Joanna: State your name and what you do in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Nick: My name is Nick Zinner, and I play guitars and things.

Joanna: How long have you been a band for?

Nick: About three and a half years�we ain�t gettin any younger here.

Joanna: I remember seeing you guys play in the basement of my freshman dorm in front of me and like 5 of my friends. Three years later, I�m seeing you play a sold out show at Irving Plaza. Did this happen gradually or was it sudden?

Nick: Well, there was an initial gradual build. At first we made & distributed our first recording around March of 2001. We played around New York, and we were surprised and excited even then about getting orders from weird places like Sweden or Hong Kong, or being asked to open for bigger bands, like Dead Moon or The Gossip. Sometime around January of 2002 we were offered our first big tours with Girls Against Boys and then later, with the Blues Explosion. Everything from there suddenly exploded to the point of being us completely overwhelmed.

Joanna: Being on MTV all the time and featured in Spin and just about every other mainstream music magazine, do you ever feel objectified by any image the media may have created out of you or your band?

Nick: We're happy with the direction because we've always been in control of all the decisions business-wise. Most importantly, we still have a sense of urgency to write and perform and experiment, and therefore we never feel locked into any sound or style. The media always loves to categorize and jump to conclusions, especially in the UK, and sometimes that can be quite a fright if you pay attention to it, specifically for Karen, because she�s mentioned the most. The way we�ve learned to deal with it is just to ignore it. The media can say whatever they want, it can�t affect the way we work as a band.

Joanna: What about the audience? Has your experience with a more mainstream audience been positive or negative?

Nick: Mmmm, the positives outweigh the negatives. It's funny, when we play with bands like The Locust or Black Dice, I feel like we're classic rock in comparison. On the other hand, against the Christinas and Britneys it's rad that a band like us can be on MTV, because tons of kids have no other exposure or awareness that more interesting music is being made. Hopefully we can be some sort of gateway drug to more obscure, less generic sounding bands.

Joanna: Did you get to pick what song on the record would be made into a video?

Nick: We already made 2 videos before, it's just this one that was sort of picked up.

Joanna: Is there any reason that the only uh� �slow song� [Maps] on the record was picked?

Nick: It's one of the songs we're most proud of. Our record is schizophrenic anyways�.

Joanna: Do you think that kind of throws people off who might have decided to buy your record solely based on the video?

Nick: It's not like a "more than words" scenario. If people are thrown off, I can only see that as a good thing.

Joanna: So do you� uh� watch porn?

Nick: Ummmmm.... well sometimes. I mean, maybe, I mean, errrr...OK yeah.

Joanna: How do you like it? On the Internet? DVDs? Magazines?

Nick: I bought some DVDs in Japan that are stupendous.

Joanna: (laughs) Do you like a website like Burning Angel, where the girls are like real girls you could have seen at the supermarket buying Gatorade, only they're naked? Or are you into the bleach blond hair and silicone breast look?

Nick: I'm more into girls from the punk rock supermarket.

Joanna: So Nick. If you were dating a girl who one day out of the blue woke up and said she wanted to be a porn star, what would you say?

Nick: I wouldn�t care about what she did, as long as her reasons were legit. I'd support it 100%. However, there's that whole clich� of the musician/porn star super-couple I'd probably want to avoid.

Joanna: When the website first started, a lot of people had issue with the fact that we merged indie music with porn. People thought that they were two separate entities that shouldn�t be united. How do you feel about this?

Nick: Read Motley Crue's "The Dirt" as a testament to that statement. I think rock and sex are generally coming from the same place: desire, passion, frustration, and cheap thrills.

Joanna: Is it true that Karen turned down an offer to be in Playboy?

Nick: It's the truth. I think she was nervous about her parents seeing it.

Joanna: Ok. Well is there anything else you would like to add?

Nick: Ummmm... that's about it. Thanks for the interview.