IF YOU GO
| The Walkmen with Tennis |
| » Where: 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW |
| » When: 8 p.m. Friday |
| » Info: $18; 800-955-5566; 930.com |
“Lisbon” must hold a special place in the heart of the indie rockers Walkmen. Not only did a show they played there go fabulously well, but the album they named after the city in Portugal debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard Top 200, the band’s highest-ever debut. But that doesn’t mean the band mates, who grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, aren’t a bit — let’s say, shy — about playing in their hometown.
“When you come back you feel kind of goofy,” keyboardist Pete Bauer said. “It’s like playing for your parents or something.”
Modesty aside, the band is ready to show the hometown crowd what has arguably boosted them into near-major league status musically. The band’s sound — which in the past has occasionally been supplemented with unusual instruments such as gourds (yes, the kind you find in the supermarket this time of year) — has a stripped down, natural feel on its newest album.
And as you may have guessed, this new album, the band’s fifth, was written during the band’s past trips to Lisbon. It was then recorded over two years in Philadelphia and Brooklyn before it was completed in Dallas.
The band took cues from some past musical masters, including Elvis Presley, who never added extra instrumentation when less would do. The result is a lot of space in the music that reels listeners into the sound.
“We didn’t really have a specific approach in mind,” Bauer said about the band’s approach to the album. “You take the main ideas you have and flush things out to make them more simplistic in instrumentation. The arrangements [need to] make it easy for the song’s messages to come across.”
The band creates its music through collaborative writing processes that can start with a short riff or even a drumbeat and move from there. From the raw format, the band members each take the songs and add elements such as keyboards or vocals, shaping it slowly — something like a potter shapes clay.
“You always hope it will be quick and it never is,” he said. “We are just dying for our records to be made and do well so we can continue making them.”
Little doubts that the band won’t meet that goal. The band mates grew up together and began playing music in the fifth grade. Their 2002 break out album “Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone” was followed by “Bows & Arrows,” which included the song “The Rat” that Pitchfork named the No. 20 song of the decade.
As for the show, Bauer said to expect plenty of fan favorites.
“We tend to lean heavily on the new stuff,” Bauer said. “We’ve been doing this a long time so we will play [other songs that] people want to hear.”
