Well, I haven’t blogged since Sydney when I was with Karen O and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs doing the psycho opera that Karen wrote. And now, almost a year later, the YYYs single SACRILEGE was released and we rocked Letterman last night. Because everyone is asking me, I thought I’d post about how this all came to be.

One day in Sydney, Karen O told me that she had written a song for the upcoming new album of the YYYs, and the guys weren’t convinced about the song yet. She told me she had an idea for the song, and asked me if I would write a gospel choir arrangement at the end of it. She said, “kind of like ‘Like a Prayer’”. I went home to the hotel room, and listened to the chorus she sent me. I had no idea what the verses sounded like, just the chorus. I was so into the song, that I sat down right there and sang the vocal arrangement into Garage Band and sent it to her. I sang all the parts I heard in my head and wrote all these crazy funk lines to be sung behind her. At t his point, I’d like to acknowledge the Funkmaster, George Clinton….I recorded 5 albums with him in the 80’s and his funk is still in me!!! At brunch after our last performance at the Sydney Opera House, Karen O came over to me and said that she wanted to record what I had written when they got back to NY. So I called my friend Michael McElroy who is the director of Broadway Inspirational Voices, and hired him and his amazing choir to sing the arrangement. We doubled and tripled 24 people and the result was amazing. Needless to say, Nick and Brian were totally down with the song now.

Fast forward to a few months later, when I get an e-mail from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs manager asking me to give her a call. She informed me that the song was going to be the first single of MOSQUITO, the new album!!!
So, here is our performance last night on David Letterman, with the Broadway Inspirational Voices and me conducting SACRILEGE!!!

Enjoy!!