By the time you read this, Keith Murray ’99 and Chris Cain ’99, aka the indie rock band We Are Scientists, will be deep into a North American tour that has them criss-crossing the nation (and Canada) from Chicago to Seattle to San Antonio to Vancouver, and many parts in between, before winding up in Toronto on December 5. This musical whirlwind comes on the heels of a festival tour in the U.K. and Spain that took up much of their summer.
Twenty years on from their breakout 2005 album With Love and Squalor, and with nine studio albums under their belts (including last year’s Qualifying Miles), the New York City-based band—known for frenetic rhythms, punchy hooks and witty phrasing—shows no signs of slowing down. Being on the road, they say, is as much fun as ever.
“I think the good elements of being on tour are amplified in our band,” says Murray, who met Cain when they were both undergraduates at Pomona, where they united over a love of comedy. “Most bands don’t really socialize with one another the way we do.”
When they’re back home, says Cain, “the thing that keeps the job fun is continuing to push ourselves as songwriters and recording artists.” Songwriting actually has become more enjoyable over the years, he notes. When they were first trying to break into the New York music scene, “writing a bad song felt like the end of the world.” Two decades later, more prolific and more adept, they can immerse themselves in the flow of creativity with less angst.
Though neither has become rich from their musical career, they both say they’re happy with how things turned out—partly due to the values and reverence for the arts they learned at Pomona.
“I certainly wouldn’t trade my lifestyle for one that involved more wealth and less personal interest and satisfaction inherently woven into what I do every day,” says Murray. “So, in some ways, maybe we’re the richest men of them all.”