When faux news anchor Stephen Colbert announced on his show 'The Colbert Report' Monday night that his guests would be the Decemberists, he joked that "Tonight's the night they sell out." Instead, it was the night they remained indie, almost to a fault. A Pitchfork tweet (@pitchforkmedia) observed that the "Decemberists are kinda bombing this interview." It's not that they actually bombed it, per-se, it's just that they, well, took their appearance on a Comedy Central series a little too seriously, perhaps. After all, Colbert described the band's latest album, 'Hazards of Love' as a "list of STDs, set to music."

For his part, Colbert seemed enthused to engage the Decemberists' Colin Meloy and Chris Funk, but he was mostly met with literal answers and nervous smiles. Ah, well, as Twitter's one-time briefly-famed Ben Gibbard impostor (now known as @BenGibbardFan) noted, via tweet of course: "@ColinMeloy has a great, wide smile, and Chris doesn't say much. Despite the awkward interview, they're still charming."

Impostor or not, that's all true. Watch the full episode.



UPDATE: @colinmeloy updated his Twitter today to apologize for the band themselves not tweeting more from the show. "But there was a cell lockdown in the studio," he writes. "Think Stephen was afraid I'd mobilize my twitter legion."