Liars are a band who have consistently refused to be put into a neat little box with a genre label on it. They consist of Angus Andrew (vocals/guitar), Aaron Hemphill (percussion, guitar, synth) and Julian Gross (drums). In the early days there were several line-up changes before the current trio was established.

The Early Days

Angus and Julian met while studying at the California Institute of the Arts (or CalArts), studying photography and graphic design respectively. However, Julian was not to play for the band officially for a while. Aaron was working in a record shop in Los Angeles, and he teamed up with Angus and started making recordings. Once Angus had graduated, the trio moved to New York, with Julian in tow as a friend, roadie and general good company. So the bass and drum posts were filled by the Nebraskans Pat Noecker and Ron Albertson.

New York

This period was all about dance-punk, reminiscent of UK bands of the 1970s and early 1980s like Gang of Four. The band quickly became part of the trendy New York punk scene with other bands like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The band threw themselves wholeheartedly into recording, emerging with their first studio album in just two days. They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top was released in October, 2001 on the independent Gern Blandsten label. The album was poorly promoted, but soon became surprisingly popular due to critical acclaim. However, Liars were still aware that they could become all too easily stuck in a single genre (even their debut album's title expresses this concern). The need to explore new musical territory has influenced each of the Liars' albums since.

They followed up the success of their debut with a pair of EPs. We No Longer Knew Who We Were was a collection of the band's demos recorded in 2000. Fins To Make Us More Fish-Like, released in November, 2002, showed they were already moving away from their traditional homeground of punk music with a danceable beat. The rhythms became more experimental, showing Liars were more than yet another trendy New York punk band.

In Transition

It was so shocking to me how quickly we were put into this 'Post-Punk Brooklyn Art-Dance' pigeonhole. We realised that we needed to drop all that stuff and clear the slate.
- Angus Andrew

Soon after, Pat and Ron left the band due to artistic differences. Angus and Aaron called on their old friend Julian Gross to perform drumming duties, and in December, 2002 they recorded a split EP with another band, Oneida, called Atheists, Reconsider (released by the Arena Rock Recording Company). They continued to show they were out to make something more than pop, especially in 'Dorothy Taps the Toe of the Tinman', described as a 'sound collage' of kitchen-sink percussion, ambient drones and static, and cut-and-paste spoken words.

Early in 2003, Angus moved away from New York with his girlfriend, Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and took up residence in an isolated cabin in the forests of New Jersey. Karen went on tour with her band in the late spring and early summer, so Angus invited Aaron and Julian over to record a new album. Their record label, Mute, agreed to allow them to invest in some modest studio equipment and record it in Angus's basement, rather than renting a studio and recording in the shortest time possible to save money. Angus's friend Dave Sitek helped in the recording and producing process.

While recording the album the band immersed itself in accounts of real witch trials and witch folklore. The idea was to create a 'story album' (rather than a concept album) based around this theme. Aaron felt the first track had to be called 'Broken Witch'. Angus, 'messing around on the Internet' (his own words) typed the phrase into a search engine, but mistyped it as 'Brocken Witch'.

Walpurgisnacht

Walpurgisnacht is a German festival celebrated on April 30th. According to German folklore, it is the night the witches fly on their broomsticks to Northern Germany's highest peak, Brocken Mountain. In the witch-hunts of the Middle Ages the date was declared the 'Witches' Sabbath' by the inquisition. They Were Wrong So We Drowned was born.

The album tells a story from two viewpoints: that of the witches and that of a scared village of Christians. It was vital for the band to get into the right mindset. They took walks at night in the woods around the cabin in order to get the eerie feeling of dread which has been transferred so clearly to the album. The titles of the songs were treated as chapters in the story, and they often drifted away from what would traditionally be called 'music' in order to satisfy the tale's development and to get the right atmosphere. This aspect of the album was not universally popular with the critics, and both Spin and Rolling Stone magazines gave the album the lowest possible score in their reviews when it was released in February, 2004.

Berlin

The band's relocations have been important parts of its musical development, and the move to Berlin in 2004 changed things radically. The city's atmosphere was completely different to New York or the New Jersey forests. The band was attracted by the Bohemian lifestyle, low-rent living and thriving underground music scene. The history of Germany and the wider Eastern European region became thematic reference points for the third album. All through 2004 they worked at what would eventually become Drum's Not Dead.

Even before They Were Wrong had been released they had been experimenting with new sounds and ideas for the third album. It took them a long time, and an entire album's worth of material was reportedly cut, but eventually they completed recording in a German broadcast centre which provided numerous different acoustic environments. Although finished before the start of 2005 the album would not be released until 2006.

Most of Drum's Not Dead's track names refer to one of two characters. Drum is assertive and productive, the spirit of creative confidence, while Mt Heart Attack is the embodiment of stress and self-doubt. They are like Yin and Yang, both important parts of the creative process. The closing track is perhaps the most surprising piece Liars has ever recorded. 'The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack' is unquestionably a beautiful, sparsely-arranged piece of music, attempting to express that, though Mt Heart Attack is traditionally seen as a negative character, he/she/it can show love, tenderness and affection. The album as a whole is a quieter piece of work, less in-your-face, but the closing track epitomises this. It was a much more successful work than They Were Wrong and received critical acclaim to such an extent it was nominated as one of the best albums of 2006 by several music magazines.

The album was released with a DVD containing 36 short films (three for each track), with Angus, Julian and film-maker Markus Wambsganss directing 12 each. The films comprised everything from backstage tour diaries to surreal animation and sci-fi mini-epics. Angus originally conceived Liars as a multimedia project and saw film as an important part of the band. 'We felt strongly about this for a long time. We were always interested in trying to combine music and film', he says.

Back to Basics

Another album, another reinvention. Well, it was expected, so they couldn't have let the music world down, could they? They decided that they shouldn't take their new record so seriously. It would have to be fun. It wasn't going to be burdened with a 'concept' or thematic pretensions - it was merely going to be an album with some good songs on it. They remembered being teenagers in Los Angeles and thought they would make some music in the teenage mode - Liars were going to make a pop album.

The band was interested in defining 'pop'. They had noted the negative connotations the word can carry, but the group felt there was something to it. Perhaps realising that their past works (especially They Were Wrong) had been extremely hard to swallow, they tried to make something which really connected and communicated with people. This included dropping their indulgently long song titles. Angus later stated that this album was also where the band really allowed its diverse influences, like Beck and Led Zeppelin, to shine through.

That was a really big point for me; I’m normally used to making the music so it sounds different or experimental, whatever. But when I actually fell on a piece that sounded like I’d actually heard it before, my god I nearly peed my pants. It was so exciting, because I never thought I could actually play a blues riff. And then it started going further that way. So in the end it just became more experimental than anything we’ve done before. The experimenting being that it sounded like other people. Something was familiar other than alien.
- Angus Andrew

Angus and Aaron started writing separately and then sent each other CDs of the material they were working on. It was soon apparent that they both shared the same idea of getting away from the 'intellectual' aspects and 'getting back to how it felt to be young and struck in the gut'¹.

In keeping with this new simplified mindset the album was self-titled, emphasising the fact that the album was about songs, rather than the concept referred to in the title. It was a traditional record concerned with traditional songwriting. Elements from previous albums were present, but they were combined into quite a different package. The falsetto vocals from Drum's Not Dead stayed, and the funky, punky noise-rock from their debut LP made a comeback.

I can't wait to hear what people think of the album, and what box they'll put us in this time, so we can break out of that one too.
- Angus Andrew, speaking of They Were Wrong So We Drowned

Songs To Listen Out For

They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top

• 'Grown Men Don't Fall In the River, Just Like That' - Liars at their funkiest and punkiest. With characteristically surreal lyrics and demonstrating the band's penchant for long song titles, this song might be a good one to ease you into the band's sound (or at least their sound during their New York phase).
• 'This Dust Makes That Mud' - it is a feat to simply listen to this song to the end. At over half an hour long, it's a daunting prospect, especially considering the last 22 minutes consist of a three-second drum machine loop. That aside, this is actually quite a catchy song, with an irresistibly groovy rhythm. The slightly creepy vocals hint at what is to come on the next album.

They Were Wrong So We Drowned

• 'Flow My Tears The Spiders Said' - not the scariest track on this album, but perhaps the most haunting. Although it is over six minutes long, half of it is taken up by the sounds of a forest: singing birds and the like. The first half is a kind of sea shanty with surreal lyrics dripping with poeticism.

Drum's Not Dead

• 'Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack!' - the album's opener contains ethereal, shimmering music and some military-style drumming that manages to appear soft and casual at the same time. Angus Andrew shows he can sing very well here, relying more on a quiet falsetto than the band's earlier music.
• 'The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack' - as has been said, a completely unexpected track. This is not necessarily a love song. It can be interpreted as such, but it could also simply be about tenderness and loyalty. The band have kept it simple with both the music and the vocals, but the result is mesmerising.

Liars

• 'Plaster Casts of Everything' - the fourth album's single is one of the catchiest songs the band has produced. It still has plenty of noise in it, but is packaged into a neat four-minute parcel of music. Not soft, but more mainstream.
• 'Houseclouds' - equally catchy, but rather funkier and more laid-back, this perhaps defines the direction the band were trying to take with their self-titled fourth album the most accurately.

Discography

Singles

• 'There's Always Room On the Broom' (2003)
• 'We Fenced Other Gardens With the Bones of Our Own' (2003)
• 'It Fit When I Was a Kid' (2005)
• 'The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack' (2006)
• 'Plaster Casts of Everything' (2007)
• 'Split with Yeah Yeah Yeahs' on vinyl; Japan and Australia only

EPs

• Fins to Make Us More Fish-Like (2002)
• Atheists, Reconsider (2002) - with Oneida
• We No Longer Knew Who We Were (2002)

Albums

• They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top (2001)
• They Were Wrong, So We Drowned (2004)
• Drum's Not Dead (2006)
• Liars (2007)