Yeasayer: ‘Twitter Is Bullshit And It Worries My Mum’

Laneway's Brooklyn guests Yeasayer are a band that have benefited from the rise of social media – but that doesn't stop them from admitting that most of it is bullshit.

In a new interview with Matt O'Neill, the band's frontman Chris Keating said that he's not one that takes music criticism to heart.

“Well, whatever I say, you can write whatever the fuck you want to write. It doesn't really matter what I say or do, you're going to do what you need to,” he said. “The relationship between musicians and the music press has always been tenuous at best. I love reading music writing, but I would never dwell too heavily on anything about me or my band.”

He added, “With social media being what it is, it's hard to differentiate your legitimate reputable writers from your average blogosphere shit. With Twitter giving everyone a voice, it all just kind of turns into this very loud bullshit that permeates the internet. You know, my mum will come up to me and tell me that somebody wrote something and I just have to tell her to stop reading the shit.”

Keating's band will kick off the Laneway tour tomorrow and he agrees that the internet has played a vital part in getting them to this point.

“It's a double-edged sword. I feel like social media, file sharing, blogs and the internet really enabled us to have a life as a band; enabled us to be an independent band on an independent label while still having access to global markets. And I'm obviously hugely grateful for that. I'm very much aware that is where we came from as a touring band.

“However, there's always two sides to it. You know, file sharing allows us to tour to places like Australia but it also prevents us from making any money out of our music. It's a lot like Twitter and the blogosphere in general. There's a lot of good stuff out there said about a band and a lot of bullshit. Really, you just got to kind of stay away from all of it.”

Read the full interview here.