WHO ever said men can’t multitask? Tim Harrington, frontman of New York band Les Savy Fav, can kiss multiple audience members, swagger round drinking wine straight from the bottle, and change costume onstage, while leading his band to the frenetic and contagious level of energy that has made them famous.
“People come to our shows expecting us to let go and have a good time. Because there’s something real and personable to the performance the audience feels they can let go too,” explains bassist Syd Butler.  
A female fan once got kicked in the face when Harrington decided to perform from the crowd, but she still comes to every gig, smiling and happily reminding them she’s the girl Tim kicked in the face.
The original members of Les Savy Fav, (pronounced lay-SAH-vee FAHV), met as students at the Rhode Island School of Design.
The Brooklyn noisemakers became a band sought after and screamed over in the underground scene a decade later, following band member reshuffles and a short hiatus in 2005.
“We got together as friends looking for something to do between studies; we really just drank beer and made as much racket as possible. There was a great scene and community of up and coming bands and people supporting them around then, and I guess we just got wrapped up in that.”
Their 2007 release Let’s Stay Friends hit number nine on the Billboard Heatseekers and number 37 on the Independent Album charts – not bad for a band whose sound was once deemed so obscure that British band Jetplane Landing wrote a song called “Why do they never play Les Savy Fav on the radio?”
“It all happened through touring and word of mouth. We went from playing to 50 people to playing to 500, and then we were headlining a music festival to a crowd of 15 000.”
Part of their success may lie in the fact that success was never their aim.
“We just hung on in there while a lot of bands came and went. We never felt we had to make it and that helped keep things in control.”
The band’s latest album, Root for Ruin, was released last year to similarly glowing reviews. Some say Les Savy Fav’s sound has become more radio friendly, but that’s not how Butler sees it.
“Radio has changed, we really haven’t. For a long time radio was stale, and it still is a little, but there was a movement where the Indie acts broke through. The music we’re playing is just more in vogue now.”
‘Indie’ used to refer to music released through independent record labels and underground music channels, but many so-called indie bands have since signed to major labels. This can be called ‘selling out’, but Butler says: “As long as you keep your ambition and drive you can do that it in a way that maintains your credibility.”
“Some young bands sign to big labels so quickly. It’s like they do it so they can go to their parents, who probably told them to get a real job after college, and say ‘Hey look Mum, Columbia’s signing us.’
“Artists who know who they are, know what they want. They make the deals with a good lawyer present and a good understanding of what they’re getting into.”
Les Savy Fav, San Francisco Bathhouse, February 2.