Bonding over a shared love of punk and African music, Vampire Weekend formed in 2006 while the bandmates were students at Columbia University. The band continued after graduation with their first album coming when the two primary members were working full time, one as a middle school English teacher.
Leveraging the early power of promotion through blogs and the internet, Vampire Weekend soon were able to quit their day jobs. Their fourth single release came in 2008 and Rolling Stone placed it on their Top 100 list for the year. From that start Vampire Weekend proceeded to do something no other indie rock band had done – see consecutive release debut at #1 with 2012’s Contra and 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City.
Vampire Weekend released their third album Modern Vampires of the City in 2013 and began a long tour in support of the new record. The fourth record took much longer than their previous work – about six years. During that time, one band member left the group while still continuing to collaborate on songwriting and the group took a two year hiatus from performances. The fourth album debuted at number 1 and won a second Grammy for the group.
Now three years after the release, Vampire Weekends says they are almost ready to release a new record, having spent much of their COVID downtime writing and recording. No specific release date or details have been mentioned.
