Pitchfork

Sure, we keep going on about this, but Les Savy Fav's performance at Intonation was nothing short of insane-- insanely awesome, that is. Between Tim Harrington's Slip 'N Slide antics, the crowd's simultaneous erotic motions, and Syd Butler's "Obama Positive" t-shirt (see last week's Intonation feature for details), one thing was vacant from our collective minds until after the set: "Wait a minute, weren't those dudes on hiatus?"

After we had a chance to wind down from our asskicking at their hands (and they had a chance to recuperate from kicking our asses), Pitchfork spoke to Butler about the status of the band, and it's looking good.

Pitchfork: So is it safe to say that you guys are off hiatus now?

Syd Butler: Um...

Don't worry, he went deeper than that. While an official "Game On!" has yet to be issued, it's clear that things are getting rolling. After their Intonation gig, the band's first U.S. show in about a year, Les Savy Fav will play in New York in August, as well as a spot at the Mars Volta-curated All Tomorrow's Parties in the UK in December.

Butler sounds extremely enthusiastic about the band's future, saying: "Les Savy Fav was almost too much in this state of mind where we wrote songs, made albums, did all the stuff-- we paid our dues. We did the stuff bands are supposed to do, and now we've reached the level where we're like, 'Let's fuck it up even more. Let's play shows when we want to play shows and let's play good shows. Let's play festivals for friends. Let's go to London and play a show. Let's play Japan.' We're sort of more into the idea of it's sort of like four guys on a fishing trip. 'Okay, let's go do this! You bring your bass, I'll bring my guitar! Let's just go have fun!' I think for years it stopped becoming fun and that's why, as much as we love playing live and writing music, it became too much work for what it had become, so we went on hiatus and spent some time away from each other and now we're back to having fun again."

While no concrete plans are in place for new material, it doesn't seem too far off, but the band are still uncertain of their plans. "I wish I could give you a better answer. We're just not talking about what that would be-- what kind of record it would be, what the expectations of that record would be, things like that. We still love the concept of making those sort of practice space demos, putting it on the website, making art for it, and having people download the art-- basically download everything because we don't want to charge people for stuff that's half-assed or hasn't fully developed. It's also kind of interesting to see the other side of Les Savy Fav. Then there's also the idea of: Do we do both? Do we make a whole new record? Do we make two together? Do we release a double CD? We have so many concepts still that sort of have to still come up, you know? We probably have a hundred tapes-- like videotapes of us playing all over the world for ten years. You know, do we just make a DVD, like a tour diary of the last 10 years DVD kind of thing and release any records?"

We don't know, Syd, but we hope the answers to all of those questions is yes.