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A quickie with MGMT's lead singer about their upcoming trip to South Africa

Cape Town – In case you missed it, MGMT are coming to South Africa for two festivals later this year.

We were offered the opportunity to speak to the lead singer of the Grammy-award-winning band: Andrew VanWyngarden while the electronic rockers are on tour in Eastern Europe.

He told us about his influences, what touristy things he's looking forward to doing in mzansi and explained the video for one of their latest singles.

Channel24:
We’re so excited for your first shows on South African soil at Vodacom in The City and Rocking the Daisies this October.

Are there any fun activities that you have planned other than rocking the stage, like shark cage diving or something crazy?

Andrew:
I’m excited and really happy (to be playing in South Africa).

That’s the first question everyone has been asking us (laughs) not specifically shark cage diving though. I would like to do that! Let’s do it!

Channel24:
You’ve played music festivals from Glastonbury to Coachella, what do you like about festival shows and why say yes to festival shows in South Africa?

Andrew:
Well, we’ve never been to South Africa or even the continent of Africa so it seemed like a great trip to make and that’ll be sort-of-a once in a lifetime experience or maybe it’s not. Maybe we’ll come back, that would be cool too.

I’ve heard so much about it through surfing and I don’t know, just excited to check it out, have a new experience. (Sic)

Channel24:
We love your tweets with different music videos, which artists inspired your latest self-titled album, MGMT?

Andrew:
Oh man, so many so many different ones...I think in terms of the kind of layers of sound on the latest album it’s kind-of influenced by a lot of early 90s bands like AR Cane and this English band called Disco Inferno.

I think both those bands do this multi layered...non standard way of making chords and we’re using a lot of analogue synthesizers, there’s this one called the Phoenix and other bands who use it like Aphex Twin and some other electronic artists (have been influential).

Channel24:
One of your latest singles, off that album, Cool Song 2 has a beautiful video that we love. Could you tell us more about it, what’s the story behind it?

Andrew:
It’s different from any other video that we’ve had. The director Isaiah Seret he came up with the story line after we went back and forth a bit but it was really his idea.

I think it’s kind of like a love story that takes the form of this weird disease happening. This guy turning into a tree and this other guy trying to save him. I think it’s really cool, (it’s a shame) that we weren’t actually at the shoot because we got to film at this beautiful place in Los Angeles where this guy doesn’t usually let people film.

Yeah, all in all it has a pretty unsettling vibe but it fits the song so well (sic).

You can see the video here:



And that’s it for our quickie, thanks Andrew.

Here's all the information you need about the MGMT shows in South Africa.

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