The latest of the "buzz bands" hailing from New York, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (no The) had loads of hype surrounding them even before they had released a full-length album. On the strength of a couple EPs, an incredibly energetic live show, and a lead singer with incredible style, their name was on the lips of every music journalist in the UK, and shortly thereafter, North America. It didn't hurt that a couple of their earliest shows happened to be opening up for The White Stripes and The Strokes. Now that they've proved skeptics wrong with one of the best rock albums of the year, Fever to Tell, a great mix of new-wave, punk and hard rock that plays out like a night out in the NYC clubs, they can take their spot as not just another "buzz band," but one of the premier forces in rock music. As they came to Vancouver to finish off their North American tour before taking a short break and heading off to tour Europe, we had a chance to sit down with guitarist Nick Zinner after sound-check.

As we walk into the fabulous Commodore Ballroom, the room is filled with the sound of Brian Chase's drumming. He's just drumming away for about ten minutes before Zinner waltzes on stage, guitar in hand. After jamming for a short time, their cat-like frontwoman Karen O enters the stage in black pants and a hoody (later she would don a tight leopard print short jumpsuit with pink tights), and the band is complete. Though the sound-check is much less energetic than the show to come later, you can already see the greatness in this band. With a formally trained jazz drummer in Chase, a guitarist who makes you forget that there was ever a need for a bass player in rock music in Zinner, and one of the coolest frontwomen since Debbie Harry in O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are easily one of the strongest minimalist rock bands out there. From the three new songs that they ran through for sound-check, it seems that the next album will be darker and moodier than the last, and will be just as good, if not better, than Fever To Tell.

What do you think are the advantages of growing primarily by word of mouth as opposed to media saturation?
Word of mouth is kind of the most legit form of information. At least in the case of opinion, so I'm all for it. Media saturation, I think generally people are sort of turned off by it. I'm really turned off by it too.

Who was the first band or artist you truly loved and made you want to play music?
Hmmm...Probably David Bowie. Either David Bowie or Aerosmith.

How old were you?
Like, thirteen or twelve. Maybe ten.

How long have you had your '85 Japanese Strat, and do you ever use anything else?
I think I got it in... like ten years ago. Maybe like fourteen years ago? I can't even remember. I just bought it from a friend of mine for like $100. I think there was some comic book trade involved. And I pretty much just use that one. I just got a new guitar, 'cause I used to have a Les Paul copy that a friend of mine gave me and then it got stolen in Berlin last summer. It was really bad. There's a company called First Act that built me a free custom guitar, so I've been using that also. It's really nice.

Would you ever consider letting me know what your secret tuning is?
Nope.

No? Too secret?
Yup. You can figure it out though. It's pretty easy.

How do you create such a huge full sound besides just by using two amps?
I'm up to three amps now. Actually with the drum machine and a little sampler we've been using, I'm up to five amps. So it's great. I just want like a wall of cute little amps all on the stage.

Are we ever gonna hear [Zinner and O's acoustic group] Unitard?
Maybe! I dunno. Karen and I keep talking about it but we just haven't really had time to collaborate on it. And now she's been writing tons of songs like that and I have a few but we haven't been able to join up on them. I dunno, I still think it would be nice to record some stuff or release some of the stuff that we recorded a while ago.

Have you ever considered opening up a YYYs show with a Unitard set?
No, no. It's like a totally different frame of mind. Can't really... I think we tried maybe three years ago doing a show of each band within the same week and it was just a disaster. Just like two extreme personality sides. We weren't really able to compromise.

Do you remember the very first YYYs show?
Yeah it's in the Mercury Lounge in New York. We were like first out of four bands. White Stripes were headlining. They were on tour with Sleater-Kinney at the time. Actually, Dave, who is our tour manager now, was friends with the White Stripes' booking agent so he... like we'd been talking about our band so he offered us this show. But we didn't really know who they were at the time.

Yeah, it was before they broke, right?
Yeah. And Kid Congo Powers' band played at that show too. Which was good. There was like 25 people there... like 15 of our friends. It was really fun.

You're often referred to as one of the coolest bands around. Who do you think is the coolest band around?
Mmmm... That's a tough one. Probably...uhhhhh (huge pause). I don't know. I can't even think. Maybe... the coolest bands aren't really around anymore. Probably [Nick Cave and] the Bad Seeds. Probably the coolest band cuz they all wear suits and look like gangsters. They're very elegant gentlemen. Definitely cool.