Music

We Are Scientists claim they "began the cat trend in indie rock"

by Ciaran Thompson

Lately some bands that have garnered considerable attention have jumped on the train of putting pictures of cats of the cover of their latest albums. Artists such as Best Coast (Crazy For You), Klaxons (Surfing The Void) and Wavves (King of the Beach) are a few that immediately come to mind, but the first band, or the first band who claim they started the cat trend is New York-based We Are Scientists with their major label debut With Love and Squalor, released back in 2006.

Hours before their last show in Toronto at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, band member Chris Cain sat down with AUX, sipped his beer and spoke a little bit about this current cat trend, reveling in the fact they started it first.

“I definitely feel that we began the cat trend in indie rock,” he said. “I don’t feel any ownership of it, but I think cats are incredible, mercurial and mysterious creatures and they very much evoke what we value in rock music. It seems very natural we use them as a symbol. We got there way before these other bands did, obviously we perceived it sooner, but that doesn’t mean we own it. That’s cat’s property. Other people are allowed to take advantage as well.”

Despite this tendency of artists placing their favorite pets on the cover of a piece of music, Cain believes cats resemble something in-particular other animals can’t replicate. “You’re not going to see a giraffe at any point. (Cats) represent that spirit of independence that a rock musician is traditionally thought to require.”

The band’s latest disc, their fourth studio album entitled Barbara, displays a more basic type of cover art. However Cain admits that when the time comes to think of cover art for an album it brings some much needed relief.

“It’s a fun aspect of what we do for sure,” he said. “Recording is obviously far more important and more serious business and it’s also kind of boring. For the most part it’s days and days of frustration and then finally getting the right thing and just having to nail the performance of it…so that’s hard word, studio work. Artwork is more like let’s do something fun, let’s do something that will be kind of delightful, make it interesting or sort of comment on the album. You can’t really go wrong. I mean even if you have terrible artwork nobody really cares.”