Half Korean, 100% Rock Star

By Minnie Chi

It was bound to happen. New York City was in dire need of a music scene revival when finally the Strokes arose as the biggest hyped band of the year in 2001, turning the heads of young indie fans who felt compelled to give homage to forefathers such as the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, the Stooges and Television. The mod-headed band officially started the garage rock revival alongside the White Stripes and The Hives, taking the press and the music industry by storm with their vintage rock 'n' roll spirit and minimalist cool. Somewhere along the line, NYC's trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were pushed into the mess for obvious reasons: their incendiary live shows which placed them at the head of the underground scene in and around the big city, incidental promotion through the Strokes who admitted to U.K.'s NME (New Musical Express) that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were their favorite band of the moment and who drew attention to the trio as one of the members were shown on TV wearing a Yeah Yeah Yeahs' badge, and simply because they were in the right place at the right time.

All-or-nothing singer/song-writer Karen Orzoleck who goes by 'Karen O' must be exhausted. Her band, comprised of drummer Brian Chase whom she met at Oberlin college in Ohio, and guitarist Nick Zinner whom she ran into at a local bar while attending NYU, has been touring non-stop after and even way before their debut album "Fever to Tell" was released through Interscope this past April. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs started in the summer of 2000, playing underground clubs just for the fun of it but became serious once fans and the press started swarming around them. The band is finally on a well-deserved break and Karen is now back in her home in New Jersey and takes a moment to reflect on the insanity of this past year. "It was really really exciting like when everything started blowing up. There was good music everywhere and NYC seemed to be saturated with talented young people doing really interesting things," Karen explains in her very Brooklyn vernacular consisting of endless 'like's and 'ya know's. "We were really happy to be apart of it. Now it's pretty much over and done with over there. I think all of the excitement that we came up with died down a bit and New York has definitely settled back to where it was before the whole explosion."

The band ran into some unexpected and inevitable issues as they entered the high-pressure world of rock stardom but the highlight of the past year is definitely the release of their raw debut album, "Fever to Tell," Karen says. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing their angular, raunchy blues-garage at fashionable bars and galleries in 2000 without even an EP to their name. They released a 5-track EP "Bang!" in 2001 on their own Shifty imprint, which almost made it to the Top 30 U.K. charts but wasn't long enough to be considered a full single though NME still voted it No. 2 in their 2002 Singles of the Year list. The following year, they released another EP titled "Machine" through Wichita Records which Kerrang! Magazine considered 'Single of the Week' and X-Ray prized as 'Single of the Month.' The band was working on their full-length in between touring with producer Alan Moulder (Ash, Smashing Pumpkins, My Blood Valentine, Eurythmics) and was playing live shows on almost no purchasable material except two EPs, so the release of "Fever to Tell" was a huge relief. "We almost felt reborn because it was one of the very few goals that we had," the NYU film school graduate says.

Karen declares that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs started out as "innocent" and "fun-loving" and had no intentions of getting to where they are now, which is in every major music magazine there is out there and touring the world. In early 2002, the trio was the hottest band to have performed at the annual South By Southwest Music Festival, instigating mega interest from major labels. They were famed as one of "Ten New Artists to Watch" in Rollingstone, toured the U.K. with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in early 2002 (Karen affectionately refers to them as "our uncles who brought us into this whole mess") and headlined their own U.K. tour after playing alongside Sleater Kinney and The Liars.

Eventually, they signed with Interscope, a label that Karen believes breeds fine "rock star personas." "It was an excruciating decision for us because we weren't at all comfortable with letting go of reigns basically to a major corporation but we chose Interscope out of all the majors because they seemed to be more risk-taking," Karen explains. "If you look at their roster they have Marilyn Manson, Eminem, Gwen Stefani/No Doubt, who are a bit more deviant." The Yeah Yeah Yeahs didn't fear losing creative control with the more liberal-minded Interscope but still take certain precautions to keep from not only selling out but also preserving their indie-at-heart individuality. Apparently, they chose PlayStation over Motorola to advertise a song of theirs, which proves that they call the shots and will sell whatever to whomever they choose.

Karen seems to be having the biggest problem fending off leeches, especially the uber-cool citizens of the fashion world. Incidentally, she has become a fashion icon, sporting torn prom dresses, neon green hot pants, tutus, tattered leg warmers and anything that her friend and personal designer Christian Joy makes for her. "Like everything else with this band, it's all like experiments or case studies. It's like seeing how much I can get away with," Karen slyly replies and goes on to talk about how fashion magazines just want to hunt you down and make you conform to whatever they see is fashionably righteous. Karen has rejected Vogue's request for an interview about her off-kilter style and furthermore, has rejected the flattering yet irrelevant offer to pose nude for Playboy.

However, the singer does have a raw sex appeal, belting out hot orgasmic screeches and singing blistering provocative lyrics like "cold light/hot night/be my heater, by my lover/ and we could do it to each other." Not to mention her feverish and feral performance antics. She's known to dance like a crotch-grabbing drunk and stick both a beer bottle and a mic down her throat to simulate pain to her stage-energy as she's violently gurgling and spilling the alcohol that's only being half-swallowed. She doesn't cite many influences although the press insists that she's a female Iggy Pop in her prime. "My performance pretty much happens naturally and organically on stage because growing up, I didn't have much to reference to what made sense to me," she states. "Touring's really exhausting in every way, more so in my case because I'm really into giving a good show and I'm completely uncompromising with that to the point where I'd rather just not play a show at all if I'm not all into it. But I've managed to stick by and know what I'm capable of 'cause there is a lot of external pressures."

Her ethnic background is not so obvious as her dynamic rock persona, however. Karen, who was born in Korea, says that her whole ethnic experience has been quite "strange." Her mother is full Korean and her father is Caucasian but they decided not to enforce the culture onto her and her younger brother out of a desire for them to fit in while they were growing up on the East Coast. "My mom is definitely Asian looking but I didn't even realize that she was Korean until I was 7 or 8. I was sort of half-Caucasian to the world as I was growing up," Karen recalls. "When I hit 7th or 8th grade, you become really really self-conscious about fitting in, and that's when I was sort of ashamed that I was half Asian. I didn't realize how much of an asset that is until I went to college and I had this real desire to explore that side of me that I've been neglecting for so long. Now it's like I'd rather much be half-breed than all white. Now days I have a much easier time with it."

The fashionable singer has visited her family in Korea several times and has grown an affinity with the culture and the community. She is well aware that there is an unfortunate lack of underground scenes in her homeland, so she doesn't want to take her status as a rock icon in vain. "That's why it's important to me to sort of represent to Korean Americans and the Korean community that I am a personality who's part Korean. I'd be thrilled if I was younger and there was someone who has a Korean heritage that's standing against the grain. I definitely feel like there's a sort of satisfaction out of touching people's lives being of Korean heritage more than if I was just white."

This indie goddess not only rips the stage apart and victimizes beer bottles and mics in her glamorously sleazy outfits but further pushes the envelope as a 'hapa' with a unique ethnic experience who strives to appreciate her identity. She mentions that the last time she visited Korea was winter of 2001 and learned to cook Korean food from her grandmother and giggles after pronouncing "harlmonee" (Korean for grandmother) and proudly replies, "she's the best teacher." The chic and raucous frontwoman of 2002's most hyped band in the kitchen cooking Korean food is surely a sight to see.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are coming our way in September!
9/22 and 9/23- The Greek Theater, Los Angeles with the White Stripes

www.yeahyeahyeahs.com

July 18, 2003