The Ivy League isn’t exactly known for its rock stars. But with musicians like Duncan Sheik of Spring Awakening fame, who has a degree from Brown, or Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, a Harvard grad, I felt like it was time to learn a little more about some up and coming Ivy League rock stars. Over a phone interview, I got the scoop from Yale grad Lexy Benaim, the lead singer behind the Harlem Shakes, on how New Haven rocks out.
Named after their favorite dance move, the Harlem Shakes are a five-member band, with a nucleus of three 2006 Yale graduates, who formed the band at the university. But the Ivy League education far from intimidates non-Ivy band members, guitarist Todd Goldstein and drummer Brent Katz. According to Benaim, “They behave like the children of Greek Gods.” The Harlem Shakes currently have a six-song EP out, which is heavily defined by Benaim’s high-pitched voice over quick to lull, yet unexpectedly stimulating, guitar melodies with the occasional addicting keyboard jingle.
While Benaim’s high voice initially masks the lyrics, after a few listens, his degree in Literature and Writing is slowly exposed with chorus lines like “If there’s a bomb in your hand just throw it / If the road’s too hot just run.” But Benaim doesn’t give Yale much credit for his work.
When asked if he thought Yale influenced his music he said, “Only in so far as, well, I went there.” He added, “We had these kind of pretty serious gigs and talked to record labels and stuff when I was in college. But, I don’t think we really became a professional band until I left.”
Benaim also spent a great deal of his time at Yale checking out the rest of the New Haven music scene. He particularly frequented “a pizza restaurant and music joint” known as BAR. He told me that “every Sunday night they’d have a different indie band,” including other great Yale artists like Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors (who recently played a Fanclub Collective show in Ithaca) or visiting bands like Animal Collective. His talk of BAR reminded me of The Nines in Collegetown. But, just as Ithaca’s music scene is hardly just The Nines, New Haven’s music scene isn’t composed of just indie rock on Sunday nights at BAR; Benaim said, “The main music was traditional music of one kind or another, and the classical music was amazing at Yale.”
Benaim did not plan on touring professionally upon graduation.
“I kind of stumbled into professional success. I was ambivalent about it, and we got invited to go on these tours with Tapes n’ Tapes and Deerhoof,” Benaim said. “But you know, we planned on it when we started making our EP — it’s kind of when things started rolling. That’s when we knew.”
Since the men in The Harlem Shakes have the brains and the beat, it was interesting to learn that Benaim thinks people are less likely to listen to them after learning that they graduated from Yale.
He said, “It’s not like we’re the seventh son of the seventh son of the Bush family. We kind of made our own way.” But Benaim won’t give other musicians a hard time about where they went to school. He said, “If you’re in a good band, you’re probably pretty smart and thoughtful, and it doesn’t really matter where you went to school.”
While you sit at your library of choice during study week, Benaim recommends checking out his track “Sickos” off of his Burning Birthdays EP. It’s not exactly the happiest song, but coming from a fellow Ivy Leaguer who said that during his time at Yale, he “worked just a perverse amount, because that’s just how it goes.” Listening to his song might help your mind along during finals week.