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  • 1 week ago
Watch this exclusive interview and in-studio footage with New Zealand's The Naked And Famous. Watch as they discuss their musical inspirations, their creation process, the album title and the very first time they played single ‘Young Blood’ live.

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Music
Transcript
00:06I've always had a desire to be in a band and be writing and I have like a desire and
00:12a need to
00:13have a creative outlet for music it's just something I've always had since I was a kid
00:18I didn't really know what else I was going to do with my life
00:22music was always going to be the most important thing to me
00:38we're only young in life still we require a certain skill
00:47the mode of change is like the wind hard to control and it begins
01:03it wasn't really clear what kind of music I wanted to be creating I was always getting
01:06re-inspired by different albums and different artists one day I think I want to do this kind
01:11of band that kind of band but the real special thing about the Naked and Famous to me was that
01:15it sort of gave me this direction and now I feel very excited about being creative in the realm
01:21that is the Naked and Famous some bands will write songs by all being in a room together jamming
01:26it out whereas for us our equivalent is handing a session back and forth on a USB drive and adding
01:32and taking things away from a session on a computer it happens all sorts of different ways organically
01:39or the demo would come from Tom's computer then he would pass it to me and I would start recording
01:43vocals on top of it
02:03there's this thing when we first started I think I was kind of really driving this point of taking the
02:10band into the studio first and trying to make it a well formed
02:13idea before we started playing live because around when we first started there were all these bands that were really
02:19focused on performing live and it was really cool and it was part of a scene and I kind of
02:25hated that and I didn't like it because it was it excluded people from cherishing the music
02:47a basic demo usually forms from from Tom and Lisa and we kind of jump back and forth between the
02:52production area and the live band area to where we're at a point where we can kind of go alright
02:56this is a really really polished track we're ready to record it in its final stage
03:27it was so great to have someone mixing
03:30the record that was really passionate about it because I think for Tom and Aaron they've been doing everything up
03:36until this point and it was quite a big deal having to actually let go of it and for it
03:42to just go off to this other person that we'd never met before
03:45everything was contained you know within the sessions that we sent over to Billy Bush to mix and you know
03:50he did he did a spec mix for us you know he's just doing it for free and saying do
03:54you like my work and to have that from someone who can get lots of work just because he liked
03:59the song and was super excited about it
04:00it was really good getting that young bud mixed because it really just felt you know we've really made the
04:04right choice you know the whole album was still produced completely by us there was no one else jumping in
04:08on it and then setting it free to get mixed and it just coming back is such an awesome piece
04:14of work
04:14so I'm dumb
04:16am I placating that I'm sure to fold
04:21cut off my tongue so you say
04:24apparently I'm digging it in
04:27and I can't feel nothing
04:30I can't feel nothing
04:34Passingly aggressive use a lyric out of the opening track all of this just seemed like a very relevant title
04:39for the album since it's the male and female vocals good dynamic there as well there's analogue and electronic noises
04:47throughout the whole album even through to the artwork there's like natural landscape with digital art on top of it
04:53as well so it's a very
04:54like through like through the whole album there's like a theme of polarities so it seemed to be a very
04:58fitting title
04:58I can't feel a thing
05:02here it comes
05:04the unavoidable sun
05:06of what's just happened
05:08and what's been done
05:10and you know
05:12I don't remember a thing
05:14I don't remember
05:16a thing
05:16the
05:21the
05:22the
05:23the
05:24the
05:30the
05:47If a crowd is really receptive and heaps of fun and they are really into the idea and
05:51into the music, then you can let that in a bit and you can let that excite you and you
05:55can let that kind of affect how you're engaging them or how you're performing.
06:24All of my dreams, tear at the seams.
06:29Rain, all over the place.
06:38Thought it was good.
06:42Everything where it should be.
06:51Vocally, on Passive Me, Aggressive You, I really wanted to bring something more than what
06:58you hear on the EPs and so there was a lot of experimenting.
07:02I really wanted to capture emotion more than I had ever done before.
07:08Oh, that depends on where it ends.
07:16Yes.
07:20Yes.
07:22Yes.
07:22Yes.
07:22Yes.
07:24Yes.
07:40Yes.
07:51Yes.
07:52Yes.
07:55Yes.
07:58Yes.
08:04Yes.
08:05Yes.
08:17Yes.
08:19Yes.
08:20Yes.
08:20Ooh ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
08:28-ooh-ooh-ooh, oh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, oh-ooh-ooh-ooh.
08:41Where are we young in life still?
08:46We require certain skills
08:48I think that song was probably the best way to start the record as well, Youngblood.
08:55And I think every artist has one of these songs in their career,
08:58where you just start at A and you end up at B and it's done and you make no changes.
09:04It just resonated as an awesome pop song.
09:08The first time we played it was in a small town that's really surreal
09:11and then sort of a year later it exploded to the rest of the world.
09:16Everything was solid, we even played it quite a lot live so we were all really used to the song
09:20and we all felt really confident about coming in and for the first time doing a full drum take in
09:26a really big room
09:27rather than squeezed into a little bedroom with an old drum kit and a couple of crusty mics.
09:35Although we had a lot of time to reflect on it, so little was changed from the original demo.
09:40It was pretty much just written really quickly.
09:43It was a very exciting song to write where it just, you know, an idea came up.
09:47Elisa started writing the keyboard line, the main keyboard line she was just playing it
09:50and I just clicked straight away, ran to the computer and there was a demo.
09:55I gave it to her and there was her lyrics and she gave it to me and there were my
09:59lyrics
09:59and I was pretty much done.
10:00It was just this incredibly exciting process with the song, pretty much just wrote itself.
10:05So, you know, to come into the studio and then for that to be pretty flawless
10:09and for everything to run incredibly smoothly was a very inspiring start to the record.
10:41Let's go.
10:43Oh, I can love you instantly
10:47Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
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