We Are Scientists: band history and albums

We Are Scientists is a rock band based in New York City that formed in Berkeley, California, in 1999. Its main members are guitarist and vocalist Keith Murray and bass guitarist Chris Cain; drummer Keith Carne has joined the band in the studio and for live performances since 2013. The band has put out eight studio albums.

Their early release Safety, Fun, and Learning (In That Order) is not counted among them, and the band has described it as more of a rough draft than a proper album. Their debut studio album, With Love and Squalor, sold 100,000 copies in its first six months. Later albums are Brain Thrust Mastery in 2008, Barbara in 2010, TV en Français in 2014, Helter Seltzer in 2016, Megaplex in 2018, Huffy in 2021, Lobes in 2023 and Qualifying Miles in 2025.

Beyond music, Murray and Cain are known for comedy, which they bring into interviews, press releases and jokes at their live shows. They have also produced many of their own music video treatments, a 2009 series of television shorts for MTV called Steve Wants His Money, and a podcast series titled Dumpster Dive in 2020. Murray and Cain met in 1997 while attending Pomona College in Claremont, California.

In late 1999, after graduating and moving to Berkeley, California, they started the band with their roommate Scott Lamb, a fellow Pomona College alum. Lamb played guitar and sang, Cain played bass, and Murray played drums and handled vocals. The three chose the name We Are Scientists after renting a truck from U-Haul; when they returned it, the inspector asked if they were scientists.

Some publications claimed the name referred to a Cap'n Jazz song of the same name, while others believed it honoured the Guided by Voices track "I Am a Scientist"; the band denied both. On their Dumpster Dive podcast, Cain said, "I can say that pretty unequivocally that if we had known of Cap'n Jazz at the time of naming our band, we would not have named it We Are Scientists. " In late 2000, Murray and Cain moved to the Los Angeles area without Lamb and recruited Michael Tapper, whom they had known at Pomona and who was in his last year at adjoining Harvey Mudd College.

Tapper took over drums from Murray, who became the band's vocalist and guitarist, while Cain continued on bass. The band then relocated to Brooklyn, New York in 2001 and began recording material in November 2001, finishing in January 2002 with 12 tracks, two of which credit former member Scott Lamb. Because of issues setting up their own label, the record came out in June.

That summer they reunited with original vocalist Scott Lamb. In October, after several months of performing in California and New York, among other places, the band recorded their first EP, available originally only at live shows: Bitching!

Bitching! A year after recording In Action, the band returned to the studio with Los Angeles-based producer Chris Fudurich, recording rough versions of "The Great Escape", "Scene Is Dead" and "This Means War", which made up half of their final independently released EP The Wolf's Hour; other tracks included "Callbacks Under The Sea", "Inaction" and "Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt".