Back in 2007, Liverpool upstarts The Wombats released future indie dancefloor classic 'Let’s Dance To Joy Division' which to this day still sends in limbs flying in Whelan’s and indie clubs around the world, but perhaps their greatest achievement was accidentally laying the foundations for Brooklyn’s Nation of Language to be born and flourish.

“They've really brought a lot of people together,” explains frontman Ian Richard Devaney over Zoom from his New York home. The influence the group had on his life is truly palpable. He met his bandmate, and future wife, Aidan at a Wombats show. “I think about it a lot,” he says of the sliding doors moment which brings to mind the Jarvis Cocker lyric ‘You might have changed your mind and seen your friends. Life could have been very different but then something changed’.

“An old band I was in was opening for The Wombats, and Aidan was there to see them, and we ended up kind of linking up, and over the years started dating and then got married.”  Nation of Language themselves would go on open up for The Wombats “this time she was on stage so that was a cool way to come around” adds Devaney.

Nation of Language are set to open for The Wombats’ ‘00s counterparts Gossip who come armed with their own indelible indie dancefloor classic ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ as part of Wider Than Pictures series which also sees the likes of James, Deacon Blue and James Blunt come to Dublin’s Collins Barracks throughout August.

Devaney tells us the band, who are currently “in the early stages of conceiving LP four,” really enjoy performing in front of audiences that aren’t primarily there to see them.

“If anything, we spent far more years playing for people who have no idea who we are,” says Devaney. “I've been playing in bands for just about 20 years now… most of that time is spent trying to prove yourself and to bring new people into what you're doing, and it's something that we definitely get to do at festivals a lot which is really fun. It's a muscle that we enjoy exercising.”   

Despite the rigid nature of synth music, Nation of Language shows are far more organic and devil-may-care than you may expect from listening to the precision of their three albums to date.

“One of the things that doesn't turn me on about other bands” explains Devaney, "is when things feel like you're gonna get the exact same thing every night and things feel kind of stale.”

“We really strive to make sure that every night is gonna be its own thing, we're coming at it with fresh energy, we're changing the set list almost every night.” 

Another thing that keeps the live experience interesting and partially terrifying is the unpredictability of the notoriously needy array of synthesizers the group rely upon.

“We're dealing with analogue synths so there's all these unpredictable factors that can come into things. We really try to embrace and lean into any sort of chaos that can arise during a live performance.”

However, Devaney is aware that the unpredictability that comes with using such equipment also has the power to shame, embarrass and make musicians look incompetent in front of audiences.

“For many years, I really struggled with it because when you're up there you kind of feel like you're trying to present the best version of yourself and so when things go wrong you're like 'well this is a reflection on me, people are gonna think that I don't know how to put on this show'.”

After years wrestling with unruly equipment, it has changed his perspective on what makes a live show truly memorable. “When something goes wrong for another band, and I'm watching, I'm never thinking poorly of them and if they can turn it into a moment that really unites them and the audience and drops that invisible veil that is like ‘we're up here and you're down there’, then it becomes something that makes the night special instead of something that is a derailment in some way.”

Nation of Language delivered their first album Introduction, Presence, featuring their breakthrough single ‘On Division St.’ in 2020. Sophomore effort A Way Forward followed in 2021, bringing them international acclaim thanks to its nostalgic hit single ‘This Fractured Mind’, its video bringing the perfect symmetry of dancing robots and dancing man to the masses. It was perfect a musical distraction as the world continued to be consumed by the ramifications of the Pandemic.

“I think it's strange to feel like a period of worldwide malaise led to some kind of positive outcome for me personally, but I do think there is something to that,” concedes Devaney, when we point out that lots of people were drawn towards the darker synth music of '80s acts such as Depeche Mode during the Pandemic, and there was a considerable appetite for a modern take on that classic sound as a result.

“I think perhaps a lot of the music we're referencing and a lot of the bands that influenced us came from a musical tradition that was created and matured in Germany and the UK."

“The Krautrock into New Wave synthesizer music took hold in European culture more so than in the United States, and that's at least my theory as to why Europe seems to be a place that we are received as well as we are, which is a real honour.” 

In the interim, between the group’s third album Strange Disciple and their fourth, Nation of Language have commissioned a series of remixes from the likes of Miss Grit, Cutouts and Classixx, something which the band had never previously undertaken.

“Because of that feeling like you are handing over your child to someone else, for a long time I was very resistant to the idea of people remixing our music” 

“I felt like the sound of the band was pretty core to our identity, and so I didn't want versions that I felt did not reflect that to be out there for people to misconstrue as the real version or anything like that.”

Now that Nation of Language have established themselves with three albums, such concerns have melted away and been replaced by a curiousness to see what directions the band could take themselves in.

“I'm not self-conscious about that any more, and it is really exciting to send stems over to other people that we feel creatively excited about and see how they would reinterpret things,” says Devaney adding “It has become something that I am interested in rather than fear.”

The most successful remix to date is Classixx’s reimagining of 'Weak In Your Light' which could only be described as Stock, Aiken and delightful.

“I remember the first time I heard it; it was this little sort of endorphin boost: ‘damn, they really turned this in to something totally different and it's really interesting to hear,” says Devaney noting “it's always good to be thinking about what other versions of yourself you can explore.”

You can catch Nation of Language winning over Gossip and Sprints fans in Dublin’s Collins Barracks on August 27th Tickets here. But having sold out an upgraded show in The Button Factory last year, we doubt it’ll be too long before Nation of Language are back our way playing their own show.

“We've only been able to play in Dublin and I'd love to get out to the other cities in Ireland.”