Monday marked the 10th anniversary of Cold War Kids' debut album Robbers & Cowards. To celebrate, the Long Beach indie rock veterans are sharing a previously unreleased version of album highlight "Saint John" featuring Yasiin Bey, the rapper then known as Mos Def. Frontman Nathan Willett offers some background on the collaboration:
I haven't really stopped to think about what "Saint John" is about in 10 years, even though we play it every night. Here's the gist of it - a bunch of wasted frat guys assault a woman and the brother of the woman throws a brick at one frat guy and maybe kills him.
So, our hero, Saint John is on death row waiting for a pardon. Not the most uplifting story and yet over the years this song has become the inevitable show closer - an ever evolving bottled aggression loose spastic minimal blues jam that could just keep going forever. You can't try to set out and write a song like this, it just happens.
I was thrilled, 10 years ago, when I heard MOS DEF's version but it never came out. Excited to finally have it be heard ! Can we get Yasiin to come out of retirement and perform it with us? Hopefully won't take another 10 years.
Hear Cold War Kids and Mos Def team up below.
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Upon Monday's anniversary, Willett also posted some reflections on Robbers & Cowards:
