Thom Powers, guitarist and founding member of New Zealand electro-pop stars The Naked And Famous, took time out of the band’s busy schedule to have a chat with Jonathan Klein about their new album, amongst other things.
The band’s debut album, ‘Passive Me, Aggressive You’ was recorded in the group’s homeland of New Zealand. There was a change of scene for ‘In Rolling Waves’ however, with the band relocating to Los Angeles to write and record most of the album there. Thom explains; “We didn’t really intend to record in LA, we just relocated there for various reasons. It’s a pretty central city and our management is based there, so it’s a good location. It’s also nice and sunny!” Such a resettlement may impact quite sharply on a band’s songwriting, but this was not the case for TNAF. “It didn’t really impact,” elaborates Thom, “I believe that our music isn’t really affected by our immediate surroundings. I mean, there’s no urban mentality to our sound, it’s more imagination-driven, so the surroundings are not a direct influence on our sound.”
Moving on to the album itself, Thom responds to the question of whether he sees the new album as a natural progression from ‘Passive Me, Aggressive You’; “We hope that it seems like a natural progression, I mean that’s up to you if you think we’ve changed at all. I do feel that we’ve grown as people, what with two years of touring behind us, but like I said, that’s up to the listener.” When pressed for his favourite of the two albums, Thom protests that he has no preference. “It all feels a part of The Naked and Famous package. We had a lot of fun recording both albums, but at this point we almost look back at ‘Passive…’ with a hint of nostalgia.”
As we discuss influences for the new album, Thom gushes excitedly about several of his contemporaries. “The Alt-J record came along just right in the middle of recording and that was fantastic, thoroughly enjoyed that one. A band called Dry The River have an amazing album that influenced us, I listened to that a lot. I absolutely love the lead singer’s voice, his sense of melody and his use of voice, semi-rhythmical and almost string-like. I was excited about the Atoms For Peace album too, that came out towards the end of recording. And The Chromatics, who influenced just our production really. I admired the production and they had some great production ideas that really excited me. Japandroids as well, there are some guitar moments on their record that I found really inspiring.”
With a touring schedule as extensive as TNAF’s, disagreements and arguments are bound to crop up. Thom acknowledges this, but sees it as a necessary component to the band, and believes the group are very close. “In the same way any group has its incidents it has to work out in order to function; I don’t want to say it’s part of the magic, but part of the band experience, or any experience for that matter. There are problems like that in every walk of life, in every passion. The moment you stop trying to work out these problems is the moment you become lazy, or have exhausted that dream. And right now there’s no way we’re going to give up very easily, I don’t think there is anything that can topple this band’s foundations and what the band means to us as people.”
One area there is no debate about however, is the question of the superior singer. “Alisa is definitely the more natural singer. I had to work very hard on not sounding what I like to call ‘tragic’. I have these terrible memories of being 15 and trying my hardest to sing and damaging my voice and not doing things correctly. I always wanted to be a singer, but I had to work hard on being an ‘average’ singer. But Alisa has a natural voice, and that’s what made me think I could work with this girl, she’s really a singer without any training. We’ve both taken it very seriously, still getting lessons, and Alisa has grown so much to where she is now, I have seen first-hand all the trouble and effort she’s put into that, and it’s so cool to see the results of that hard work.”
The most important aspect of any tour is naturally the live performance. Our discussion progresses onto the peculiarities of the live arena and the fans’ favourite song; “Obviously Young Blood, every band has that one successful single that connects you with people, and Young Blood is the song that does it for us. There’s definitely quite a release on that one. Sometimes though it depends on the audience, how patient the audience is, how interested they are in The Naked And Famous’ package. Sometimes songs work for certain audiences, the venue can be just right, and sometimes it can be really random which songs sound good.” There are no plans for slowing down for the band just yet; “We’re going to tour most of next year, do a big promotion of the album, get this record out to as many people as possible. We’ll have a less manic tour than the last one where it felt like we were chasing our tails. I think we’ll pace ourselves a bit more this time. And I’m really excited about the idea of writing a new album too.”
As we delve deeper into the mind of Mr.Powers, we enter the annals of Naked and Famous history and the formation of the band. “There was no initial vision, I just really wanted to be in a band making music. I was about 19 and I was jumping into any band, and trying to make something ot it. I went to music university and that’s where I might Alisa and we did some pretty embarrassing demos together. Aaron was doing his engineering course, the same course I had dropped out of, and said he wanted to help produce and record our first two EPs. Then he found a way to join the band, playing keyboard and electronics and now he’s more of a musician than a producer really. David and Jesse joined in 2009 on bass and drums. By then we were very much an entity as a band and their roles were well-defined.” Despite the massive wave of success the band has experienced since then, Thom remains very grounded, referring to the band’s popularity as a ‘fluke’ and that he is “not taking that lightly.”
This wraps up our chat with Thom, and his final words were to express his excitement at returning to Ireland for their show in the Olympia on the 25th of this month. ”I can’t wait, it’s going to be awesome, the crowds are always great and it’s been a long time.”