Some people know what they want and try really hard to get it,” says TV on the Radio multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek. “We’d rather write a song about robots fucking.” This oddball aesthetic is apparent on the band’s debut CD, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, a cool collage of electronic fuzz, jazz skronk, doo-wop vocals and dark pop.
The group’s mishmash of styles can be credited, in part, to singer Tunde Adebimpe’s unusual upbringing. Adebimpe spent several years of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father worked as a social worker. “We’d listen to Fela Kuti, and Indian and Pakistani music,” he says. “I remember getting a copy of the Beach Boys’ Smile and not being able to wrap my head around it. I loved it, but I was just like, ‘Is it music?’ ” After high school, Adebimpe moved to New York to pursue a filmmaking career. He rented a room in Brooklyn with Sitek, who was selling acrylic paintings and producing local bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Liars.
“He was a weird motherfucker,” Sitek says of Adebimpe. “There was no question we were gonna do something together.” The two made some demos, took their name from a friend’s random suggestion and set out gigging after adding Kyp Malone as another noisemaker (the band recently added a drummer and a bassist for its live shows).
TVOTR recorded much of Desperate Youth by improvising for hours, then picking out the best parts. Unable to play an instrument, Adebimpe used a pedal that allowed him to sing over his own beat-boxing. But for its entire chaotic sprawl, the album is still a coherent paean to youthful confusion.
Despite the band’s surprise success, Sitek claims TVOTR don’t plan on getting more professional. “We don’t have the attention span to find the ‘right’ way of doing things,” Sitek says. “And we’re highly susceptible to caffeine.”
On a recent Monday, Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone — the dual frontmen of TV on the Radio — are lounging backstage at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre, chowing down on crab cakes and clam chowder for lunch. Topics of conversation include the election, Jay-Z and a phenomenon both guys find a little strange: getting approached on the street by random fans. “Whenever a stranger calls me by name,” Malone says, “I wonder, ‘Did I meet this person when I was drunk?’”
Malone and Adebimpe better get used to the attention. Dear Science, the Brooklyn quintet’s fourth album, debuted at Number 12 on the charts; a coup for an arty band that’s one of America’s most ambitious. Crowds have grown larger. Letterman and Leno are calling. Girls are coming to the shows.
Dear Science isn’t exactly Radio Disney stuff — Afro-beat rhythms and intricate electronic textures courtesy of producer-guitarist Dave Sitek are prominent — but it’s catchier and more danceable than the dense electronic noise of the band’s first few records. “We just wanted to make our version of a dance record,” says Adebimpe.
With three samplers and four horn players (plus guitars and drums), TVOTR tear into extended funk-laden versions of Science cuts like “Golden Age.” Offstage, they’re pretty mellow. Each member is in his 30s and tries to eat right and sleep well. Entertainment on the road is low-key: For Adebimpe, it’s watching DVDs of the Errol Morris interview series. Drummer Jaleel Bunton likes to jog. “Let’s just say we’re not Mötley Crüe,” says Bunton.
Backstage in Boston, Malone tells a story about the band eating mushrooms “by the handful” during a tour of Europe a few years ago. “I went swimming in the Mediterranean,” he says. “And I saw a vision of a death head surrounded by seraphim.” Malone says he has no plans to repeat the experience. Adebimpe concurs: “Oh, God, no.”
Two days after the Boston show, TVOTR gather in the basement of the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, having just played the second of three sold-out hometown gigs. They drink Stella and talk warmly with friends, family and girlfriends. Being home, if only briefly, makes Adebimpe a little wistful. “There are people at these shows who were there in the early days,” he says, referring to the small, messy gigs half a decade ago, back when TVOTR were just a half-serious recording project. “I want to say to those people, ‘Fuck, I can’t believe what’s happened either.’ “
