YYYs' Guitarist Takes Shots at NYC Gallery, Looks to New Album

Posted on Aug 19th 2008 1:00PM by David Chiu
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Sometimes the rock 'n' roll lifestyle isn't all that exciting but rather a series of traveling from city to city marked by periods of downtime. It's something that Nick Zinner knows firsthand over the years as the guitarist for the alternative rock group Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He's capturing those experiences through his other passion: photography.

"It's a great way to explore where you're at," he tells Spinner. "Also it's kind of [documenting] all the small moments that you wouldn't really notice or remember because it all really blurs into one haze."

Zinner's pieces have been exhibited in different places, and in 2005 he published a book of his photography, 'I Hope You Are All Happy Now.' His latest photo show, 'It's OK, Don't Look at the Road,' which just opened at New York City's Fuse Gallery and runs through September 13, contains images taken from his experiences.

The artist says that he wanted to focus on the more abstract things depicted in the photographs rather than just rock 'n' roll. In keeping with his intentions and the sense of mystery, there is hardly any information offered about the works in terms of time and place, or the people in the photos. One piece includes a young woman sticking out her tongue showing a pill, while another shows a man whose lip has the word "PUNK."

"I like things that are really vague," he says, "something where things are more ambiguous or suggestive. You can't really tell what's going on, but you can invent your own story."

Zinner does offer a story behind one of the photographs called 'Broken Bus,' taken when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were on a tour, he says. "I kind of struggled whether to include that one or not because it's so rock 'n' roll," he says. "We had this bus that kept breaking down, and the bus broke down in the desert between Vegas and [either L.A. or outside of San Diego]. They all had to get out and push the bus, and jump on it to get it started."

Another part of the show contains a collection of 4" x 6" photographs of beds shot mainly in hotel rooms. "When we started touring and staying in all these different places," he says, "it seemed weird to be in these empty nowhere places every night, spending a lot of time in certain places but not taking anything with you from that. I just like the idea of personal/impersonal spaces."

Right after his gallery shows Zinner is scheduled to go back to Los Angeles, as he and the other members of Yeah Yeah Yeahs are finishing their third album. "We're almost done," he says about its progress. "We're getting close."

All that he would say about the record is that "it's totally different," and that it might be released sometime in the winter. The guitarist does confirm that a kitten influenced the new album. "[It] showed up as an orphan in a studio where we're at outside of El Paso," he explains, "sort of like a gift from the heavens."