Virgins all regularly attended an 80s revival night at Don Hill’s.
“It was before the whole ‘80s resurgence that happened kind of recently,” Wade points out. “A lot of Tom Tom Club, there was one song that was really big there called ‘Goodbye Horses’ by Q Lazarus, the theme from Silence Of The Lambs, where Buffalo Bill’s dancing in front of the mirror, and that was like the breakout hit of that party. That song was really big in New York for a while.
“As a kid, you grew up on hip hop, but you had to sort of seek out rock ‘n’ roll, it was the more obscure music genre of the ‘90s. Like if you think about it, rock in the ‘90s wasn’t so great. I liked the Spin Doctors and Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses – even though they were an ‘80s band – but that was kind of it. But when it came to hip hop there were really great classic acts like Public Enemy, Mobb Deep, all so much better than the rock bands of the time.”
True enough – you can’t compare Limp Bizkit or Puddle Of Mudd to Wu Tang Clan or Gravediggaz.
“Exactly.”
Despite their hipster credentials though, The Virgins were adamant that their debut album wouldn’t cover the same old CBGBs/No Wave terrain.
“We’d made all these demos on an 8-track in mine and Donald’s apartment, and everybody had the idea that we were gonna make the next big downtown gritty record,” Wade says, “which to us just didn’t seem worth it, because so many people have done that album. There was no point in doing it again. So we thought, ‘What if we made a pop album that people could like? What if we made pop cool again in the way it was in the 60s and the 80s?’”
Before Wade departs to participate in the load-in, we have to ask: is it true that he first met singer Donald on a modelling shoot in Mexico?
“Slightly true! Our friend Ryan McGinley had organised a trip to Mexico in order to take photos for the New York Times, he’s an arts photographer, and he has a way of sneaking his friends into all his money shoots so we can all get paid. But yeah, we met through Ryan, and we just happened to be in Mexico. Any offer of money or opportunity, you take! I’ve gotten a lot less money for a lot worse things!”

The Virgins will be out on Atlantic in April, with a single, ‘Teen Lovers’, out now.