Guy EppelDonald Cumming (right) with the band.

Despite the name, The Virgins aren’t newcomers to the East Village music scene. In fact, frontman Donald Cumming has lived here, on and off, for 15 years. After arriving in the neighborhood as a teenager, he partied his way into the new millennium as a muse for local renegade photographer Ryan McGinley. (A portrait of Mr. Cumming appeared in McGinley’s 2003 exhibit at the Whitney Museum.) He formed The Virgins in 2006, and his current bandmates — Xan Aird, John Eatherly and Max Kamins — all live and practice in the East Village, which might explain why their sound is reminiscent of the post-punk and new wave that coursed through the neighborhood in the ’80s.

Their sophomore album, “Strike Gently,” was just released by Cult Records, the label of fellow East Villager (and frontman of The Strokes) Julian Casablancas. The Local caught up with Mr. Cumming while he was on the road for their U.S. tour, as the band made its way to New York for an April 1 show at one of his local hangouts, Bowery Ballroom.

Why are you sticking it out in the East Village when so many people are flooding over to Brooklyn?

I feel very at home here. All my friends live here. It’s close to my two favorite vegan restaurants: Angelica Kitchen and Souen. Gem Spa is right on our corner. What’s not to love?

Adly Elewa

Historically the East Village has been home to renegade artists and musicians, but I guess times have changed. The New York Post reported last October that your neighbors had complained to the police about noise from the band practices in your apartment. How do you feel about that?

I was really surprised. We play during the day. No one had ever complained to us or asked us to turn our music down. It was the Post that brought the situation to our attention. If someone had asked us to, we would definitely have dealt with the noise sooner. Since then we’ve increased the soundproofing in our place and there haven’t been any more complaints.

Your band has an ’80s new wave sound, which was a big scene in the East Village. Are there any artists that haunt the neighborhood that inspire you?

There are plenty of people around the East Village that are inspiring, but it’s the history of the neighborhood in general that we love. There are so many landmarks around the East Village of famous musicians, artists and writers. That’s one of the fun things about growing up in New York because so many crazy things went down in the ’70s and ’80s. Being around that kind of history as a little kid is really inspiring.

How has working with Julian Casablancas been different from your previous experiences?

Oh it’s great, you know. It’s cool to be working for a label that’s run by artists, especially by one that we all respect, like Julian. It’s night and day from the last album. The focus is on music and aesthetic things that we all care about. It’s a small group that he has over there at Cult Records, so it feels like a family.

Do you feel like there’s still a music community in the East Village? Or has that scene moved elsewhere?

I think there is definitely still a music scene in the East Village. A lot of our local friends play music. The band Grand Rapids practices at our space. I don’t go out as much, but Xan and John are always going to shows.

“Strike Gently” sounds way darker and moodier than the last album, which came out over four years ago — basically forever in this day of overnight internet sensations. What kind of experiences went into this project?

With the last album, there were a lot of constraints placed on the band. The label had specific requirements for us to meet. As a band, we weren’t totally prepared for that. I froze up. I didn’t feel inspired. It felt like business and not music. We didn’t know how to navigate the situation, so we just tried to make the best of it. Ultimately we ended up making — for a bunch of different reasons — a record that didn’t reflect my interests.

After that I was very disenchanted with the industry. I decided that if I went back to recording, I would only make music for my own reasons — songs that I wanted to hear, that were meaningful for me. Since then, I’ve developed a new relationship to songwriting. I understand the process more.

This new record is completely different from the last one. It’s a collection of songs that speak to our life and our feelings right now. The guys in the band have all made big contributions to the sound. Xan writes all his own leads. John writes the drums. Max writes the bass. I write the songs, the chords and the lyrics. We’re making music that we want to hear with no premeditation or a paradigm for what was expected.

There was no label while we were making much of this album. It was just us making music for ourselves.