No one matters quite as much as The Rapture right now. They are a celebration of the spiky-haired and soulful, thanks to their pairing with producers DFA, the most potent partnership since Weatherall met the Scream. John Burgess charts the progress of the one-time three chord merchants whose music is as vibrant as their adopted New York home…

Late February in New York, which once again is the hippest place extant thanks to the welcome shot in the arm it’s received from the seemingly unstoppable flood of punky ‘The’ bands and the salacious posturings of electroclash. Somewhere amidst these poles of cool are The Rapture – the hippest of the hip – who Jockey Slut is waiting to take to the stage at NYU.

When the four-piece do appear around 10.30pm – all black tousled hair and white T-shirts – their guitars initially stay on the stands as three of them position themselves behind Roland synths and drum machines, and what sounds like vintage Mr Fingers unfurls. Moments later singer Luke Jenner’s Robert Smith-like wail and nervy guitar cut through the bleeps, and The Rapture’s melodramatic punk and metronomic disco is met with both bemusement and hysteria.

The Rapture have the chiselled good looks and an album packed with great tunes at a time when guitars are back, electronic music has some charismatic stars and New York is as hot as it was in 1982. In Britain bands like Playgroup and The Psychonauts are referencing similar acts from the post-punk era, like Gang Of Four, PiL and ESG. Meanwhile The Rapture’s hook-up with The DFA – Tim Goldsworthy and James Murphy, the impossibly cool production team – is the most effective pairing of band and producer since Weatherall worked with Primal Scream and Martin Hannett/Paul Oakenfold with the Happy Mondays. The aforesaid album, ‘Echoes’ – finished last spring but kept so firmly under wraps that the only copy was glued into a CD player – is amongst the most desirable artefacts on the planet right now.

And to think three years ago Luke and drummer Vito Roccoforte were living in their van under the Brooklyn Bridge...

Luke and Vito, both 27, met in the school playground and grew up together in La Mesa, California. The founder members recall their salad days for Jockey Slut’s benefit in a quiet conference room backstage at NYU. In the adjacent dressing room there is another table bearing the weight of a risible rider: bottle of Coke, carton of juice, two different types of cheese, no crackers. “We should write a song about cheese,” says Luke, whose barnet is so bountiful that the photographer, trying to remember the individuals’ names, writes ‘LUKE: HAIR’ on the back of his hand. In their school days they listened to a lot of college radio: The Smiths, Soft Cell, The Cure and Gary Numan. “Living in Southern Cali is like living in ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ or ‘Jackass’,” he grins, picking flecks from a pair of black gloves. “So English music seemed really weird to us. The bands seemed to come from outer space.”

When Vito moved to a San Francisco college Luke followed, and the pair formed the Numan-influenced Calculator. They wore uniforms exactly like The Hives do now and prepared flyers for gigs that didn’t exist. “Image is everything in San Fran,” Vito laughs, flicking his ‘Pet Sounds’-era Brian Wilson cut. “It was fun at first but then we felt trapped. That’s how The Rapture came about.”

The Rapture’s debut, ‘Mirror’ – a noisy punk rock album – was released on Gravity Records in 1999. Later that year they played a fateful gig at Brownies in New York. It was the last place on earth The DFA’s James Murphy wanted to be, having played in various punk bands. But he had been tipped off by a friend about the band, who had subsequently signed to Sub Pop. “They were amazing,” he recalls. “Charismatic and memorable. They came out and were a big wreck. The other bands were boring, horrible and tedious.”

James approached Luke after the gig and offered the DFA’s services, feeling that their limitless production criteria combined with the visceral nature of The Rapture’s music could spawn a monster. Luke recalls their meeting with a smile. “He was this really intense big guy. He talks a lot. Very fast. Enthusiastically. We just wanted to be a successful independent indie band, but The DFA said: ‘If you think about it for a minute, you can be more than that.’ They backed us up with studio time.”

Such ambition is supported by James’ favourite analogy. “When A&R men would watch Iggy Pop roll around on stage in the 70s, it wasn’t like they thought: ‘This is great, I’ll put it out on my seven-inch label out of my bedroom.’ It was like: ‘We’ll put him in a studio in London with Bowie.’”

Housed between a yoga school and sushi bar, Plantain, on West 13th Street, is home to Death From Above. Some of 2002’s key records emerged from this studio: The Rapture’s ‘House of Jealous Lovers’, Radio 4 ‘s ‘Dance to the Underground’, DFA’s remix of Le Tigre’s ‘Deceptacon’, and Murphy’s own ‘Losing My Edge’ as LCD Soundsystem.

Annexed to the office is a room with two turntables and a ton of tunes. Jockey Slut spies a 7-inch of PiL’S ‘Public Image’, a Paradise Garage box set, the ‘Beat Street’ soundtrack, an early Depeche Mode album, and a couple of records by kindred spirit Trevor Jackson’s Playgroup.

James Murphy gives Jockey Slut the guided tour, picking out a keyboard donated to the studio by Andrew WK. “It is out of tune,” he says. James is both genial and witty, but you wouldn’t want to cross him. He used to be a bouncer and is prone to what The Rapture’s manager calls “Bickle moods”.

The previous night he DJed at a Fischerspooner album launch party, playing Punjabi MC with Young MC, and Black Strobe with Annie, meaning that his eyes are red from late-night fun. Apparently, Casey Spooner kidnapped him or, as James eloquently puts it: “I was carried away on a wave of humanity.”

Sat at the adjacent desk, his partner Tim Goldsworthy is the geek to James’ punk. James Lavelle’s erstwhile partner in UNKLE and Mo’ Wax is bespectacled and youthful looking and sounds rather odd when New York inflections invade his English tones.

James and Tim met whilst working on David Holmes’ ‘Bow Down to the Exit Sign’, and bonded over records they loved (PiL, Gang Of Four, Roxy Music, Basic Channel) and those they loathed (anything ‘lazy’). They are cynical about anything that instantly sounds cool – which James calls, neatly, “McDepth”- and kick against convention.

“When you listen to PiL that’s deep, strange and scary. It makes you think: ‘Why would anyone make this?’ Wearing a scary hat, scary contact lenses and a scary jacket doesn’t make you scary. Really scary people look pretty normal but dope guys and cut off their feet.”

LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’ – James’ paranoid rant from a fading hipster – ironically propelled him into the arena of the super cool. NME called him the ‘Pharrell Williams of punk funk’, something which has not escaped notice. Craig David’s ‘people’ have already been politely declined by The DFA. Proper stars have also been in touch.

“Janet Jackson called up yesterday,” James says, embarrassed by how crazy it sounds but obviously delighted. “She was really sweet. She loves ‘Losing My Edge’.”

Before even recording a note The Rapture would hang out at the Plantain studios for months at a time, or, as James succinctly puts it: “They came over, played records and got wasted.”

Certainly there was plenty of bourbon around; leftovers from a trilogy of free parties The DFA threw between Christmas ‘99 and April 2000 which have since passed into Gotham legend as punk rock kids slam danced to disco and kids more used to attending the rave up found themselves trance dancing to Gang Of Four.

Luke became fascinated with acid house after realising the Happy Mondays and Primal Scream referenced producers like Marshall Jefferson and A Guy Called Gerald, while The DFA fanned the flames further by digging out the records that said house bods had namechecked.

When The Rapture lost their bass player in the move from the West Coast to New York, they were joined by Matty Safer who, at 21, is seven years their junior. Matty is slight, has a charming smile and recently cut his hair so he can wear a hat. A disco and go-go fanatic, he remembers The DFA parties, though punctures the myth somewhat.

“I guess they were cool, though annoyingly overcrowded. It’s not like we took an E and had a mind-opening epiphany, though maybe you should say that. I guess it was a good way of getting to know The DFA further. We were at odds with them for long periods of time. The first time we tried to record with them everything went weird. There was a lot of headbutting over sounds.”

The single ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’ proved the turning point. All parties finally agreed on one thing – they would attempt to make a house record. 

Luke: “American punk bands aren’t very trusting. You go out and get your live show together and then make the record. We just wanted our record to have a lot of energy and sound like the live show.”

Vito: “With ‘...Jealous Lovers’ it was the first time we were like: ‘OK, let’s try something different.’”

James: “It had to hold up in a club. It had to have enough bass and power to hold up against Mr Oizo or whatever was huge, but it also had to sound and feel raw, real and live. Not like Garbage, which is guitars and electronics that make you wanna shoot yourself in the face.”

Matty: “The recording process usually involves a lot of talking about records, listening to sounds. James’ record collection is in the studio and there’s a pretty good chance he has the record people are thinking of.”

James: “We had a real crisis making that song. The band would get bored and leave. We had debates about it: if we’re gonna go for it we really have to go for it. We have to make the bass that big.”

Vito: “When we were done we were weirded out because it didn’t sound like us.”

James: “Everyone had to recover after it. You should have seen us try and get distributors: ‘We have this punk rock band who have made a dance record. Would you like to take some?’”

Click.

‘House Of Jealous Lovers’’ nervy guitars, hissing house beat, insistent cow bell and Luke’s banshee wail became ubiquitous in the second half of 2002. But it wasn’t that easy getting their mutant beast heard. Thankfully salvation was just around the corner. Quite literally. Tim had been turned on to Metro Area by his old friends from Yeovil The Psychonauts. Strange, seeing as Morgan Geist was virtually Tim’s neighbour in NYC.

Geist was convinced to remix ‘...Jealous Lovers’, guaranteeing it distribution. “He was like the good friend that got us into the party,” says Tim. It also garnered praise from Felix Da Housecat, DJ Hell, 2manydjs and – most gratifying for the band – Andrew Weatherall, who they admired from his work on ‘Screamadelica’. 

“It’s almost as exciting as playing live, watching the reaction when a DJ plays our record. ‘...Jealous Lovers’ gave us this huge ceiling,” says Vito. The collaborative, lengthy and often difficult process of recording with The DFA has also changed their tune and attitude to playing live. “If you just play live a lot and then record and it sounds just like you’re live, what’s the point? Trying a song three different ways in the studio, all of a sudden you’ve got this huge space you can grow into. It’s opened us up a lot.”

Listening to the album two points spring to mind. One, that it’s a more varied opus than expected. Sure, there are dance/rock hybrids in the single ‘Olio’, ‘The Coming of Spring’ and instant classic ‘I Need Your Love’, but ‘Echoes’ also taps into that broad record collection holed up at Plantain. There are punk rockers – ‘Heaven’ and the title track – as well as ballads (‘Open Up Your Heart’, ‘Infatuation’). What’s more, it’s practically a love LP, which is hardly surprising really – Luke has been playing Barry White’s ‘Greatest Hits’ more than anything else this year.

“Well,” says Luke, “I got married. I wanted to express how I was feeling.’’

 Vito: “When you play live a lot and your songs are dark and you don’t feel that good... well, if you sing about love you’re going to feel a little better.”

“One,” yelps Luke.

Matty: “Two!”

Luke: “Twooooooah!”

At NYU The Rapture are counting in ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’, and it’s going down a storm. The group are now officially a four-piece, having been augmented by Gabe Andruzzi, Safer’s cousin, who’s been described, rather unfairly, as the band’s Bez. But while he is their most charismatic dancer – his knees buckle as he swings from side to side, cow bell aloft – did Bez play sax, keyboards and percussion? Like the Mondays’ madman though, he never seems to blink, while Vito moves from drum machine to drum proper and Matty keyboard to bass to handclaps, no doubt glad that he’s no longer in the audience.

Luke rarely faces the crowd; instead he stands side-on, jerking his body so furiously that it seems as if he’s in full gallop atop a horse, his hair flapping in and out of his eyes. “He’s a classic rock star,” beams Murphy of the vocalist. “That curious mix of fearlessness and hypersensitivity.”

The crowd would have gone home happy after ‘...Jealous Lovers’, but their debut album proper screams for attention and the funky, punky party rolls on. The gestation period of ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’ may have been a difficult one but if you reach for the stars you might land on the moon. It’s time for The Rapture to go supernova.

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