Ezra Koenig says Vampire Weekend have been working on a new album

Ezra Koenig has confirmed Vampire Weekend’s plans to work on a new album, the follow-up to their 2013 release ‘Modern Vampires of the City’.

Koenig stated on the No Effects Podcast that he and fellow members of the group have been in the studio in the past 12-18 months, despite each pursuing solo work outside of the group.

“Right now we’re definitely gearing up to start working on another album but, we’re not in a zone of like getting in there everyday or anything,” Koenig says. “There have been discussions, of course there’s…in some ways, you know, we’re always working.”

Koenig went on to state that some of the tracks featured on the release could be from the ‘Modern Vampires of the City’ recording sessions. “There are songs that are left over, not to diminish them, but songs that just weren’t quite right for the last album that I’m very excited about for the next album, so you know there’s little demos that I kind of listen to everyday.”

Listen to the podcast and read the full transcript below.

“Right now we’re definitely gearing up to start working on another album but, we’re not in a zone of like getting in there everyday or anything, it’s definitely…there have been discussions, of course there’s…in some ways, you know, we’re always working – there are songs that are left over, not to diminish them, but songs that just weren’t quite right for the last album that I’m very excited about for the next album, so you know there’s little demos that I kind of listen to everyday.
There’s songs that we’ve begun that I’m confident will be on the next album, but, right now it’s really kind of feels like the off season. Working on some other things, doing things here and there but you know, really just trying to not think about music too much. Every once in a while I’ll like, I’ll watch an interview with another musician, or hear a piece of music that gets me excited about it, but really this is kind of the point that…I’ve always wanted to reach – this is what I’ve been dreaming about for years.”

“I felt like all through my 20s, you know, with Vampire Weekend, it kind of felt like things started off at like a pretty fast pace and there was like a lot of pressure – you know, self-imposed pressure to make a follow-up album fairly quickly, and you know to make anything remotely good you know you have to put a lot of pressure on yourself, and then even with the third album, I still had this feeling personally of like, “Well okay. We made two albums, we have real fans, nobody could call us like a total flash in the pan or anything.” But even then, I still felt like, I still had this vision like “Yeah but if you could really make three albums, that’s like when it feels like a career or something”, and you know there’s something about the number 3 that seems like a natural type of unit. So I think finally–in some ways those three albums was like kind of one massive period of obsessing, making music, touring, all those things. And I think now for the first time in a long time I kinda feel like, a little bit more relaxed like “Yeah we’ll definitely make a fourth album”

“I’m not in a rush to…to dive into making an album because I feel like I want the next album to kinda feel like a new era anyway, so I’ve been kind of enjoying this time just chilling, and every once in a while like getting excited about making music but not quite to the point of wanting to be like making a schedule yet or anything like that.”