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Vampire Weekend Are No Paul Simon

Vampire Weekend's 2008 debut album was quick to draw frequent comparisons to Paul Simon's 'Graceland' for its incorporation of African musical influences. But the band members are quick to dismiss the notion.

"In some ways the fact that it's the only thing that comes up can be kind of frustrating," said Vampire's singer and guitarist Ezra Koenig in front of an audience at the TimesCenter on Saturday as part of the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend event. "It makes it sounds like that we're totally one-dimensional, that all we do is rip off Paul Simon. Even from the early days that became like a thing. I think the first time [somebody] yelled 'Paul Simon!' That was in Omaha, Neb., and I was angry for the rest of the show."

The band members approached the source himself to get his opinion of their work. "We did actually get to meet [Simon] when we did 'Saturday Night Live,'" Koenig said. "Rostam [Batmanglij, our guitarist,] had the forward thinking to say straight up, 'Do you think our album sounds like Graceland?' And he said, 'Not really.'"

Midway through the interview Vampire Weekend performed acoustically three songs: 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,' 'Walcott' and a cover of 'Have I the Right?' by the '60s group the Honeycombs. They also dropped hints about their upcoming second album, which they started working on last week.

"To be able to have some time and actually work on some new songs is just exciting," Koenig said. "We're feeling it out. We want to avoid using the same sounds from the first album. It's important to try different sounds."

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4 Comments

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James Smith

Paul Simon is One of my favourite artists, Vampire weekend is possibly my favourite bands, I don't really see a huge comparrison between the two apart from the african influence, i almost want to hear a
Paul Simon - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
and
Vampire Weekend - Call Me Al

That would make my life

April 23 2010 at 3:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to James Smith's comment
Steven

Haha, that would make mine too.

August 27 2010 at 12:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
reg

they totally rip of paul simon. its still cool I like paul simon

April 02 2010 at 2:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark Crane

What kind of a loser goes to a show so they can get drunk and shout out "Paul Simon" ??

It'd be much funnier if someone went to a Paul Simon show and shouted out "Vampire Weekend!"

February 09 2010 at 10:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply