An Interview With tUnE-yArDs: 'Get People's Attention or Die'

Chrissy Piper

Merrill Garbus, now proudly R-rated

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More About

• Vampire Weekend
• Merrill Garbus
• Paul Simon
• Indie Rock and Indie Pop
• World Music

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So the live-looping thing, slowly building a drumbeat and a small backing choir with your own voice—aside from your bassist—is that a function of your preferring to perform solo, or will we see you now in the future with, like, 20 people onstage? I think you'll see me with more people in the future, only because I'm being asked to perform in front of 25,000 people. I try to do stuff on my own, but simply for the technicalities of sound, I think I'll need to play with more people in the future. I will keep performing on my own, too, because so much of what I feel is important about the music is how much I can do by myself, or how much any human being can do on their own. And I think, especially, women need to hear that more and more, and need to see a woman doing more on her own. As much as people may think that's unnecessary anymore, it's my experience that it's really good for women of all ages to see other women being really weird and bizarre and loud.

tUnE-yArDs performs at the Bell House February 5