Fresh off a gig on Saturday Night Live, these Columbia University grads are now in another league. We caught up with front man Ezra Koenig, 23.

ON BECOMING BIG MEN ON CAMPUS We were all friends in college—we were jocks. No, not really! Our first six months [in 2006] we mostly played campus events and parties. It was hard to tell [if people liked us] because they were our friends, and people were totally drunk.

ON THEIR BAND NAME One summer I started making a movie inspired by The Lost Boys called Vampire Weekend. And the band just decided to take the name.

ON THEIR CAREER PATH We all had these kind of limited liberal-arts educations which don't necessarily spell out any particular job. [After graduation] I was working as a teacher, and we decided we should start touring and just go for it.

On THEIR COOL RIDE The first tour we scraped together enough money to buy a used minivan. So we could just barely pack all of our equipment and the four of us into the four seats. Like we couldn't even bring a friend with us. This was just a couple of weeks ago!