MGMT snatch victory from jaws of defeat after getting embarrassed by surf champ Stephanie Gilmore

MGMT were in a bad headspace until a move away from each other saved the band, Andrew VanWyngarden tells Mikey Cahill

THE singer Lionel Richie once pontificated: “Great fighters are not determined by how many punches they can throw; it’s how many punches they can take.”

Seven years after their intergalactic smash record, Orcaular Spectacular, MGMT hadn’t come anywhere near the success of their first fluky foray. They were on the ropes.

“In 2015 I was in a weird spot. I was really low on confidence, I was questioning what was going to be happening with the band,” says MGMT singer, multi-instrumentalist and astral traveller Andrew VanWyngarden. He’s joined in the New York born outfit by the more head-down, studio-savvy Ben Goldwasser and a revolving tour band.

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The duo attended Wesleyan, an everything’s-gahrooovy-maaan Connecticut college. It’s where the scruffily handsome twosome were encouraged to fly their freak flags.

So they did.

That flag transmogrified into a kite called Oracular Spectacular, a debut album that yielded singles Time To Pretend, Kids and Electric Feel, three songs so confounding and epoch-shaping they pulled indie rock out of stupor, swept its fringe under a headband and rested it down on strawberry fields forever.

But Oracular Spectacular became an impossible act to follow. Especially when a two year world tour wrung them dry, returning to their Brooklyn homebase mere husks of men.

2010’s Congratulations was the too-cool-to-rule follow up record, an oddly satisfying excursion into ‘70s-meets-noughties prog with puffs of ‘60s daisy chain folk.

It lacked a single to hang its hat on. 2013’s self-titled MGMT came and went without troubling the scorers (best not to check its Spotify streaming numbers). Five years on from taking a hit rather than making one, this was make or break time for MGMT.

All the chill, none of the Netflix. MGMT - New York band with Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser.

“It was that uncertainty that spurred us on to give it a shot, not that we weren’t always giving it a shot. We wanted to see if that spark that made MGMT was still gonna be there,” VanWyngarden says of beginning fourth LP Little Dark Age.

“The gap was getting bigger when we’d see each other,” he recalls. Goldwasser moved to Los Angeles for a change of scene. It actually saved the band creatively. In short they “weren’t in the same room fussing over a snare drum sound for five hours.

Goldwasser’s move to LA went from cause célèbre to cause for celebration. “It’s disgusting isn’t it?” he says, revealing a sardonic turn of phrase. “I love dipping my toes in there. I can never stay there, I never really understand it. I don’t wanna knock LA, it takes enough s---. I live by the beach in the Rockaway.

“We were able to make an album free of the stress of asking ‘How is this MGMT?’ We were liberated this time. Even though there was that pressure of make or break it didn’t creep into the music, into the flow. It’s somehow impossible we’re still a band with new music people listen to in 2018!?” he says with boyish surfer-dude chuckle.

“I have an old Buick wagon. I was driving up to the beach and I’d had a few dreamy mystical song ideas. We worked over email a lot. I’d have a voice memo or Ben would send me something and we’d work on things separately. If it’s just the two of us there’s slim chances that we can get stuff done. We end up saying ‘Oh this is stupid, let’s go get coffee.’”

Enter Chairlift’s Patrick Wimberly as producer.

Goths have more fun. MGMT at Beckett Mansion for Columbia Records.

“He encouraged us to develop ideas further to open things up — collaboration was vital to surviving and growing. He said ‘If you have an idea then follow it through all the way.’
In the past we would say ‘No we can’t do that, it’s not MGMT.’
This time we were like ‘Yeah, why not?’ It was such a good and important lesson for me as a lyricist and a songwriter. If you take an idea from that ethereal world and record it, then it becomes a song in a weird alchemical reaction. That probably sounds self-helpy but to leave the gates open can have great results.”

Little Dark Age is synth-soaked, full of tasteful electro, gothic nudges via Connan Mockasin’s help and a demure-yet-chirpy folk song called When You Die where VanWyngarden says what he really thinks: “Go f--- yourself, you heard me right.” It could be directed at critics. VanWyngaden has said in other interviews he is taking on the character of Trump’s America, singing: “I’m not that nice, I’m mean and I’m evil, Don’t call me nice, I’m gonna eat your heart out.”

The title track, Little Dark Age, has amassed 25 million spins on YouTube and Spotify combined. It has a paranoid, pelvic mid-tempo beat that works equally well in the car, the kitchen and the club.

“I got deep into record collecting and DJing and I learned a bit about what makes people dance. Little Dark Age wasn’t meant to be a dance song. It started with a loop Ben sent, that cool intro sound, I added that funky bass line in the verses then I went up to LA. It was the same day we wrote Me and Michael.
“I was driving back to my Airbnb and I started singing the lyrics into a voice memo, it was flowing,” he says.

“We first connected with ‘80s pop music: OMD, Depeche Mode, Talking Heads and Madonna. That’s how our brains are wired, those song structures, we’re always talking about verses and choruses, bridges and breakdowns. That’s reductive but that’s how we think about pop music,” he says.

You paid how much for those sunnies? MGMT - New York band with Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser

“In Little Dark Age we had a solo so we needed a breakdown.”

Along with Wimberly, the aforementioned Kiwi oddball Connan Mockasin assisted Andrew in getting his head in the game when they met in 2014.
“It was like hanging out with a peer and a guru. His patience and pace of life really rubbed off on me. We did a failed surf movie and we went to Nicaragua to make a record. Then we went to Iceland with all these incredible surfers. His sort of energy is what I needed.”

Wincing the night away. Andrew Van Wyngarden of MGMT performs during the All Points West music festival at Liberty State Park Sunday, Aug. 2, 2009 in Jersey City, N.J.

Mockasin also makes a spooky appearance in the Little Dark Age’s gothic Dadaist clip. Connan sings on When You Die and plays guitar on Days That Got Away. “We both think about full length albums …which a lot of people don’t do anymore. We’re the same age where we bridged that technology gap. We didn’t have cell phones until our teens.”

Splendour’d first time. Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT performs on stage during the Splendour in the Grass festival at Belongil Fields on July 26, 2009 in Byron Bay, Australia.

Indeed, there’s a song on Little Dark Age titled TSLAMP, the acronym stands for Time Spent Looking At My Phone. VanWyngarden bemoans his device addiction: “I try to pull the curtains back, can’t turn off, can’t detach.”

Also on that Iceland surf-trip was six-time surfing world champion Stephanie Gilmore. Now they’re great buds.

Second album blues. Andrew VanWyngard (L) and Ben Goldwasser from the band MGMT in 2010.

“She invited us to that Future Classic party at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch. It’s insane that she’s the best at what she does. I know her through (filmmaker) Andrew Kidman. I did a couple of songs for that 2013 film Spirit of Akasha that she surfs in. I hope I can surf with them in Byron Bay,” he says, referencing their Splendour In The Grass show.

“Last time I surfed with Stephanie I borrowed a purple Rusty women’s wetsuit … and I put it on inside out the first time. I felt like a kook (chuckles). Then I fixed it and got on a purple longboard and totally got the wave of the day. Only Connan saw it, it was a really long ride and when I finished the ride the board flipped up towards the cliff. It was a borrowed board (sniggers nervously) and I thought ‘What a disaster.’ But somehow the board wasn’t damaged.”

Spectacular start. Ben Goldwasser (L) and Andrew VanWyngarden (R) of band MGMT who played at the Hordern Pavilion in 2009.

MGMT are paddling around the east coast on a co-headline tour with Franz Ferdinand. The two groups have similar career arcs: super-hot debut albums, everyone wanted a piece, then they cooled right off, now they’re cookin’ again. “It’s funny the similar (career arcs). It’s improbable in a way,” he says with an aloof, relived laugh, “but I’m really into it and I’m happy we’re playing shows with them.
“I don’t know how old those guys are, maybe a little older. But for me and Ben we’ve settled down in our mid-30s and there’s not that competitive vibe any more.”

When we were young. New York band MGMT - Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden in 2008.

VanWyngarden lifts his metaphorical gloves up and gets on the front foot without a question being asked. “I’m glad we’re coming back and playing headline shows because we’ve really only done festivals in Australia for sooo long and now I think our show is at a really good point and the band is the best it’s been in years. For Little Dark Age we just let it be.”

TKO.

SEE: Splendour In the Grass, Byron Bay, July 22, sold out; Festival Hall, 300 Dudley St, West Melbourne, July 24, $89.90. ticketmaster.com.au; Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, July 25, $89.90, ticketek.com.au

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Originally published as MGMT snatch victory from jaws of defeat after getting embarrassed by surf champ Stephanie Gilmore