"When I first met you, Karen, you were wild and [then] I saw the flipside. You played these songs that were very slow and beautiful and fragile. Seeing that full spectrum was incredible” - Nick Zinner to Karen O.
Kim Hill meets two-thirds of the Grammy-nominated New York band Yeah Yeah Yeahs – guitarist Nick Zinner and singer Karen O.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (left to right: drummer Brian Chase, singer Karen O and guitarist Nick Zinner) Photo: Facebook / Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Karen (whose full name is Karen Lee Orzolek) says she playing wingwoman for a friend “at the divey-est of dive bars” when she first met Nick.
The pair pretty quickly realised they should make music together, Nick adds.
“I feel like the second or third time we met we got really drunk and you drove me back to your apartment and played me songs that you were working on. I was blown away,” he tells Karen.
The songs were incredible, Nick says.
"When I first met you, Karen, you were wild and [then] I saw the flipside. You played these songs that were very slow and beautiful and fragile. Seeing that full spectrum was incredible.”
Nick says they first decided to become a band, then came up with the name and told everyone they were amazing.
In September 2000, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had only practised together once as a band when a friend booked them to open for cult rock duo The White Stripes at Mercury Lounge on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
For Karen, making music at that time was "totally a side gig" but the band ended up saved her life.
"I had no idea what I was in for or that I’d bit off more than I can chew to a certain degree and really having no concept of what it meant to be in a band... as a career.
“We played that show...in the September of 2000 and in early 2001, one of my closest friends died really suddenly and then a few months later 9/11 happened.
“I was just a baby, I was just fresh out of the school system and totally reeling from this huge loss and then the whole city was reeling from trauma and loss that happened...
“The Yeah Yeah Yeahs was like my church at that point, it was spiritual release, communing with people, grieving with people but also transcending all of it together.”
Watch a clip from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' first-ever show:
Karen says there were growing pains after the band's first record Fever to Tell (2003) - but together they "got through it”.
In the past, she and Nick have been “the storm” of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, while drummer Brian Chase was the one who “weathers the storm”.
“But that has changed over the years, I'd say especially for this last record, there was hardly a trace of a storm. I think that just comes with maturity and lifelong friendship.”
The band released their fifth album Cool It Down this September, and the response from fans has been really positive, Nick says,
They haven't read reviews of the album – "the worst idea for any kind of artist" – but critics should know to expect the unexpected from a Yeah Yeah Yeahs release.
“We kind of set a precedent with our second record of always changing it up and trying different things," he says.
