“We’ve been in Malibu for two months now, writing and recording. We
rented a house out here, rented some equipment, and built a studio.
It’s pretty sweet. We’re gonna be sad to leave it,” VanWyngarden
— the son of Flyer editor Bruce VanWyngarden
— said by phone.

Not a bad life for a White Station High School graduate
— the first Memphian to morph into a full-fledged pop star since
Justin Timberlake evolved from a Mouseketeer.

A synth-based psychedelic duo, MGMT — which VanWyngarden
formed with Ben Goldwasser during his freshman year at Wesleyan
University — exploded in 2008, barely a year after they inked a
deal with Columbia Records and recorded their debut album,
Oracular Spectacular, with Flaming Lips producer Dave
Fridmann at the helm. With singles like “Kids,” “Electric Feel,”
and “Time To Pretend” gaining resonance with young audiences, the band
toured with Of Montreal, Beck, and Radiohead and landed prestigious
spots at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and the Austin City Limits, Coachella,
and Glastonbury music festivals.

When MGMT rolls into Minglewood Hall Thursday, June 11th,
however, it will mark only their second concert of 2009.

“Ben and I took a month and a half to write songs in a tiny cabin in
upstate New York, close to Woodstock,” VanWyngarden explained.

Afterward, they took those songs to Malibu, where they joined forces
with legendary British psych-rocker Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember and
Jennifer Herrema, co-founder of the American indie group Royal
Trux, to complete the sessions for their sophomore release, which
VanWyngarden says will be called Congratulations.

“I don’t even know what ‘making it’ means,” VanWyngarden said. “We
don’t feel like we’ve changed at all. I know every band says, ‘We
didn’t set out to sign to a label or become popular,’ but it kind of
just happened. We don’t feel much pressure, because we know we’re not
going to make songs like [“Kids” or “Time To Pretend”] again. We’re not
in the same space. Our music has gotten more bizarre. We’re just kinda
doing the same thing that we did last time around, which is make songs
that come into our heads, and people can react however they want. Ben
and I want people to like it, but it’s not a life-or-death thing.”

Pondering the secret of his success, VanWyngarden admitted, “We
haven’t worked that hard. We’ve been lucky and successful, and we don’t
give a shit about it, which is kind of rubbing it in. Yeah, some crazy
shit’s happened. All of a sudden, Weezer is covering a song of ours.
While I was in London last summer, the Daily Telegraph had an
article where I was dating Kirsten Dunst or something, which was
completely made up.”

What’s not made up: MGMT’s victory this spring over French president
Nicolas Sarkozy and the UMP political party, which, despite lobbying
for stricter intellectual copyright laws, utilized the song “Kids”
without permission both online and at campaign rallies in 2008.

“Fighting the French political party was pretty surreal,”
VanWyngarden said. “It was nice to win out against their blatant
hypocrisy, since they were trying to pass all these copyrights against
digital downloading at the same time they were using our song on their
website without permission.”

It’s a far cry from the days when VanWyngarden played in his high
school rock band Accidental Mersh, performing at the New Daisy
for a hundred bucks or sneaking into the Blue Monkey on Thursday nights
to listen to Steve Selvidge perform with Ross Rice.

“Steve always told me to remember my roots,” VanWyngarden recalled.
“I’d come back from Wesleyan and tell him about these experimental
classes I was taking, and he’d give me a soul CD to keep me grounded.
The way he and Ross played together informed a lot of things I try to
keep in mind when I’m performing, even today.”

MGMT plays Minglewood Hall Thursday, June 11th, with Kuroma.The show
is sold out. For more local music coverage, go to “Sing All Kinds” on
memphisflyer.com.