When it comes to expectations for their own success, MGMT have long operated under a low ceiling. The version of the band that existed while Goldwasser and VanWyngarden attended Connecticut liberal arts enclave Wesleyan in the early 2000s was not exactly a serious concern: The "concert" that led to independent label Cantora releasing their roughshod Time to Pretend EP consisted of the group and several friends sitting on stage in a circle, chopping open a particularly stinky durian fruit and passing it around.

A tour opening for fellow onstage button-pushers of Montreal followed in 2006, a noble achievement for a band with merely a handful of songs and a predilection for taping down individual keyboard notes to produce endless drones live. "It was basically karaoke—they'd have an iPod plugged directly into the PA," touring drummer Will Berman remembers. "At one point, they had a guitar on stage, but it was hanging from a noose." A second leg of the tour involved ponchos and on-the-spot lyrics to a smattering of songs that, according to VanWyngarden, sounded like a "combination of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Temple of the Dog. It was almost like we were trying to sabotage ourselves." (The tracks were eventually scrapped.)

The tour ended, and MGMT eventually ceased to exist. Goldwasser moved back home with his parents in upstate New York, while VanWyngarden considered joining of Montreal as a guitarist, going as far as to take promo photos with the band and agree on a full-time salary. He eventually turned the offer down and, against all odds, Columbia came calling on the strength of the Time to Pretend EP. It wasn't an easy yes, though, and MGMT as we know it may not exist if it weren't for some prescient fatherly advice. "Both of our dads were telling us, 'You’d be silly not to take this opportunity,'" VanWyngarden admits. "So we said, 'Here we go, let's see what happens.'"

A potent combo of healthy buzz, zeitgeist-capturing YouTube videos, and (most importantly) a few of the best psych-pop singles of the past decade made Oracular Spectacular a slow-building smash that went on to sell nearly 900,000 copies. The record was also a game-changer for Columbia, who used its success as a blueprint for expanding their stable to include other accessibly offbeat acts such as Cults, Passion Pit, and Chairlift. "MGMT built a bridge for a lot of groups to pass over," says Columbia chairman Rob Stringer. "They were one of the first in this new generation of bands to break the mold."

Things were moving fast, and VanWyngarden and Goldwasser struggled to keep up. "We had to be very gentle with them, because up to that point the band wasn't something they'd put any thought to," Stringer says. "They had to figure it all out." Producer Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, who manned the boards during Congratulations, is slightly more blunt about the band's rapid ascent: "It was a case of 'be careful what you wish for,' only I don't think they ever wished for this."

A warning sign that the duo may be in over their heads involved a SPIN story from October 2008, which detailed a particularly tipsy night for VanWyngarden that began with a DJ set at a New York Fashion Week party and ended with the singer waking up on a stranger's couch after being thrown out of a homeless shelter.

"I have no regrets about that," VanWyngarden says now, matter-of-factly. "It was my own type of protest against having to DJ this awful rooftop party." He's sitting in the guest house behind his in-construction, two-story home near the beach in Far Rockaway, Queens. A crude drawing of what looks like a deformed version of Garfield hangs above the couch.

Despite VanWyngarden's now-pragmatic attitude about the incident, the article as a whole, which zeroed in on backstage debauchery and rumors of romantic entanglements with actress Kirsten Dunst, left MGMT feeling stung. "I didn't ever want the band to represent a debaucherous lifestyle," Goldwasser says. "That was the angle a lot of people used to describe us, and I hated it."

After touring behind Oracular Spectacular, VanWyngarden and Goldwasser decamped to a Malibu studio at the top of 2009 to work on Congratulations as a full band. "We would do a hundred takes of one keyboard part—it got stressful," VanWyngarden says. "We were putting pressure on ourselves to get it done quickly, which stifled the creative juices a bit."

It wasn't all hair-pulling, though; while out on the West Coast, VanWyngarden learned how to surf (hence his current near-beachfront residence), and according to Black Bananas frontwoman and Congratulations contributing vocalist Jennifer Herrema, there were a few mushroom-tripping sessions, too. "It was super chill," says Herrema, whose seminal former act, 1990s scum-rock heroes Royal Trux, were a formidable influence on Goldwasser and VanWyngarden during their college days.

Herrema was drawn to MGMT after seeing the "Time to Pretend" video and still keeps in touch with them, recounting a recent hang session where a hallucinogen-fried Goldwasser marveled at the "psychedelic" qualities of maple syrup during a Monte Cristo-filled late-night diner run. "Their music is very different from the norm," she says. "If you have any kind of intuition, you know that what they're doing isn't bullshit."

Indeed, Congratulations cemented MGMT's reputation as musicians' musicians, a band unafraid to explore new territory when faced with the less risky option of sticking with a winning formula. A knotty left-turn of an album that has only grown more fascinating with time, it earned the band some well-reputed fans, from Animal Collective's Panda Bear to Deerhunter's Bradford Cox to Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter, who referred to it as his favorite album of 2010.

Non-musicians, however, weren't as besotted. Upon its release, Congratulations was met with mixed reviews and has sold 220,000 copies—about 75% less than its predecessor. Even MGMT themselves played a role in feeding the sophomore-slump doomsday machine: in the fall of 2010, VanWyngarden told UK rag The Daily Record that Columbia would be "more involved" and "not give us as much freedom" with their third album. Goldwasser now claims the quotes were meant in jest, and that the duo's sarcasm didn't translate. "No one ever told us how to do press until recently," adds VanWyngarden. "We learned a big lesson."

Over the course of reporting this piece, that lesson became clear: Keep your head down and watch what you say. "They hate reporters," Fridmann tells me. "They're cloistered guys, and they don't let anyone close to them that they don't feel comfortable around." This becomes apparent backstage a few hours before the band's sold-out headlining gig at New Jersey's Wellmont Theater in June, when guitarist James Richardson lets out a harmless fart joke. I don't think twice about the small talk, but VanWyngarden sighs deeply. "Do you really want to be talking about farts in this article he's writing?" he says, gesturing in my direction. Richardson withers and immediately asks that his comments be stricken from the record; I push back, citing the ridiculousness of it all. Richardson withers again, and we move on.

Their growing level of suspicion is amusing, frustrating, and understandable, all at once; touring is a draining act, and it can make for heated tempers and bad attitudes. Plus, MGMT have earned an unfortunate reputation as a sub-par live act, so sensitivity abounds. "We wanted to carry on our ridiculous prankster vibe, but we also needed to play actual songs," VanWyngarden says, thinking back to the group's earliest misadventures in live performance. "We tried to take inspiration from the Grateful Dead by improvising over the songs," adds Goldwasser, who describes the band's Oracular Spectacular-era shows as "trial by fire—some of the early live reviews said that we couldn't even play our own songs."

Five years later, MGMT are stronger, more confident, and much easier on the ears live. The songs actually sound like songs, as even the new album's most complex moments ring through with a muscular clarity. "We've started to build a real fanbase of people who are into the whole body of what we're doing," Goldwasser claims, citing recent performances at colleges. "It's not just a drunken party crowd that wants to get fucked up and have a good time."

Based on the couple of gigs I attend, though, this audience analysis is wishful thinking: The Wellmont crowd is about as young—though, admittedly, slightly less intoxicated—than the headbanded upstate New York crowd. If VanWyngarden and Goldwasser continue following their most willfully weird tendencies, their greatest challenge ahead could be retaining an audience whose enthusiasm is most strongly connected to a version of the band that no longer exists. (MGMT have a two-album option left in their deal with Columbia, and label chairman Stringer says that, regardless of MGMT's pending sales performance, there's no plans to release the band from their contract early.)

Backstage at the Wellmont, VanWyngarden and a few band members flip through the venue's guest log while Goldwasser is onstage testing sound levels. After tittering at some of the more famous entries—St. Vincent and David Byrne, Trent Reznor's How to Destroy Angels project—they start tossing around ideas as to what to draw for MGMT's contribution. Among the suggestions: a cedar-plank salmon, some kale, "a guy who sort of looks like a frog," a dead mouse, an ant approaching the salmon "to provide a story arc." Wielding the pen, VanWyngarden settles on a plate of sunny-side-up eggs, hash browns, and bacon, with a dead mouse sitting on the edge, as garnish.

He continues working on the drawing right up to, and then after, the band's soundcheck. The page grows more cluttered with incongruous objects—the frog-man hybrid, a squirrel huffing glue, confetti, a champagne glass, a car with "MGMT" emblazoned on the license plate. He stops briefly, widening his eyes as he surveys his work, and mentions to no one in particular that he's "kind of freaking myself out with this one."

Richardson enters the room, exposing a silver dollar-sized hole in his underwear as he leans over to check out VanWyngarden's drawing. "I think you need to start over," he says, with facetious concern. "Yeah," VanWyngarden replies, his voice trailing off. "It's gotten a little out of control." Then he keeps at it anyway.

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