Oh Fauna, Where Art Thou?

On a crisp morning in Washington DC, Animal Collective’s Brian Weitz is sharing horror stories.

“The last time we played Ireland, Dave our singer got really sick,” he recalls. “That was after the window of our tour bus had been kicked in. We had to drive from Manchester to Holyhead for the ferry with no windscreen – and this was in November. We couldn’t play any of Dave’s songs – me and Noah [Lennox, co-vocalist] had to perform a sort of improvised set. It was pretty torrid. That’s why we’re coming back.”
Four Maryland friends who’ve made psychedelia-tinged retro-pop together since high school, Animal Collective have been progressing towards major league indie status for several years now. In 2005, their Feels album caught the ear of tastemakers; last year’s Strawberry Jam saw AC blossom into a full-fledged cult act, even landing them a spot on the Conan O’Brien Show.
“We were psyched to go on it – the problem was we wanted to do a song where we had two people singing, which is kind of against their policy. They want to have a traditional lead singer out front,” says Weitz. “At first they were a little mad when we turned up and told them what song we were going to play ‘cos we hadn’t cleared it with them. At that point, though, we were already there and they didn’t have anyone else lined up.”
There was a further sticking point: the song in question featured a vocal sample that sounded like ‘shit’ repeated over and over. Weitz grins: “They got upset. We told them it was just whispering – we weren’t really saying ‘shit’. We had to sign a contract that said we didn’t use profanity, and if we did it wasn’t with the network’s approval’
Located 60km north-east of DC, Baltimore is no stranger to infamy. With one of the highest murder rates in the US, its notoriety was sealed when it served as a backdrop for uber-gritty cop drama, The Wire.
“Baltimore is a pretty diverse place,” Weitz proffers. “You can go from a middle-class neighbourhood to a run-down area really quickly. Where we grew up, it was a little bit out of town and there wasn’t any crime to speak of. But go down the street and it’s a whole other world.”
Animal Collective’s new EP, Water Curses, gets a release next month. Of course, if you absolutely need to hear it before then, you can always download it illegally.
“Everything leaks – it’s a shame but we’re used to it,” sighs Weitz. “You can’t stop it. There’s no point in fighting it or expending energy over it. It’s just a shame that stuff leaks months before the release date. By the time you can actually go into a store and buy it, people are already sick of it. What gets to me is when people say, ‘You’re a musician, you should make your living by touring’. They’re asking us to give up an awful lot – I don’t think they realise that. Being on tour and playing live is not an easy thing to do. It affects our mood, it affects our quality of life and our relationships. You’re asking us to leave behind our wives and girlfriends and children for six months of the year. That’s hard to deal with.”

Water Curses gets a live airing in Tripod, Dublin on May 19.