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Walk of Life

Spread across Philly, New York City and New Orleans, The Walkmen lighten up and soldier on.


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Published: Sep 15, 2010

RAT KINGS: The Walkmen's new Lisbon is their sunniest to date.

The Walkmen arrive late, in waves. It's the second day of the XPoNential Music Festival at Wiggins Park in Camden, N.J. The band is prepping to release Lisbon, its sunniest record to date. Frontman Hamilton Leithauser complains about the traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike between here and Brooklyn as he and Peter Bauer (organ) amble toward a picnic table overlooking the Delaware. When bassist Walter Martin approaches moments later, they debate everyone else's whereabouts.

"Every person — including the horn section and the sound person — took their own car," Leithauser says.

The distance and comical miscommunication between band members has come with settling into adulthood. They're all married and in their 30s now; some of them have kids. And over the past several years, guitarist Paul Maroon, drummer Matt Barrick and Bauer ditched New York City for Philadelphia. The commute is one they've come to know and loathe — first by Chinatown bus and now by car — but it keeps the band going.

Leithauser, a trim figure towering at 6-foot-5 with a dirty-blond buzz-cut, appears uncharacteristically casual today in his gray T-shirt and blue cords. The Walkmen are known as sharp dressers; their affinity for button-downs and slacks has always seemed a natural extension of their appreciation for classic style. They insist on using vintage instruments from the '50s and '60s, and still haul an upright piano on tour. They even used to operate an analog recording studio in Harlem. When Leithauser discusses lyrics, he reveals strongest concern for the way turns of phrase fit the music.

Perhaps that's why some folks have misunderstood The Walkmen over the years. The band debuted during the buzzed-about New York City rock revival of the early 2000s ("a little footnote in the Interpol article," Leithauser remembers) with an alluring aesthetic: Jaded lyrics evoking floundering relationships and ambivalence toward growing up matched the coarseness of Leithauser's howling vocals and the jagged jangle of Maroon's guitar. Accented by twinkling keys and swathed in reverb, their early albums played like chilly New York nights.

"I remember our old manager telling me that everyone assumes we're this very serious band. And I was like, "'No, they don't.' And she was like, 'Yes, they do,'" Leithauser recalls, laughing.

"We weren't like arguing and crying when we wrote 'The Rat,'" adds Bauer, describing the fast-paced, caustic anthem off their sophomore record, which featured lines like, "When I used to go out, I'd know everyone I saw/ Now I go out alone if I go out at all."

Their bold third record, A Hundred Miles Off, felt somewhat patchy, but hinted at the luminous sonic departure to come on 2008's You & Me — where hazy organ, horns and ringing guitar created warmth and intimacy on lyrical vignettes of travel and romance. Lisbon, their fifth original record, continues in a similarly light-hearted vein, but with one key difference: The band has shed nearly all its signature reverb.

Save for two earlier-recorded tracks, the album's crisp sound comes mostly from sessions with producer John Congleton at his Dallas studio, using microphones taped to a concrete floor to capture a natural bounce and slapback echo for guitar delay.

"I've wanted to dry out my sound for years," Maroon explains later, via e-mail. "It just never really happened until I realized how much I love the playing of Scotty Moore with Elvis Presley."

Several tracks reflect this raw, back-to-basics approach inspired by Sun Records-era rock 'n' roll. The opening drums on "Victory" recall the clickety-clack of Presley's "Mystery Train," and the guitar-and-drum interplay on "Blue As Your Blood" creates a rockabilly swing. "Angela Surf City" charges toward a riotous chorus with a frenetic surf-rock beat and chiming guitar strums.

The guys are already plunging into new material, despite Maroon's recent relocation to New Orleans.

But unlike the old days of late-night meetings on subway platforms to hand off 8-track tapes, they now e-mail MP3s as ideas develop. "Not seeing each other hasn't really slowed things down at all," Leithauser says later over the phone. "Maybe it has sort of streamlined the process."

Onstage at XPoNential, they rip through a vigorous set to an all-ages crowd with a strong families-on-lawn-chairs contingent. It might be a far cry from the Greenwich Village rock clubs of their early days, but it seems to fit where they are now. They could easily bring their kids here.

They close their set to the leisurely "Stranded," and Leithauser's wife, Anna, joins him onstage in the horn section as he delivers a sweet, velvety croon. It's clear they've struck a balance between the music that is their livelihood and the rest of their lives. And that's no small feat.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Lisbon dropped Sept. 14 on Fat Possum.