Pitchfork

With "Love Shack" as ubiquitous a staple of weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs as "Y.M.C.A.", it's easy to forget that the B-52s are an American new wave institution, a pioneering dance-rock band that helped usher in the alternative era. It's also easy to forget that it's been 16 years since they released a new album.

But don't call the B-52s defunct or their new album, Funplex, a reunion record. As Cindy Wilson was happy to inform us, they'd been playing shows together for years before hooking up with producer Steve Osborne (New Order, U2, Happy Mondays) to record the album.

With Funplex set to come out March 25 on Astralwerks and tour plans in the works for headlining shows and dates with Cyndi Lauper (oh, the hair color!), Wilson talked to us about the record, her band's imagination, and the importance of a good backbeat.

Pitchfork: 16 years is a long time without a new album. Why did you guys decide to return now?

Cindy Wilson: Oh gosh, I've had so many people ask me, "What are y'all doing?" but in reality, we've been performing, I guess under the radar. We've been making a good living playing around and doing corporate [gigs] and playing some summer tours, but we came to a point where, if we were really going to continue doing it, we had to have some new material out. It's really stuff that we started writing slowly, and by the end of the recording we were thrilled to have a strong bunch of songs. So now we have a great record that's coming out, and it just makes touring that much more fun.

Pitchfork: How was the recording process different this time around?

CW: The technology, of course. I mean the electronics, you could put the levels together a lot easier than it used to work. There were so many people, and we were trying to fit all our ideas together, and so technically the differences are huge.

Pitchfork: You seem to like it, which is interesting because a lot of people bemoan the decline of analog equipment and methods.

CW: Well I can understand the difference of the sound. There's a real physical aspect to it that you can really hear, and I think Steve [Osborne] did an amazing job adding textual sounds and refining it. But yeah, a lot of people are analog freaks [laughs].

Pitchfork: Did your dynamic as a band change during the recording?

CW: Well, we decided when we were writing that we would take the best parts of the B-52s and the worst of different things and use them. We all wrote together. It was very much like a focus group. Steve Keith [Strickland] brought us this amazing modern music that was danceable and lush and would shape us as a band into the 21st Century. So we used this music, and all of us were like jamming in recording. It was very hard to write that way, but if you have the patience, it's very rewarding.

Pitchfork: Is danceability something that you guys hold above all else?

CW: Well, we love up-tempo. And when we're writing, we're entertaining ourselves and making sure to laugh and trying to bring an entertainment factor as well as interesting lyrics and a good beat in the background [laughs]. It keeps things fun.

Pitchfork: Why did you guys decide to call the album Funplex?

CW: Yeah, one of the songs that we wrote was a really interesting thing to write. We invented a ton of stuff to role-play, a bad bunch of "Crazy Guy Who Is Diet Pill Shopping" or Kate [Pierson] was pleasure-seeking. There were just a bunch of different topics. It was really funny like that. But that one stood out to us. I think it's like a transition from "Love Shack" to the Funplex.

Pitchfork: So it's a place thing?

CW: It must be [laughs]. Yeah, we go to a lot of places in our imaginations, from outer space to the bottom of the ocean to Funplex and "Love Shack" to all over the place. But it is a journey [laughs].

Funplex:

01 Pump
02 Hot Corner
03 Ultraviolet
04 Juliet of the Spirits
05 Funplex
06 Eyes Wide Open
07 Love in the Year 3000
08 Deviant Ingredient
09 Too Much to Think About
10 Dancing Now
11 Keep This Party Going

B-52s:

03-28 Richmond, British Columbia - River Rock Casino Resort
03-29 Spokane, WA - Northern Quest Casino
04-11 Purchase, NY - Purchase College Concert Hall