Talking Shop: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

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Watch the video for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' new single Zero

US garage pop trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are returning with their first album for three years, It's Blitz.

The digital version was rush-released at the start of this month after it leaked online two months early.

The group, who are playing three sold-out UK shows in April, explain how they came back from the brink of splitting and how a faulty synth from eBay shaped the sound of the album.

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How did you feel when the album leaked?

Karen O, singer: It's a bit like when you get punched in the stomach.

There's been so much radical change in the way people are receiving their music and it's snowballed since our last record, and has been really hard for us to get our head around.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs emerged from the New York rock scene in 2002

Does the music world feel different from three years ago?

Nick Zinner, guitars/keyboards: Oh yeah, it's completely different. All the rules and games have changed. I guess the need for immediate gratification has got a lot stronger. I've found that in how I look for music too. It's how things are now.

There's so much more music and so many more bands, and everybody's scrambling. All the new bands and all the bands that have been around for a while, we're all at the same level. We're all just tracks on a blog, links on a list.

Synths or guitars?

KO: Right now, maybe synths.

NZ: Obviously I'd choose guitars. How about guitars that sound like synths?

You bought your synth on eBay - does it have any interesting history or was it just cheap?

NZ: It's cheap and actually only half of it worked. It's a keyboard that has four sounds. I bought it because it has this really lush string sound, like that Dream Weaver song [a 1976 hit for Gary Wright]. But that didn't work.

So if it had been in full working order the album might have sounded different?

NZ: Yeah.

Where did you go to write this album?

New York, especially, just makes you so anxious about everything Nick Zinner

NZ: We went to these really crazy rural locations to write. We weren't in New York or LA - that's the most important thing. We went to a place where we didn't have distractions.

KO: Both places were really isolated and rural. One was in the desert and one was up in the woods. Someone had turned a barn into a studio and another person had just decided to build a studio in the grounds of his pecan orchard farm in Texas.

Did rural setting have an effect on the music?

KO: I really think it did because we were surrounded by so much space. In both places, the sense of space was really influential and reflected in the music.

NZ: It made us more focused and more free to muck around and try new things. New York, especially, just makes you so anxious about everything.

For taking a deep breath and trying to do something honest and pure, it's necessary not to be thinking about what time your friend is DJing.

Band relations were strained after they released their last album in 2006

What influence did kittens have on this album?

KO: A pretty big influence. When I was doing my vocal performances for a song called Little Shadow, I was thinking the whole time about Squeaker, the little kitten that was my surrogate furry child for the whole time we were in Texas.

They're the muses. They're the best fuzzy warm distraction when you need a break from the studio.

How did you patch things up after you nearly split up?

KO: We went on tour with each other for a year. If there's tension or resentment or ugly stuff, our worst enemy is distance. That brings it out and makes it more intense and you start turning it into something bigger than it is in your head.

When you're forced to share quarters on a bus, and every night play a show and be living and breathing each other's air, it forces you to face the feelings and work through them. And now everything's really good.

NZ: Going on tour and having the reaction and support and passion from our audience made us realise that [tension] is all rubbish. When you're working with someone you've got to listen them and respect their input, and not take criticism personally. That's what it comes down to.

Who rocks more - US fans or UK fans?

NZ: British fans are definitely the craziest, they're constantly jumping up and down and freaking out, so yeah we love playing there. A lot of American audiences are great but it's mixed. Sometimes you get a bunch of college students standing there with their arms crossed.

It's Blitz is available digitally now, and is out on CD in the UK on 6 April. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were talking to BBC News music reporter Ian Youngs.