Ezra Koenig
| Ezra Koenig | |
|---|---|
| [[File:File:Enhanced-buzz-30672-1280501212-9.jpg|frameless|alt=|]] | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Ezra Koenig |
| Born | April 8, 1984 |
| Origin | New York City, New York, United States |
| Occupations | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Labels | XL |
| Associated acts | Vampire Weekend, Dirty Projectors, Discovery, L'Homme Run, The Sophisticuffs, The Very Best |
| Website | http://www.vampireweekend.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Epiphone Sheraton II, Rickenbacker 330 | |
Ezra Koenig (born April 8, 1984[1] in New York City) is the lead singer and one of the guitarists of New York-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend.
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[edit] Background
Koenig grew up in a Jewish background[2] in Northern New Jersey and attended Glen Ridge High School. Ezra's grandmother is Romanian.[3] His mother is a psychoanalyst. His father is a set supervisor on film sets and has worked on several Spike Lee movies. His parents lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan before moving to New Jersey. Ezra has a younger sister, Emma Koenig. He began writing music around the age of ten or eleven, and his first song ever was titled "Bad Birthday Party." He attended Columbia University where he majored in English. Ezra's maternal grandfather is philosopher Richard McKeon.
[edit] Musical career
Prior to forming Vampire Weekend, Koenig was involved in numerous musical projects with Wes Miles,[4] a former high school classmate and current front-man of Ra Ra Riot, along with childhood friends Dan Millar and Andrei Padlowski. Koenig and Miles' experimental band, The Sophisticuffs, has been described as "wildly inventive musical work". [5] Later, Koenig formed the "serious" rap band L’Homme Run [6] with Andrew Kalaidjian and fellow band member Chris Thomson, played saxophone for the indie rock band Dirty Projectors on a European tour, worked as an intern for The Walkmen,[7] and was an eighth-grade English teacher in Junior High School 258 in Brooklyn, New York, until 2007.
Koenig met the members of Vampire Weekend while attending Columbia University and started the group in their senior year. The name of the group comes from the movie of the same name that Ezra and his friends made over summer vacations. Ezra plays the main character, Walcott, who has to go to Cape Cod to tell the mayor that vampires are coming. They self-produced their first album after graduation while concurrently working full-time jobs. In 2010, they released their second album, Contra. It reached number one on the US and British album charts, among others.
Koenig provides vocals on the song "Carby" on LP, the debut album of Discovery, a group which features Vampire Weekend keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij and his childhood friend, Ra Ra Riot Vocalist, Wes Miles. He's also featured on "Warm Heart of Africa" by The Very Best, "Pyromiltia" by Theophilus London and "I Could Be Wrong" by Chromeo. He also recently appeared and provided brief vocals in the music video for Duck Sauce's Barbra Streisand.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/01/the-artful-dodgers-santigold-vampire-weekend.html
- ^ Batuman, Elif (2008-04-26). "What am I doing here?". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/apr/26/popandrock.
- ^ Anthony Carew (23 November 2009). "Interview: Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend". about.com. http://altmusic.about.com/od/interviews/a/vampireweekend.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
- ^ http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2008/06/qa_with_wes_miles_of_ra_ra_rio.php
- ^ http://www.madeablog.com/2009/07/reginalds-lament-sophisticuffs.html
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hhXgsHrv7c&feature=channel/
- ^ http://pitchfork.com/news/39758-5-10-15-20-ezra-koenig/
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ezra Koenig |
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