Totally Awesome New Republic Dishes on ‘Gossip Girl’ Connection

At Williamsburg's Zebulon last night, I enjoyed a Rolling Rock in the cheery company of Awesome New Republic and was told to add Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me to my summer reading list. At some point, Brian Robertson, the reticent half of ANR, meekly said, "I have a fear of oranges." Michael Hancock, his chattier compliment, on the other hand, offered me a little chorizo and explained, "I'm like the monkey of the band and [Brian]'s the super-producer, the magician." He also owned up to the fact that before their single "Birthday," emerged on Perez Hilton with Gossip Girl's own Queen B on vocals, he had no idea who Leighton Meester was.

The song was recorded by Meester, but with no further plans to join the band. Though Hancock admits, “She sounded really cool on it.” It was also sent along to American Idol alum Joanna Pacitti, who eventually passed. As sung by Meester, the single would be akin to any typical vanilla love song on Top 40; but with ANR performing it, “Birthday” ended up a single about gay sex, although that wasn’t reflective of the band. Largely because Hancock didn’t opt to compromise its integrity by changing all the “his"es to “her"s. He explained, “We were like, let’s just not change the lyrics from the perspective of a guy to a girl, because we’re always trying to bring some message with our music. We always thought it was silly when people cover songs that they have to change the sexual identity—but it’s just a song. Ultimately, that idea is one of the things that’s getting in the way of quality. There’s nothing unmanly about having sex with another dude.” And so pleased with their version, they kept the song for themselves. “No one else was biting on it,” Hancock said. They found a place for it on Rational Geographic, Volume 1. Robertson joked that because of the Blair Waldorf connection, “Maybe more people will come to the show!”

ANR’s been quietly making music since 2005, garnering some love from Pitchfork and touring with Girl Talk. Meanwhile, Rational Geographic looks poised to be their big break. Two more volumes are set for release later this year, with the entire anthology collected onto a single disc sometime in October. And having played at Glasslands last night, the duo hits the Lower East Side’s Mercury Lounge tonight.