Vampire Weekend frontperson Ezra Koenig recently joined Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus on the latter’s After School Radio program on Apple Music Hits.
Along with chit chat about the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Licorice Pizza, and Koenig’s contribution to the I Think You Should Leave soundtrack, Hoppus extracted info about the to-be-announced fifth Vampire Weekend album.
“We’ve been working on music,” Koenig confirmed. “We were just recording in England for a while, now back in LA, working with everybody.”
Six years separated Vampire Weekend’s third album, Modern Vampires of the City, from 2019’s follow-up, Father of the Bride. As a result, Koenig was reluctant to make any big announcements.
“Sometimes I oversell how close we are with the record, because who really knows? But we almost have an album’s worth of songs. And, as you well know, you could tinker with a song forever – change the arrangement, change the lyrics, whatever. But in that sense, we’re close.”
Father of the Bride came out in May 2019. It was Vampire Weekend’s first album since the departure of founding member and co-songwriter, Rostam Batmanglij. Danielle Haim, Steve Lacy and Dirty Projectors’ David Longstreth all made guest appearances.
Father of the Bride won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 62nd annual Grammys. It was Vampire Weekend’s second win in the category, making them just one of five acts to have received the award more than once.
