WHEN We Are Scientists formed some decade and a half ago, a consistent theme in their gigs was physical injury.

According to vocalist and guitarist Keith Murray, back in the early days of the American rock band’s career it was not uncommon for them to walk away from shows with bumps, scrapes and sometimes stitches.

“Our shows in our early twenties very often involved one of us getting hurt,” says Keith. “Which thankfully they no longer do unless something has gone horribly wrong.”

One of the worst injuries of Keith’s five album career with We Are Scientists was the night before they were due to fly to Los Angeles from New York to play a record label showcase.

He recalls they were playing a now-closed “dumpy dive bar” in Brooklyn and “as per usual for that period my tendency was to get super drunk and play a ramshackle show.”

“At the end of the show I was standing on the drumkit playing the symbols with my hands,” Keith says. “At the very end I thought ‘why is there blood on the cymbals’ and I looked down at my hand it was totally sliced open.”

“I think mostly because I was drunk but in those days I used to hide any physical or emotional injury so I was just like – ‘hey guys I have to go, would you throw my stuff in the van?’.

“I ended up walking in freezing rain about four miles through a really bad neighbourhood in Brooklyn to get my hand stitched up at about 4am before heading back to the apartment to get my bag to jump on the plane and play the showcase.”

The showcase the next day did not lead to their initial signing and the band were picked up some four months later.

Keith says it was “the first time we ever felt like that sort of thing was on the horizon”.

Now 11 years on since their debut With Love and Squalor, the band have just released their fifth record Helter Seltzer – teaming back up with departed keyboard player turned producer Max Hart.

“We have a tendency to only make records with people we have long been friends with,” says Keith. “Max was our touring keyboardist and since he has left he has been a friend we just hang out with, but our relationship had not been musically professional for eight years.

“He has been playing keyboards for Katy Perry for the past five years, but he finally quit because he wanted to work more on being creative in music. As you might imagine, being Katy Perry’s touring keyboard player is a pretty full-time job.”

After meeting for a beer Max pitched building a studio in Brooklyn for the band to takeover for three months of chilled out sessions. 

“It was just a bunch of friends hanging out in a clubhouse that was well appointed with awesome recording gear,” says Keith.

The “friends hanging out vibe” transcends to Keith’s relationship with his fellow scientist bass guitar Chris Cain, steering well away from the stressed out, at loggerheads bandmate stereotypes.

“We hang out almost every day when we are in the city even when we are not touring, which I gather is very weird,” says Keith. “We have stayed very close friends with pretty much everyone we have ever toured with. Chris and I have had a pretty easy time with it.”

One of the tracks on album five even deals with their friendship, Too Late.
The title of the record Helter Seltzer, which the band jokingly refer to as them coining a new genre, actually simply came from their obsession with seltzer water.

“Our drummer and our tour manager, it is fair to say, are totally addicted to it, and they drew us in as well,” says Keith. “Chris came up with as a funny rhyming pun. But the longer we sat on it we realised it was a good encapsulation of our music and of this record.

“It takes the poppy effervescent side of our music alongside the chaos and the angst in our lyrics and the tone we choose.”

He goes on, “It is a title you cannot have no opinion on. You are either ‘that is a pretty funny title’ or you are like ‘these people are idiots, I hate it, I hope they get all  get hurt’.”

Now fitting snugly under the Helter Seltzer banner, Keith reels against the term indie rock, saying the term has become meaningless.

“It is a totally diluted genre title and is not helpful in being a descriptor from any particular band,” he says.

7pm, tickets £15.50.
Call 01273 673311