Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Rolling On.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs play the Great Northern Hotel in Byron Bay on Friday and the Arena on Saturday.

“When I was really young I used to dress up as Madonna,” laughs Yeah Yeah Yeahs vocalist Karen O, after spotting some audience members dressed as herself at a recent show. “It’s a fun kind of thing. I loved doing that when I was a kid. It feels like playing to a younger version of you out there. You’ve got to impress yourself like five years ago.”

Sassy New York rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs are currently on the road with Jon Spencer. Their debut five track EP landed not long after the band got themselves sorted out. While and album has been put together, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are waiting to see just who will release it.

“We’re still trying to figure out who to sign to. The longer we wait the longer it’s going to take to come out, but we’re hoping it will be out late February, early March. It’s down to a few labels, but it’s really complicated because it’s a bizarre position to be in. We want to make the best decision. Albums are like kids and you want to make good decisions for them. You want them to have all the opportunities they can have.”

The band have been hyped since making an appearance in Rolling Stone in the states, and the surrounding record company interest has been a result. But the angle the band wanted to take with their image has been skewed.

“Right away, the first picture printed of us in Rolling Stone, they sort of cut Mick and Brian in half with me in the centre.”

A taste of things to come…

“It seems too easy on their (the media’s) part, almost. A female singer in a rock band that’s not like a riot grrrl or something doesn’t come around too often. We just try and do what we do, and we want to build a certain image for ourselves, but people just want to focus on me in the middle of that. It’s such an egalitarian effort that we all put into the band and everything about it, it’s only in the press they do that. They guys are never happy about being cropped out of pictures. It used to be a sore point, but now we just expect it. It’s out of our control, but when we do get to make a decision we try to represent ourselves. It’s flattering, but there’s three of us, not just me.”