The Walkmen

From the ashes of Jonathan Fire*Eater's mid-'90s indie-rock collapse, the Walkmen emerged around the millennium as prominent figures within New York City's post-punk and new-wave revival, a circle that also encompassed Interpol, the Strokes, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. What distinguished the group immediately was its pronounced emphasis on piano and organ textures alongside a commitment to atmospheric depth rather than raw garage energy, a direction enabled by the members' self-constructed Marcata Studios. Already possessing two well-received full-lengths and several EPs, the band achieved wider visibility when Bows + Arrows arrived in 2004 and propelled them onto music-magazine covers. Later releases reinforced both artistic stature and mainstream traction, culminating in Top 40 placements for Lisbon in 2010 and Heaven in 2012. The Walkmen subsequently entered hiatus, during which three of the four principals launched solo endeavors, most notably the band's prolific vocalist Hamilton Leithauser.

Three members had previously played in Jonathan Fire*Eater while two came from the Recoys. After Jonathan Fire*Eater dissolved in 1998, the musicians redirected their remaining Dreamworks advance into an uptown Manhattan rehearsal facility that also functioned as a 24-track studio stocked with vintage gear. Completed in fall 1999, the 900-square-foot industrial space in Harlem was named Marcata Studios; among the artists who later recorded there were labelmates the French Kicks as well as experimental figures Arto Lindsay and Nação Zumbi. Some participants had already performed locally under the name Today Okay when the Walkmen officially coalesced in 2000, uniting Jonathan Fire*Eater veterans Walter Martin on vocals and organ, Paul Maroon on guitar, and Matt Barrick on drums with former Recoys Hamilton Leithauser on vocals and Peter Bauer on bass. Like their earlier band, the Walkmen members had grown up together in the Washington, D.C., area and had performed together since fifth grade; the connection was further strengthened by the fact that Martin and Leithauser are cousins. Deliberately departing from the visceral garage style of their prior projects, the group integrated piano and pursued fresh compositional directions through expanded instrumentation and studio experimentation. Their influences ranged across the Pogues, Joy Division, Bruce Springsteen, Björk, U2, New Order, the Smiths, and the Cure, while critics likened the resulting sound to the Pixies, Brian Eno, and the Velvet Underground with additional echoes of U2 and Television. A Marcata Studios advertisement noted particular admiration for the sonic qualities captured on Joy Division's Peel Sessions, Talking Heads' Fear of Music, the Specials' The Specials, and Royal Trux's Singles.

The band issued a four-song self-titled EP in 1999 via the Brooklyn independent Startime International, home to Brendan Benson, and also produced a vinyl-only release sold exclusively at shows. Their debut live performance took place at Joe's Pub in the East Village in September 2000, shortly after the EP's release. The proper full-length debut, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone, followed in 2002 and earned strong indie support, prompting extensive international touring. Two years later the group issued Bows + Arrows, its first release for Warner Bros.' Record Collection imprint; amid touring and a cameo appearance on the Fox series The O.C., the members also began collaborating on the novel John's Journey. In 2005 they tracked their third album, A Hundred Miles Off, with Don Zientera at Inner Ear Studio in Arlington, Virginia, while simultaneously using Marcata to record a track-by-track rendering of Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats—the final project completed at the studio before its closure. A Hundred Miles Off appeared in spring 2006 and Pussy Cats that fall. The fourth album, You & Me, was recorded at New York's Gigantic Studio and at the same Oxford, Mississippi, facility used for Bows + Arrows, then released in 2008 on Gigantic Music. Lisbon, the band's sixth studio album, surfaced in 2010 on Fat Possum/Bella Union. While marking their tenth anniversary the following year, the Walkmen worked again with producer Phil Ek; the resulting Heaven arrived in 2012.