Is it true MGMT was conceived by you and Andrew playing the Ghostbusters theme over and over and over, hours on end, at a Wesleyan University party?

(Ben) Yeah. That was our first performance!

Kids sounds to my ear almost like it could be a warped or re-shuffled Ghostbusters theme! I think it’s awesome that you took Nicholas Sarkozy and his party to court for using the song without asking or paying for it.

(Ben) Technically we settled out of court, but yeah. It was one of those things that got blown out of proportion. Mostly we had a problem with our song being used for a political campaign against our wishes. We try not to be overtly political as a band. We believe music should transcend boundaries.

You've been the musical guest on all the late shows I can think of. Which was the most fun one?

(James) When we went on Jimmy Fallon and did a Pink Floyd cover. That was really special! We were dressed up like fishermen, and they had lightning and rain effects, and Bradford Cox was wearing a leather jacket for some reason, doing tape manipulations. That was a standout for me. (Ben) That was a really good one. Also, the last time we did a Conan O'Brien, we were all wearing crazy outfits. I had some kind of gas mask on; it was really cool because I like playing when people can't see my face and I can rock out hard.

Which Elektron instruments do you own?

(Ben) We've got the Machinedrum, Rytm, Octatrack, and now James and I have just started using a couple of Analog Keys live.

What sort of feelings do they evoke?

(James) It's a lot of fun to dive in and get lost in it, see where it takes you. (Ben) One of the things I think is really cool about Elektron instruments is that they're set up in a way that's sort of traditional architecture but goes beyond that. On the Rytm, the way the individual drum sounds are kind of reminiscent of an 808, but once you start messing around it leads you in a totally different direction. I had the most fun when I'm kind of fighting against the traditional sound, coming up with something totally crazy or making one type of drum sound like a different type of drum. The Rytm is really good at getting organic sounds. It's a bit clichéd terminology, but some of the sounds that come out of it sound like they're made by a real living thing.

How do the instruments agree with the soul and aesthetic of MGMT?

(Ben) We like to use a mixture of old and new things, and I think Elektron instruments fit into that really well. The way we work, recording on one section of the material and then picking out little pieces, like a collage style of working, it's just such fun to have them, jamming in the studio, having a drum machine running, slowly changing the pattern and then recording little bits of that and figuring out what the song is later! A lot of the drum tracks of the album that we just finished was the Rytm just going, while we were figuring stuff out! It ended up being the final song version of the drum track, and it was the first time we played it. What I also like about the instruments is that it's possible to mess around with them and have no idea what you're doing! Sometimes it's fun to temper it in ignorance for a little while, just randomly turn knobs and see what you come up with. There aren't a lot of bad sounds that happen. It stays within the realm of something you can make a song with. With some digital instruments, it's some combinations of parameters that are really good, and then sometimes you get to something that's kind of awful. I don't ever find that happening with Elektron instruments, which is great.

Tell me something fun you like to do with the Keys!

(James) I recently started figuring something out where the LFO multiplier can get quite high, so you can do some FM type of stuff with it, using the LFO almost like frequency modulation. You can get some really wild, bonkers-sounding stuff that way! There's lots of fun stuff like that. (Ben) I really like the oscillator sync architecture on it, it's different from any other synth I've used. It's really cool how the oscillators can be synced to each other simultaneously, making some crazy feedback between them. You can come up with some really chaotic waveforms that way.

What’s the main Octatrack duty?

(Ben) It can do so many things. It doesn't guide you in a particular direction, which is its best and worst quality at the same time! It's very easy to load a sample into it, and then a few minutes later it sounds nothing like what you put into it, which is really cool. I really do like how chaotic the Octatrack can be! For our live setup right now it's been a really nice utility box, having something that can handle all the MIDI messages and effects and some things in stereo and having different presets for different songs. That's been really useful. Also, I always thought the Monomachine was really cool, but I never picked one up. I've been very impressed by the sounds that I've heard people getting out of it. It'd be cool to check out the Digitakt, too. Anything that makes music making or electronic music making more accessible to people is a good thing.

What can you tell me about your upcoming album, Little Dark Age?

(Ben) I moved to LA, so we've been working remotely a lot. I think that influenced the recording in a good way. A lot more focus than when we lived together, and also a lot more open to different collaborations and recording styles where we recorded in a few different studios and had a friend come by and lay things down on a song. It felt like the most open attitude we've had toward recording an album, and we had a lot of fun. Because of that openness, it doesn't really have a particular style. There are electronic moments on there, there's more psychedelic rock moments, and it's pretty all over the place, but in a good way.

The cover art on your second album Congratulations, is that an homage to George Herriman's awesome Krazy Kat comic from roughly a century ago?

(Ben) I would say yes! It's funny because the artist who did the cover, Anthony Ausgang, his whole art style is all cats, pretty much. He is deeply inspired by all cartoon cats, but Krazy Kat is one of them for sure.

Any classic MGMT prank you remember?

(Ben) One of our very early shows, when it was just me and Andrew performing as a duo. Right after we graduated from college we did a show near New York City, and a friend of ours had bought a durian fruit. We brought it to the show, and our friend sliced open the durian with a machete, passed it around and took bites of it, took the mike and talked about what the smell reminded everyone of. We were playing Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan in the background. We were the first of maybe two or three bands, and the smell of the durian cleared the room!

How does it feel to have Paul McCartney as one of your fans?

(Ben) When we found out, we kind of didn't believe it! That's just too big of a thing to think about. He's such an amazing songwriter. It was very flattering to hear that he liked our music. (James) When we met him, he gave us pins with the NASA insignia. I put it on my favorite jeans jacket, and then one day on tour I lost the jeans jacket with the NASA pin attached. I still feel pain when I think about having lost that.

My impression is that there is a real, thick, air of irreverence about MGMT. Can you sense that this is also the case with Elektron?

(James) Definitely. It's sort of like a friend, you know, when you're interacting with the instrument. There are all these little quirks and unexpected flips and turns, but also what feels like Easter eggs, you know? It's the complete opposite of all the instruments out there that really seriously attempt to re-create so-called classic sounds. It's like the opposite of that. It's more like how far away from that can we get, and how much can we mangle something. So yeah, it definitely comes across that way!

Interview by Daniel Sterner
Photo by Photo by Mark Kates