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ALMOST FAMOUS Now that Kiwi outfit The Naked & Famous are in their 20s, vocalist Alisa Xayalith tells Ben Preece that the band have “become more refined and settled in the way [they] create music”.
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t wouldn’t be too strange an analogy to liken Passive Me, Aggressive You, the 2010 debut album from The Naked & Famous, to something as obvious as kerosene. No matter which way you look at the international success of this New Zealand five-piece – the syncs, the reviews, the tours, the festivals, the general acclaim – it’s safe to say that Auckland hasn’t seen anything that has sparked a fire so great in some time. Lyrical content oozed a youthful view that connected with the right party kids at the right time, while the sound itself was very much ‘of the now’, sharing space with the likes of Passion Pit and Empire Of The Sun that reinforced this blend of electro as a credible genre of music. Flip forward a couple of years and second-album syndrome seems inevitable. The fivesome toured relentlessly so, once they eventually stopped in mid2012, it took them a couple of false starts to truly hit their stride. They decamped to Los Angeles, sharing a home a couple of minutes away from the bustle of West Hollywood in the deceptively beautiful and serene environs of Laurel Canyon and truly knuckled down writing their second release, which would eventually become In Rolling Waves. “Looking back, it’s all a bit of a blur,” confesses vocalist Alisa Xayalith. “We were just touring non-stop for about two-and-a-half years. I feel like playing that many shows just changes you and we’ve gained a lot of experience. We really had to just stop touring to get into the writing properly. When we began writing, we decided it was important that everything was playable live. We always took a song into the rehearsal room to make sure there were enough people even to push the buttons and, if there was something extra that a physical pair of hands couldn’t handle, we’d go back to the drawing board and rewrite what we needed to rewrite to feel that way of working.” In Rolling Waves isn’t a drastic departure from Passive Me, Aggressive You by any means, if anything it’s the older, wiser sibling that still possesses that vital feeling of youth and freedom, but is more assured and confident.
46 • THE MUSIC • 25TH SEPTEMBER 2013
“We’ve never really been a band that has written in a thematic way or with a message,” Xayalith explains of the band’s songwriting process. “This one is a collection of moods and experiences. We were 18 or 19 when we wrote that first album and definitely didn’t have the experience that we
Inch Nails) co-produced two tracks and London’s Alan Moulder mixed the record. The band entered the Sunset Sound studio earlier this year with engineer Billy Bush and immediately set to work. “The first day was the most exciting first day of anything I’ve ever experienced,” Xayalith reveals. “We were going to be spending the next three weeks there, every single minute of every single day, and it was so fun! When we wrote the songs, we had rehearsed them and that had helped everybody get to know their songs inside and out. The stress of being in the studio wasn’t there as it was all so positive. Billy Bush mixed
“THE SPECIAL THING ABOUT BEING IN A BAND IS THAT YOU HAVE THAT SUPPORT STRUCTURE.” all have had now that we’re in our 20s. I feel that has really come through on this record and the songwriting and all the creative decisions we decided to make. Even the lyrics, I feel like we’ve become more refined and settled in the way we create music.” The Naked & Famous band members Thom Powers and Aaron Short co-produced In Rolling Waves, Justin Meldal-Johnsen (M83, Beck, Nine
the last record but we’d decided he’d be engineer this time around as we had an amazing opportunity to work with Alan Moulder – his repertoire and back catalogue of what he’s worked on was immense. I feel like this record has had some really cool people work on it.” It wasn’t all rosey though, Xayalith says she battled through writer’s block: “Being creative, there are so many highs and lows – there were weeks where I felt like I was a terrible songwriter and I never achieved anything and I was never going to do anything as good as what I’d done in the past. I was able to turn that negativity into something creative. It was definitely the cathartic release I needed to truly feel like this album was anything worth pursuing. WHAT: In Rolling Waves (Universal) WHEN & WHERE: 26 and 27 Jan, Big Day Out, Sydney Showgrounds