Vampire Weekend’s members are working on a side project. Chatting with the New York Times, members Ezra Koenig, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio explained how the project came to be.

According to Tomson, it began during the pandemic. “The world had stopped working and a lot of what we normally do was just not being done,” Tomson recalled. “There was something about just playing with no expectation — to just play with my two very close friends without an agenda.”

Baio added, “It’s very rare for people in a band of our size to be alone together. No engineer, no tour manager, nothing like that. It felt like being at the outset of the band again. And we did that for three years and change, whenever we were all in town.”

Koenig shared the intricate backstory for the band, saying, “We kind of have an imaginary back story for that band,” he said. “It was a band that came out around 1989, 1990, and they were a little bit too punky for the jam scene and a little bit too jammy for the punk scene. And there’s a little bit of the Minutemen in there. The truth is, this is very premature because that band is still hashing out its sound. I don’t want to say too much.”

When asked if the band would open for Vampire Weekend, Koenig said “That has been discussed”.