MGMT: Here Come The Warm Vets
Although MGMT draw influence from a lot of musicians, it’s veteran British rock icon and producer Brian Eno who gets an entire song named after him on their new record. “Brian Eno” was penned because, as Ben Goldwasser says, the band were “really obsessed with Brian Eno while we were recording the album.” The song is not only a tribute, but actually tells a fictional story of how Eno is a wizard who teaches the band “musical alchemy.” It sounds a bit strange, but the track is actually surprisingly poetic, opening with the lines: “So tired/Soul searching/I followed sounds to a cathedral/Imagine my surprise to find that they were produced by Brian Eno.”
Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden’s fascination with Eno doesn’t stop there, though. The duo (who cite Eno’s 1977 album Before And After Science as their favorite) are dead set on having Eno star in a video for the song, wearing (you guessed it) a wizard costume. “He’s aware of the song,” VanWyngarden says. “I don’t think we’ve gotten a reaction back, so maybe that’s not a good sign. We tried to get Kayne West to dress up like a wizard, too. He was supposed to be in the ‘Kids’ video, but he backed out. That’s the goal of this band, just to get someone famous to dress up like a wizard in one of our videos. Brian Eno can design his costume and do whatever he wants in the video. We just want him there.” —Emily Zemler
