Rockin' Renovation

"It's nice to walk around in a record store while you’re doing interviews,” Cold War Kids singer Nathan Willett says. And although tempted to splash some cash, manners prevail. “I saw a few things but I couldn’t buy them because then I’d be that annoying guy on the phone while I’m trying to buy a record. Nobody wants to deal with that guy.”

In that single sentence Willett not only endears himself to anyone who’s ever worked in customer service, but encapsulates the self-aware humility that’s helped Cold War Kids survive a decade in an increasingly fickle musical landscape.

“When we were starting out we didn’t have an amount of records that we wanted to sell or a size of venue that we were hoping to play. I think we just wanted to make music in the way we wanted to make it and have a good time doing it.”

The band has seen its ups and downs, notably during the fallout from their underwhelming 2011 album, Mine Is Yours. Willett maintains a positive perspective: “When you’re writing your own songs you definitely run the risk of them not being as good or as palatable or as universal as they would be if you worked with outside songwriters or other producers.

“The way Mine Is Yours was reviewed and understood, we thought that people didn’t like it. But it’s interesting; I now meet people for whom it was their entry point to the band. They loved the sound of that record. So I’ve had no regrets in terms of things that we’ve tried and ways we’ve experimented.”

Overcoming the departure of drummer Matt Aveiro, Cold War Kids have returned with their fifth LP, Hold My Home, fresh-faced and seemingly free of any inhibitions.

“The split with Matt was one of those things where I think that – over the many years that we’ve been doing this – he’d lost some of the zeal for the band and we needed a change.

“It is kind of an unfortunate part of bands that you either live and die with the line-up that you start with or you evolve. You have to move forward and know that things can potentially change.

“If ‘indie rock’ means trudging away for a small group of fans and not having much exposure then we’ve never been totally true indie rock. I personally don’t think it means that; I think bands like Arcade Fire and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are considered indie rock forever yet they’ve achieved very stereotypical mainstream successes in their careers.

“But y’know, if it helps people discover our music and helps them enjoy it, then it’s all good.”