Art punk faves Les Savy Fav return with their triumphant album 'OUI, LSF' after a 14-year hiatus, as frontman Tim Harrington reflects on the band's journey through chaos, creativity, and sincerity. Check out our latest Upset cover story.
Words: Rob Mair.
By his own admission, Tim Harrington is "a waffler". But the frontman of art punk faves Les Savy Fav is also a gregarious storyteller and engaging company as he fills in the gaps about the band's extended hiatus and overdue return.
We've got a great day for it, too; Harrington starts out in his loft conversion studio for our Zoom chat, but the weather's so lovely in New York that it's the ideal opportunity to get onto the roof, meaning we're treated to some quite spectacular views of the city. It's quite the uplift with Old Blighty stuck in a perpetually damp spring.
And then there's Harrington. Often described as larger-than-life – mainly due to the band's legendary live shows – he's a raconteur extraordinaire, throwing tangents on tangents and peppering answers with anecdotes and asides. This will come as little surprise to folk who've witnessed Les Savy Fav in the flesh, where chaotic doesn't come close to describing the orchestrated (and often not-so-orchestrated) carnage. But it means – in the best possible way – that any notion of asking rehearsed questions soon gets jettisoned. This is Tim's world, and we're just living in it.
And a lot has happened in Tim's world since Les Savy Fav last graced our stereos. 'Root For Ruin', the band's fifth album, dropped in 2010. Since then, the group – completed by Syd Butler, Harrison Haynes, Andrew Reuland and Seth Jabour – found themselves doing a lot of living. Families have grown, and careers have taken off. Butler and Jabour have found themselves working as members of Seth Meyers' 8G Band; R
