After almost a decade away, the American rock trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back with an urgent, electrifying album, Cool It Down. Front and centre as always is Karen O, 43-year-old Karen Orzolek, the band’s singer and one of the most charismatic and intriguing figures to emerge from the New York indie scene of the 2000s. She now lives in Los Angeles with the British film-maker Barnaby Clay and their seven-year-old son.
Did you ever doubt you could make music again that would be up there with anything you’ve done before?
I don’t know the answer to that question, because I’m a pretty future-oriented person: I think more about what’s next than what came before. But the secret sauce on Cool It Down was just that we waited to be supercharged and inspired and completely swept up in the urgency to enjoy making music again together. So that helps.
