Cold War Kids

MEMBERS:

Matt Aveiro (drums), Matt Maust (bass), Jonnie Russell (guitar), Nathan Willett (vocals/piano).

Current Album:

Robbers & Cowards.

Release Date:

Available now.

You'll Like 'Em If You Like:

The White Stripes, The Walkmen, The French Kicks.

Cold War Kids on Cold War Kids in Five Words or Less:

Rhythm and Blues is alive.

You guys have sort of been blog favorites. Do you follow what's written about you in the press?
Sometimes our friends will bring it to our attention. Blogs [are] funny though [because] anybody can write anything at any time. When we started off, it was cool and interesting. Of course, you want to read about it. After a certain point, everybody has their own opinion. In order to keep your head on straight, you have to keep doing what you're doing because you want to do it. It can be harmful to a certain degree to read your own reviews. You get too conscious of what people think, and I don't think it's a good idea for any kind of artist to do.

Why did you do a bunch of smaller projects with your past EPs instead of one big one, like a full album?
The practical reason is that they were all different recordings that friends [who we did favors for] did for us [in return]. Our bass player, Matt [Maust] did a lot of graphic design for these guys. Recording then was a resourceful thing where we had to figure out how to do it in a couple days. We had to make it work: We'd write songs, record some of them, and decide which ones we wanted to keep, and then a few months later, we'd go through the same thing again. That's just how it worked. It was just simple.

Why did you name the band Cold War Kids?
It came from a poem that Matt wrote. He was in Eastern Europe, and he was walking around and that phrase was in his mind [with] bunch of things that he saw. We felt like it fit well for us.