Karen O: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Didn’t Try for Success
Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O and Vampire Weekend vocalist Ezra Koenig sure seem to be best 
buds. Back in 2014, the two performed O’s Academy Award-nominated track “The Moon Song” at the Oscars and now almost a year later, Koenig got to interview her for a special GQ feature.
When touching on “The Moon Song,” Koenig recalls texting O a congratulatory note after the song received a Grammy nomination, only to have her reply that she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I can be pretty out of the loop,” admitted O. “A similar thing happened with the Oscars earlier in the year: There was zero expectation that ‘Moon Song’ would be nominated, so when I found out, I was blindsided. This is continuing that theme of not expecting anything and then being totally surprised. If you hadn’t texted me, I may not’ve found out that day at all. My management had no idea, either.”
From there, Koenig asked: “Has that always been your attitude? That all the good things that have happened to you in your career have come when you weren’t trying?”
Offered O: “Yeah, totally. Back when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs started, there wasn’t the expectation that if you start making music, you’ll go straight from having a demo to going viral and landing a major-label deal. We were in New York passing out flyers for our shows, and even the thought of being on an indie label was incomprehensible. So there was this naive, sweet, innocent thing that a lot of artists shared in the beginning. When you’re a young artist, you want to conquer the world and make your mark. At the same time, I got used to this idea that there are no guarantees.”
Late last year, O – who released the solo album Crush Songs in 2014 – explained in an interview with NME that new Yeah Yeah Yeahs music isn’t forthcoming.
“We’re on a bit of hiatus at the moment,” explained O. “We have to wait to get the urge, get that itch. The time needs to be right and we’re okay waiting for that, I think.”
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