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" Merriweather Post Pavilion, the ninth album from Baltimore-bred art-rock ensemble Animal Collective, is already being hyped as one of 2009&amp;#039;s best\u2014and a more polished, accessible effort than the experimental meanderings of their previous records. We caught up with sound manipulator Brian Weitz (who performs with a head lamp, under the stage name Geologist) while the band was in town for two shows following the disc&amp;#039;s Tuesday release. Merriweather Post Pavilion  is named for a well-known Maryland music venue. What&amp;#039;s its significance to you?  The title&amp;#039;s not really a tribute to the actual venue and times we spent there as children, despite what people have been saying. It&amp;#039;s more about what the place represents in terms of being a large-scale space with a big, grand lawn, where you can listen to music outdoors. What&amp;#039;s the most memorable outdoor concert you&amp;#039;ve been to?  Daft Punk at Coachella in 2006. How is the album different from 2007&amp;#039;s  Strawberry Jam ?  The guitar isn&amp;#039;t such a focus anymore, since there are only three of us this time. Josh wanted to take a break because we were on the move a lot, so we were like, &amp;quot;Maybe we&amp;#039;ll just do something more electronic.&amp;quot; We&amp;#039;ve always been interested in electronic music and dance music, so we thought we&amp;#039;d be more direct about those influences. There&amp;#039;s more rhythmic stuff and heavy bass, compared with our past records. What are your strongest nonmusical influences?  Film\u2014especially horror films and their sound design. The visceral quality that they have is a big influence, even though we&amp;#039;re not dark or depressed people, in the same way that we&amp;#039;re all big comedy fans. Fear and laughter are both very immediate emotions that don&amp;#039;t take a lot of thought. Any horror films in particular?  The Shining, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There&amp;#039;s a song on the new album called &amp;quot;Daily Routine.&amp;quot; Do you have one when you&amp;#039;re not touring?  There&amp;#039;s always something to do for Animal Collective. Since we don&amp;#039;t live in the same place, we always have to be working on our own\u2014or at least in contact every day, checking e-mails from our manager or record label and from the other guys. What was the creative process like with everyone in different cities?  Dave and Noah came up with vocal melodies. We sent around ideas and made sketches of four or five songs. Then we got together in New York and wrote four more together on the spot. The songwriting process for this record was really quick. The majority was put together in one two-week session where we just went to the practice space from morning till night. Once or twice a year we&amp;#039;ll all go to New York or Lisbon, where Noah lives, to write and practice. What did you guys listen to when you went to high school together in Baltimore? Did you have similar tastes back then?  Dave&amp;#039;s and mine were probably the most similar\u2014we listened to a lot of Pavement, early Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, 13th Floor Elevators, Will Oldham, Silver Apples, Can. Noah was more into Aphex Twin, the Orb, the Police. Josh was into Zeppelin and Bob Dylan. So it was all diverse. What other bands are you listening to now?  Grouper from Portland, Oregon; Blues Control, who we played with in New York; Burial, a dubstep artist from the U.K . Your album hit shelves on Inauguration Day\u2014will Animal Collective ever do a political album?  I don&amp;#039;t think so\u2014not everybody in the band has the same degree of interest in politics, and we generally feel like we should only cover topics that we know really well.  Your music gets pegged as hard to describe. What&amp;#039;s the funniest description you&amp;#039;ve heard? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/music/interviews/a9025/were-the-band-animal-collective-285068/>