We’re trying to catch Caroline Polachek’s attention. This is difficult, considering we’re on an international call, as opposed to doing it in person.

The lead singer of Chairlift is in an art supply store in Montpelier, Vermont. She’s travelling with a crew of five, including her bandmates Aaron Pfenning and Patrick Wimberly, and keeps breaking off to answer queries (“No, I’m doing an interview…what?...no, it’s in there, dude…”).

Between leaving the store and walking to a nearby restaurant, and finally concentrating for a moment, Polachek explains something that’s been puzzling us. The lyrics to Chairlift’s single, ‘Evident Utensil’, go: “The most evident utensil is none other than a pencil, and not a multicoloured stencil…” Uh, what?

“No, that was 100% fun,” says Polachek when asked if the admittedly pretty funky pop song means anything. Or rather, it does, as she backtracks: “As we played the song more and more it ended up becoming a metaphor for being an artist in the city, and how every idea starts with a really humble scratch pad at the beginning. All architecture ideas would start with like, a drunken idea on a cocktail napkin or something.

"But it’s 100% ridiculousness. I actually wrote the lyrics to that in the course of one shower, humming to myself about kitchen utensils. It was a really silly song; I got out the shower and drew a cartoon of a toucan that kind of looked like Aaron, with the lyrics coming out of it’s mouth in a speech bubble, and I gave it to Aaron as a joke. And at the next practice, I found a synthesiser crash that worked great with it, and we just started fucking around and we ended up with a really silly pop song that we were unashamed to play!”

And this cartoon is going to make you a lot of money in a few years time, right? “No! We’re gonna frame it and save it for when we’re withering away in Orlando when we’re like ninety years old.”

This aura of silliness, of not really taking things too seriously, is wonderfully evident in not just ‘Evident Utensil’ but most of their other material as well. With all members sharing duties on instruments, synths and vocals, the sound they make is initially reminiscent of 80s music but on repeated listens reveals itself to be influenced by far more. It’s melodic, easygoing, bouncy pop music which manages to pull off the neat trick of being easy on the ear without dumbing itself down.

“We like to be a bit tranced out by the sounds we use,” explains Polachek. “We like to imagine we sound like a massage. The more abrasive sounds can feel good and the smoother ones can feel good, and we don’t want too much of the same. We like sounds with a degree of nostalgia to them as well. That’s why a lot of people say we sound like 80s music, but in fact it’s just that we use synths that are reminiscent of stuff we heard on the radio when we were kids. It’s more of a reference to our childhood than the glamour of 80s music.”

Chairlift are two albums down. They self released their first, Daylight Savings, in 2007, and their second, Does You Inspire You, has recently been picked up by Columbia for a re-release this month. Turning serious for a moment, Polachek says it was an opportunity to redo things and rearrange a couple of songs – she calls the new version the deluxe edition.

But the Columbia pickup isn’t the only bit of good news that’s been bouncing around the Williamsburg, Brooklyn headquarters of the band. Remember that iPod TV ad? “I tried to do handstands for you, every time I fell I knew…” over squishy kicks and cheeky guitar chords? Yeah. That was Chairlift. So did it surprise them that Apple picked their song ‘Bruises’?

“Oh my God, yeah,” exclaims Polachek. “We had no idea it was even going on TV. The weirdest part was that I don’t even watch TV. When I saw it at Patrick’s house it felt like the weirdest thing because I always assumed that the world of TV and advertising was this super slick secretive official corporate world that was untouchable. To see our song that we made in Patrick’s basement being used on the slickest of ads…it gave me this revelation: everything you see on TV is being made by human hands.”

It’s an interesting point, and she goes further by explaining just how her and her bandmates see the implications of being involved in the manoeuvrings of a corporate giant: “If Apple thinks that this is cool, what does that say about corporate media and where it’s headed and mass taste? It’s really cool and really awesome that they’re using us to represent music.”
Chairlift are playing Kings College this month, which should give us a chance to experience the silliness live on stage.

And what’s that like exactly? For starters, Polachek says you probably shouldn’t expect to hear a rehash of their recorded material. “We don’t stay faithful to the songs on the record whatsoever,” she says. “We have a lot of fun with the arrangements, which are always constantly changing. For example, every soundcheck we have, we change something…and it’s not even a gimmick, it’s just that during soundcheck I’m always augmenting my synthesiser patches, or we’re talking about a new way to play the bassline, so the songs are always evolving. I think it’s really exciting to go to a live show and to see different interpretations of songs on a record. Why else would you go to a live show?”

And when ‘Bruises’ comes on? “One thing about Bruises is that people’s cameras come out. Phones come out. It’s like, this song was documented in an ad so you’re going to document your own version for yourself? People are monkeys like that!
“You’re not in the moment. You’re looking at a small screen and not paying attention to the stage. Your thinking about the blog you’re going to put it on, your girlfriend you’re going to show it to, your Youtube profile. You’re not thinking about [what the person is doing on stage.] The lighter is the exact opposite: it says, I’m here, in the room, with you, doing it so hard. It’s a weird opposite.”

And with that brief, almost fleeting series of answers, Polachek ends the call, and her and her bandmates get back on the road in Vermont. Presumably with a bag full of art supplies in the back – just in case inspiration calls.