“Young Blood”
from the album Passive Me, Aggressive You
2010
Auckland band The Naked and Famous are well on their way to becoming what the latter part of their name promises.
Their latest single “Young Blood” (Summer Jams ’10) debuted at Number 1 in the New Zealand single charts in June (the first single to do so since Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” back in 2007) and was named one of the five songs short-listed for the prestigious APRA Silver Scroll Award.
The masterminds behind the group — named after a line from a Tricky song -— are singer/lyricist Alisa Xayalith and songwriter/producer Thom Powers. The couple met three years ago at Auckland music and audio school, but dropped out and teamed up to write songs instead.
Soon after, they added second producer Aaron Short to the line-up, which was completed last year with David Beadle (bass) and Jesse Wood (drums).
Like Kids of 88 and Computers Want Me Dead, The Naked and Famous are part of an emerging scene of bands who are putting an electronic produced edge to their music, treading the borders between catchy pop-songs and rugged indie-rock.
They released two EPs, This Machine and No Light, in 2008 and are now following up with their debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You.
While their singles are topping the charts and their music videos becoming favorites on music channel C4, The Naked and Famous don’t think that the success will change anything in the way they work.
“We are actually an independent band and it’s a funny term because now it is used to describe bands with Telecasters (guitars) and tight jeans,” Powers says.
“People consider that indie; but indie-band actually means an independently run band, a band responsible for what is happening.
“We are doing the songwriting and the producing and have put out the album through our own record label; Universal Records just distributes us,” he says.
Since the release of their EPs two years ago, the band’s sound has taken a big step up.
“Everything you’re hearing on the album is a pretty much more evolved version, partly just due to our skills improving on the production side but also because we’re running now with a five-piece band which allows us to have so much more added into the recording,” Short says.
“A lot of the electronic production was done at home,” Powers adds.
“That is kind of where everything starts and a lot of what you hear on the album is bedroom-recorded stuff and then we went into the studio and recorded live instruments, drums and guitar and lots of the vocals,” Powers says.
“It generally starts off with Thom and Alisa developing a song, which is then passed on to me as the production evolves and extra layers were added or taken out from the songs and at that point it gets also passed on to the band to practice the songs for the live version and to adjust things for the recording to fit,” Short explains.
The young band — all in their early 20s — was already dubbed New Zealand’s answer to MGMT, but the Naked and Famous have their own take on things, not shying away from tapping into influences from all over the board.
Apart from catchy electro tracks, the album also contains dark, industrial vibes, tracks reminiscent of 80s pop, 90s trip-hop and songs on which the band let loose and thrash their instruments in good old punk rock tradition.
The band agrees that there has been a growth of electro-based bands in the last year or so, but Powers thinks that guitar music is making a comeback as well.
“It’s been a lot of cookie-cutter kind of pop on the radio over the last few years. I think guitar music is something people are craving. It is obvious that we have some relation to what is happening in electronic music at the moment. But I guess when you hear the album there’s also a heavier site to it,” he says.
The Naked and Famous are not only hailed for their song-writing and producing but have made themselves a name as a live band.
The quintet played the CMJ alternative music convention in New York and Big Day Out, but their most memorable gig so far was opening for one of their favorite bands, Nine Inch Nails, last year. “We heard that they were coming over and so Alisa and I went to the promoter and just begged that they send out stuff over to the band and see if we could get a support slot,” Powers says.
Their initiative paid off and they were picked by NiN to open their show in Auckland’s Vector arena. “The most thrilling moment was backstage when (guitarist) Robin Finck came to our dressing room and introduced himself and said thank you for supporting them. I was really star struck at that time,” Xayalith remembers.
Later NiN head Trent Raznor dropped by and told them that he liked their show. “It was an amazing experience and quite an honor, we could have retired right after that,” Powers laughs.