While Vampire Weekend‘s frontman Ezra Koenig is usually busy hosting his own Apple radio show, Time Crisis (along with his beloved co-host, painter and Mountain Brews mastermind, Jack Longstreth), he took a minute during this holiday week to stop by Mark Hoppus’ show, After School, as a guest. And though during his appearance, the two musicians talked about a myriad of topics, from Licorice Pizza, to Blink-182, to I Think You Should Leave, what real VW heads will be most pleased to hear is that new music is definitely on the way.
Although it’s technically only been two years since Father Of The Bride came out back in 2019, the gap between that record and Modern Vampires Of The City was a whopping six years — so it’s okay for listeners to still be craving more from one of the best and most influential indie rock bands of the 2010s. So Ezra didn’t fully commit to a release date or anything, but he let fans know that another full-length is in the works.
“Yeah, we’ve been working on music and, yeah, we were just recording in England for a while, now back in LA working with everybody,” he told Hoppus. “And, yeah, I mean, I think we’re… I’m always hesitant to — sometimes I oversell how close we are with the record because who really knows? But we almost have an album’s worth of songs. And, as you well know, you could tinker with a song forever; change the arrangement, change the lyrics, whatever. But, in that sense we’re close. I have no idea how long it’ll take to finish, but we’re feeling really good about the new material. So, yeah, a lot of studio time to come after the holidays.””
That’s good enough for me! Listen to the full episode here for Ezra’s thoughts on seeing his friends the Haims in Licorice Pizza, and comparing the valley to New Jersey. Not a bad analogy, honestly.
