The Walkmen
In terms of units moved, magazine covers adorned or models dated, The Walkmen never scored the highest among the early-Aughts generation of New York musicians. Interpol, The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were at the top of that heap. But while “best” is subjective, The Walkmen are that scene’s foremost “band’s band” — the hardest-working and most consistent, a crucial branch of the family tree of that cast of impossibly cool East Coast bands.
The Walkmen formed in 2000 out of the ashes of Jonathan Fire*Eater — the hotly tipped, star-crossed late-’90s combo whose gifted yet troubled guiding force Stewart Lupton’s demons finally caught up with him in 2018, 22 years after he torpedoed JF*E’s one-and-done major label deal. Between ’02 and ’13, The Walkmen’s magnetic singer Hamilton Leithauser and bassist-organist Peter Bauer, plus timekeeper Matt Barrick and six-stringers Paul Maroon and Walter Martin — the latter three all ex-Fire*Eaters — cultivated, perfected and never stopped exploring a signature ultra-analog, vintage-gear-powered, band-in-a-room sound with a timeless feel but few obvious antecedents.
The group’s six full-lengths prove this — all naturalistic, live-in-studio sounds, anchored by Leithauser’s versatile, envelope-pushing vocals. Its career arc has involved no member changes or tragedies outside of Lupton’s downfall — which essentially planted the seed for both The Walkmen in particular and the 2000s New York scene in general. No breakup was ever announced; things simply seemed to have run their course after 2012’s Heaven LP, which is a perfectly plaintive ripper of a record with a series-finale feel to it.
Now, a decade later, Leithauser and his cohorts, based in Brooklyn, have come roaring back. They’ll headline Brooklyn Bowl — the one here — on Saturday, Sept. 16, with fellow New Yorkers Yeah Baby supporting. Judging from ink spilled so far about The Walkmen’s comeback shows, the time off hasn’t come close to dulling their edge. Four of five members have generated solo output in intervening years, while drummer Barrick has kept busy behind the kit with Fleet Foxes, The Hold Steady, Maggie Rogers and more.
In interviews, the 45-year-old Leithauser has credited a run of instant-classic solo shows in 2020 at Brooklyn’s Cafe Carlyle for reigniting the spark. Set lists since the band got back on the road have pulled from each Walkmen record, including 2004’s hard-charging Bows & Arrows and its rager-for-the-ages “The Rat” to 2008’s stately, autumnal You & Me — even resurrecting a long-lost tune off Jonathan Fire*Eater’s sole DreamWorks LP, Wolf Songs for Lambs, “Impatient Talent Show.”
The Walkmen
Leithauser & Co. have been coy about whether a follow-up to Heaven might be a possibility — but even without it, sets so far have provided plenty of intrigue. “We’re better than we were before,” the frontman told U.K. magazine Far Out in August. But as he told Stereogum a few months earlier, “We’re not going to turn into the Pixies” — insofar as they won’t spoil this slight return with an ongoing string of subpar new material compromising The Walkmen’s legacy.
The Sept. 16 show comes almost 12 years to the day after the release of the group’s fifth LP Lisbon. It’s also about 15 years removed from when a badass cast of then-fresh-faced Nashville independent music figures convened to cover songs from You & Me live at Grimey’s to celebrate the album on the day it came out.
As bands’ trajectories go, The Walkmen have lived a relatively charmed existence. Their story might not be the most fraught. With respect to the immortal “The Rat,” they never had a mainstream hit. Compared to The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem and all the rest, they claimed only a few pages in Meet Me in the Bathroom — Lizzy Goodman’s brick-heavy, 600-plus-page oral history of the early-2000s NYC scene that, if you weren’t there, you’re likely to at least recognize as a constant presence on music-nerd friends’ bookshelves. (The book was also turned into a 2022 documentary film.) Still, the cool and creativity they’ve instilled into rock’s oft-rigid framework deserves recognition. If these are things you care about, you’ll regret missing this gig. Be there.
