Andrew Wyatt is the lead singer and songwriter for the indie-electro group Miike Snow. Don’t let the two i’s trip you up. It’s pronounced just like “Mike” except it looks cooler.

A native of New York City, Wyatt paired with Swedes Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, also known as Bloodshy & Avant to form Miike Snow. They released their self-titled album in 2009 to positive reviews, and are currently on tour promoting the album. They play The Republic Wednesday night.

There are a lot of people that pronounce your band “Mee-kay Snow.” What’s up with that?

Yeah, I just think that’s one of those things that’s going to take some time for people to get through and figure out. It’ll happen.

Miike Snow is often described as a Swedish band. Do you feel a little left out?

No, I don’t care. I’m not in it for that reason. I don’t even care if people know that I’m in Miike Snow. Who wants to be famous? It’s a pain in the ass.

You guys are becoming a little more well known. How do you like it?

I like it. I hope we become really huge, but I don’t care about fame.  There’s different ways of doing it. Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) could walk through Times Square and not get noticed, you know? Obviously we’re not anywhere near that level of success, but he’s an example of someone who’s done very well and has a lot of attention to what he does but he doesn’t actually have to deal with the whole pain in the ass of being famous.

Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga) is going about her thing in a certain way, but she’s always wearing so much makeup and she’s always so highly stylized that, I don’t know if I’d recognize her. The only way I’d recognize her if I saw her on the street is because of that one video of her playing at a talent show. If it wasn’t for that, there’s no way I’d even be able to recognize who she was if I saw her in real life.

Right now it seems like a lot of artists are really seeking the fame thing pretty intensely, like Lady Gaga.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with fame-seeking. There’s just a lot of things now like reality TV show fame. It’s a strange phenomenon because they’re getting famous for—I don’t really know what they’re getting famous for. It’s not a big thing in my life, though.

Who are some musicians that you’re really into right now? Any you’d like to collaborate with in the near future?

Yeah. I really like Steel. And Familia, which is this Swedish group of electronic musicians. I’m a huge Thomas Fehlmann fan, and I really like Beach House—they’re a great group of people.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKT-kJfUz4[/youtube]

Have you started working on a new album yet?

We have. We started collecting ideas for it but we haven’t begun the album in earnest because we really need to be together for that. There’s no way of knowing if it will be used by us until we can all three get in there and hear it together.

What are some of your general artistic ideas about what direction you’d like to move towards for the next album?

Since we’ve been playing live, we’ve become more instrumental overall. We have long instrumental sections and I definitely imagine that element of the live shows will make it onto the new album. So we can become much more of an instrumental outfit. More electronic, I would say.

Have you ever played in New Orleans before?

No. I’m actually quite—how can I say—I have very mixed feelings about it.

How so?

It’s a very loaded place for me on a number of levels. It’s got such an amazing history, it’s got such amazing architecture, it’s got such amazing cultural history, it’s got such amazing musical history, culinary history, and it is also kind of the epicenter of the worst stuff.

It’s not because the citizens of New Orleans have anything to do with it, but I feel like if I was living in New Orleans right now, I would be really angry at the government, at large corporations, at the powers-that-be, because they obviously don’t care about New Orleans at all. They don’t care about culture. They don’t care about anything except making more money. As if Katrina wasn’t bad enough.

Just before I called you, I was watching Obama give a press conference about the oil spill. We smell it in the city. On my run the other day, the stench was overpowering. But, what can you do? There’s no solution in sight for capping this oil. It’s the worst oil spill in America’s history.

It’s probably the worst environmental disaster in history. Except for Hiroshima, it’s probably the worst environmental disaster in the history of the planet.

It’s going to destroy the wetlands, which were fragile to begin with. It’s going to put so many fishermen out of business. Those communities in South Louisiana are economically dependent on both oil and seafood.

And now both of those groups are fucked. It’s frightening that it happened on Earth Day. Everyone forgets that this thing blew up on Earth Day. It’s a sign. It’s a deep, powerful sign that we’re definitely close to losing the whole fucking game.

Coming down to New Orleans, what can one do but start to feel some kind of increasing call toward environmental advocacy? In some ways this could end up being a great thing, because once it starts washing up on the Florida keys and destroying real estate down there, destroying rich people’s resorts, maybe then people will care. There will be so much public outcry about it that we will actually get some changes affected.  Because right now, people just go on with their day and nothing changes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOXnSdXV-0I&feature=related[/youtube]