MGMT Turn Down Supporting Lady Gaga, U2 And Coldplay

MGMT have turned down supporting slots with Lady Gaga, U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters.

The ‘Electric Feel’ hitmakers – consisting of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Martin Goldwasser – are determined not to perform arena shows with huge acts because they don’t want to be pop stars.

Andrew said: “We’ve recently been offered support slots with a ton of big bands. Really huge, enormous, big bands - Like Lady Gaga and U2 and Coldplay and Foo Fighters. And we turned them all down. We really didn’t want to do any of that.”

Ben believes the US duo have been “blown out of proportion” as a musical act because their aim was always to be a rock band and not a pop group.

He said: “Well, we really do feel like we were blown out of proportion by everybody. We don’t feel like pop stars, we feel like a rock band. We don’t want to play arenas. It’s not our mission.”

Because of this, they have made a point of making sure their new LP ‘Congratulations’ is different to their last album ‘Oracular Spectacular’.

Andrew explained: “I think on some level it is a reaction to the success of the first one. I mean, of course we were happy and felt lucky that stuff happened, but it wasn’t really what we were shooting for. I think a lot of people misinterpreted and misunderstood what we were about.”