As Vampire Weekend prepares to drop their 2024 "magnum opus" album, Only God Was Above Us, frontman Ezra Koening is giving fans a look behind the curtain into his more relaxed mindset after almost two decades on the scene.
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In Koenig's wide-ranging chat with Rolling Stone U.K. ahead of Vampire Weekend's forthcoming album Only God Was Above Us, we learn that underneath the upbeat sound that fans have come to love -- perfectly exemplified by your favorite song on 2008's Step Brothers soundtrack -- there was something darker churning. “I had a world view from the ages of about 12 to 35: there are good things in the world, but more often than not, there are more bad things, and it’s disappointing. I didn’t have belief that there was anything beyond that," he reveals. "Looking back, it was a smug, self-satisfied feeling of thinking, ‘Yeah, I understand reality.’ That doesn’t mean I was always in a bad mood, but just had a sense of, ‘The world sucks, you can’t trust people!’"
“You get thrown a few bones by the universe, and that’s great — enjoy them while you can, but don’t get used to it," Ezra continues. "That’s how I could reconcile the fact that we made happy, fun music at times." He believes if anyone would have told him then that "life is inherently meaningful," he would have shrugged it off, asking, "‘Well, can you prove that?’"
Now approaching 40, married, a dad, fully embraced in the Alternative music scene and finally free to take his foot off the gas, Koenig says he's come to realize, "It’s a choice you make. Your life is inherently meaningful, if you allow it to be.”
“I was starting to drop the anxiety of my youth which told me you can never wait too long,” he remembers. “It was great to spend a lot of time reflecting, because deep down, my passion in life is chilling. It always has been. I even remember in the early days I was talking to another guy in a band who’s very intense, making music all the time. We were talking about the future, and at the time I lived in New York, and I can remember saying, ‘I think my vibe is just walking on the Upper East Side getting coffee. That’s what I want to do.’"
With age, he admits, came the realization: "‘Right, that’s why I work so hard. So that I can have years of idleness and walking around chilling,’" he says. "I can also create a narrative where I say that all that time allows me to become a better artist and more focused, and I think that’s probably true, but above all, it’s just what I like to do.”
Vampire Weekend's fifth studio album, and first in five years -- Only God Was Above Us – will be available everywhere on April 5. To celebrate the release, the band will perform a special concert in Austin, TX at the Moody Amphitheater at noon on April 8 during the historic total eclipse.
The band will then hit the road starting on April 27, making stops across the U.S. and Canada before wrapping up back in Austin on October 17. Tickets are available now.
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