Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig Interviewed by Hipster Runoff’s Carles About "Indie"

Photo by Kirstie Shanley

Vampire Weekend‘s Ezra Koenig and Carles, the blogger behind the recently-sold Hipster Runoff, spoke to each other about the meaning of “indie” in an interview for The Fader.

Koenig begins by asking Carles if indie still exists. Carles responds, “Indie never existed. What people believe ‘sounds’ like indie still lives on in the fringes of Bandcamps, content farms of yesteryear, and in the hearts of regretful thirtysomethings.”

Carles later asks Koenig, “Do you think that larger-than-life celebritydom is ‘back’/a safer play now that the indie/’all access’ [via the internet] phase is over?” to which Koenig responds:

As for your question, I advise everyone to pursue larger-than-life celebrity. It just feels right in 2015. The world has spoken, and it prefers genuine fakes to fake genuines. Mid-2000s indie was full of fake genuines. I won’t name names.

Koenig later elaborates on the state of authenticity in contemporary music:

The amateur/professional dichotomy is just about destroyed now. The biggest celebrities now show the openness/vulnerability/’realness’ that was once associated with ‘confessional’ ‘bedroom’ indie. The smallest artists now rely on big corporate money to get started. All the old dualities are jumbled.

I don’t know how ‘indie’ fits into this new era. I guess you’re right—similar to the modern artisan, ‘indie’ feels like a ‘false construct.’ It neither leans into the dominant narrative of late-capitalist-Information-Age-celebrity nor challenges it. It’s like the musical form of the hated ‘moderate liberal.’

The conversation eventually turns to the coffee shop of the future, which Koenig says will be “all-white, backless benches and one large brewed pot of coffee today (when it’s done, it’s done). [He] would play the Billboard Top 10 singles on loop all day.” Carles’ coffee, in contrast, would be “Bad, palate-disrupting instant coffee, potentially ‘serve yourself’ out of old youth sports Gatorade jugs”

The interview ends with Koenig commenting on “Time Crisis”, his Beats 1 radio show for Apple Music:

I don’t know if I’m a taste curator yet. I feel more like a flavor. I wish I was a taste curator because then I could just trend-spot flavors. I’m like a lonely hazelnut frappuccino in a Starbucks in a Target. The real power is being Target.

Read the full interview at The Fader.

Read “PC Music, Hipster Runoff and the Year of the Internet Hangover” on the Pitch.

Read our feature on Vampire Weekend.

Watch Vampire Weekend on an episode of Pitchfork.tv‘s “Over/Under”: