Beirut’s Zach Condon is a full grown man

Zach Condon. Photo by Kristianna Smith
 
Beirut started small. Sante Fe, New Mexico’s Zach Condon launched the project from his teenage bedroom, crafting a lush, romantic fusion of indie pop and Balkan folk. Over six years, the project swelled to a sextet and released four widely loved albums, earning them a place on the radar. The Rip Tide is the band’s latest, Condon’s most adult creation to date.

“It’s weird when you come to the realization that you’re no longer a teenager,” he says. “I entered the business pretty young. I was 19 when my first record was released and I went on the road around the world, dropped high school, college and everything, to do what I always wanted to do. But I realized that it left me in arrested development, so to speak, in some aspects of my life, so I had to do some growing up.” His friends used to joke that every birthday was his 19th, but at 26, he’s married and owns a house in Brooklyn. New York is where The Rip Tide was recorded — a first for Condon, who used to routinely haul his trumpet and ukulele back to New Mexico to make records.

“I was trying to establish what was changed in my life — that, in a way, this was my new home,” he says. And that wasn’t the only change in his method: The Rip Tide was more of a group effort than any of Beirut’s previous albums, one that was self-released in order to avoid deadlines and other outside pressures.

Condon decided not to “hide behind music,” a habit he developed due to the relative ease of composition. Lyrics have always been a greater challenge for the songwriter (words are “awkward and treacherous,” he says), so it was essential to be bold.

Equally awkward for Condon is the day-to-day stress of his nomadic lifestyle, at once isolating and overwhelmingly social. “Now that I know it, it’s okay, but I don’t think anyone in their right mind can get used to touring. It’s a scary thing, going from your bedroom to the world stage,” he says. ■
 
Beirut plays with Little Scream at Metropolis tonight, Monday, July 16 and Tuesday, July 17, 8 p.m., $40