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They don't do chemistry.
They probably can't tell you anything about physics.
But they are scientists.
We Are Scientists, the musical duo of Keith Murray and Chris Cain, made a brief appearance at Paws in the University Union on Tuesday afternoon before heading to Sonar in downtown Baltimore that night. The band played a short semi-acoustic set that was recorded by XTSR, who brought WAS to Towson.
WAS is in the middle of their "first real American tour" promoting the release of their album "Brain Thrust Mastery."
They've been supporting the band Kings of Leon in addition to headlining shows along the way.
"It's a weird one, because we usually don't do support tours, but we couldn't really say no to Kings of Leon just as they were blowing up," Murray, who fronts the band on lead vocals and guitar, said. "And our label would have been hugely pissed if we had said no."
The band is back in the states after touring in Europe, where they are considered more of a commercial rock-band instead of simply indie.
"It's a lot of fun to play smaller clubs [here.] I think we're very lucky to be able to experience that contrast - to be able to play big venues in the U.K. and then to play little venues here," Cain said.
WAS originally formed in 1997 as a three-piece between Murray, Cain and Michael Tapper on drums.
Tapper left the band in recent years, around the time they started recording "Brain Thrust Mastery."
"I don't really think the loss of Michael Tapper affected the band. I think the band affected the loss of Michael Tapper," Murray said. "After we were finished touring, he moved to Los Angeles, so he wasn't really there for most of the writing of the record. He didn't really want to tour again, so we were like 'well… we'd rather find somebody that's going to have fun on tour,' and he was like 'yeah, me too!'"
The band quickly found a replacement for Tapper to tour with in addition to adding a fourth member in support, Max Hart.
Hart was seen playing a lap steel guitar and adding backup vocals at the Paws performance.
"Now our tours are more fun because everybody's there because they want to be instead of being forced to by the fact that this is our job," Murray said.
We Are Scientists recorded their first album, "With Love and Squalor," essentially live and didn't make many changes before pressing it, according to Murray. He said that "Brain Thrust Mastery" is an evolution of what they were before, though he still enjoys the first record.
"I liked it, but I feel like we were doing that because that was the only thing we knew how to do. I still like that record, but I didn't want to make that record twice," he said. "After playing that album live for two years, we sort of wanted to play different sorts of songs live. So we wrote this record so that we could mix up our set a little bit."
Cain agreed, saying that the band itself has gotten better since the release of the first album.
"We're a four-piece now, so the songs are a little more elaborately arranged. We're also less pigeonholed into a genre like that first album. Not to flatter us or anything, but it's just not dance-pop or whatever that first record was," he said. "It's kind of nice to not have any obvious reference points for people, because they just have to take the record on its own."
We Are Scientists' genre is up for debate, even for the band members themselves.
"We're dance-able indie rock? I don't know… I think our intention is to make pop music, but there are a lot of things we dislike about radio pop. And then there's an ellipsis and people can fill in whatever they think those things may be that they don't like that we're changing about pop music," Murray said. "That way, we've tricked them into thinking we're doing exactly what they want."
More information about We Are Scientists can be found online at www.wearescientists.com.
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