Courtney Taylor-Taylor has been dodging trends since before it was cool. “I just read a review that said after 25 years, we still don’t sound like anybody but ourselves,” he says with a smirk. “I guess that’s true. I mean, I’ve tried to avoid current trends. But we’ve never tried to sound like us either. We just do it.”
That “it” now includes Why You So Crazy, the Dandy Warhols’ new record and a head trip of psychedelic textures, haunted pianos, Bowie wails, and surrealist detours through alternate realities. Released to coincide with their 25th anniversary, it’s both a victory lap and a fresh middle finger to anyone expecting nostalgia.
“I don’t feel any competition with our past,” Taylor-Taylor says. “Bohemian Like You had already peaked, and by then everyone was doing vintage guitar rock. It was time to move on.”
And move on they did—right into piano noir territory. The album opens with “Forever,” a string-drenched ghost waltz that started out with Dr. Dre-style loops before morphing into something that sounds like The Specials went to prom with Gorillaz. “The vocals are Damon Albarn, Gorillaz era,” Taylor-Taylor says. “Snotty delivery. We really worked the texture of it.”
Add in the Be All Right video, built around 360-degree visuals and lyrics that twist a thousand points of light into something intimate, and you've got a full surrealist fever dream. “That was Fathead,” he says of the song. “He wrote it on GarageBand during a 14-hour flight. That piano was played on his laptop keyboard.”
Even the closer, Ravel’s 1918 piano piece Ondine, is six minutes of ambient impressionist bliss. “Back then, they didn’t have echo chambers or delay pedals,” Taylor-Taylor explains. “So if you wanted something psychedelic, you had to compose it. Surrealism in notes. That’s real.”
That spirit—of tweaking expectations and dodging categories—is what defines the Dandy Warhols. Portland in 1994, when the band formed, was “an armpit,” he says lovingly. “Fiercely hippie in its politics, full of self-styled weirdos. You could live on $100 a month. We were already who we were. We didn’t grow up in public.”
And they still haven’t. The band’s latest phase is less about evolution and more about trusting their inner compass. “Is the sound cool or not?” Taylor-Taylor shrugs. “Does it sound like you’re just imitating someone else? I can’t open my heart to that.”
As for influences, Bowie shows up—of course. Especially in “To the Church,” which builds to an operatic scream straight from the Station to Station era. “There’s a moment where David just roars,” Taylor-Taylor says. “And I had that same moment on this track. It’s hysterical. And totally necessary.”
The album’s been called a surrealist vision of an alternate reality, which tracks—if your alternate reality is equal parts Berlin club, haunted carousel, and West Coast weed cloud. “It’s Tweaky and class-battery and rich,” he says. “It’s the best work we’ve ever done. I put on my fat-headphones, crank it up, and bong major.”
You’d think after 25 years he might be tired of it all. But Taylor-Taylor’s just getting warmed up. “I listen to this record all the time,” he says. “It’s got everything—salvation, open-mindedness, redemption, love, loss. It’s a freaky, emotional experience.”
Also: surrealism, sarcasm, and a band that still doesn’t give a damn about fitting in.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the video below!
