MGMT Band and History Reseach

Band Research

Origin: Middletown, Connecticut, U.S.
Based: Brooklyn, New York.
Genres: Indie pop, psychedelic rock, electronica, progressive rock.
Years active: 2005 to present day.
Labels: Columbia Records.

History:

MGMT are an American psychedelic rock band created by Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. The members of their live band (Matthew Asti, James Richardson and Will Berman) joined the main band in the studio after the release of their first album. They formed at Wesleyan University and initially with Cantora Records, however they signed with Columbia Records and Red Ink in 2006.

"A lot of our songs, especially when we were just starting out, we were trying to create a song in a certain genre; we never wanted to have a single sound, crank out a bunch of songs that all sounded the same," recalls Goldwasser. "All of our songs felt like experiments, but, eventually, all those experiments started to blur together, and as we got better at song writing, we started writing things that just sounded like us."

MGMT began as a recording project, the duo working on many songs that would show up on both their 2005 debut EP Time to Pretend and Oracular Spectacular. When they started to play live, The Management were pretty much a goof-off.

"It started out as a complete joke," confesses Goldwasser. "We'd play shows, but usually our shows were just the two of us singing along with an iPod. We weren't playing instruments; it was more of a spectacle than an actual live-concert. People didn't know whether to take it as a complete joke or not. It was kind of funny seeing how other people would try and gauge their reactions by us; like, they seemed like they were trying to work out whether we took ourselves seriously or not. It left people feeling very confused. That's something that we’ve always enjoyed doing - confusing people."

After self-releasing their Time to Pretend EP, and touring with Of Montreal, the band signed to Columbia Records, and set about recording their debut album with Dave Fridmann. MGMT released their debut album, Oracular Spectacular in digital format, in October 2007, three months ahead of the album's physical release. Mixing up a variety of genres, the album introduced MGMT as a jokey band of no fixed style.

"I don’t feel like we play a particular style of music at all, so in that way it feels like we’re quite isolated," comments Goldwasser. "I wouldn’t know where to begin in describing our music, so, without that, it’s hard to work out what bands might sound like us."

In 2010, MGMT released their second album, Congratulations. Produced by Pete 'Sonic Boom' Kember of Spacemen 3 and featuring guest vocals from Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux, the album was released without any accompanying singles. Tending towards an experimental and hectic approach, the band posited it as a more accurate representation of MGMT. "We dropped any sort of irony that was on the first record, and Congratulations feels true to who we really are," VanWyngarden told Spin.

Their second album, Congratulations, was released on April 13, 2010. In April 2011 they began work on their third album, which will be called MGMT.

Band Formation:

The former art-students, Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, happened to live down-the-hall from each other in the same dormitory.

"There wasn’t a point where we were like ‘hey, I like you, I like your style, let's start a band!’," Goldwasser jokes, of the beginnings of their collaborative relationship. "It just came from us hanging out, messing around and making songs. After a while we had two or three songs, and then it was four, and then at some point we just kind of realised we had a band. Without ever actually deciding to form a band."

Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden formed the band while attending Wesleyan University during their freshman year. "We weren't trying to start a band," stated Goldwasser. "We were just hanging out, showing each other music that we liked." They experimented with noise rock and electronica before settling on “their current brand of shape-shifting psychedelic pop." They graduated in 2005 and toured widely in support of the Time to Pretend EP, opening for indie rock band Of Montreal.

The band first started with the name "The Management," but since this name was already being used by another band, they later changed it to MGMT.