For all his forward-thinking, Thom seems just as able to relish the present. The Naked And Famous have just finished up their Big Day Out sets and he says the experience allowed them, among other benefits, the opportunity to be adoring all-access punters. “I loved seeing Deftones,” Thom says. “They were my high school band. Me and Alisa got to go onstage and to sing Passenger with them. It was amazing.” He recalls supporting his mates, too: “Grouplove were just amazing, and they’re great friends of ours, so it turned out to be a real social tour.”
Big Day Out looks to have given Thom some respite post-album release, despite his suggestions the affair went by smoothly. “It felt like a soft release, a very soft release, which worked cool,” he says. “We got our label to push the album out before the real marketing kicked in, because we felt that we’d been sitting around for too long.” The quintet had at the time designated touring as their main priority – which Thom insists is still the case – and so weren’t keen to chase the kind of lengthy sales campaign favoured by major labels. “We weren’t about putting out a massive, super successful pop record as a follow-up,” he says. “It was about developing our sound.”
It can be said then that while Thom and TNAF are the prolific sort, they’re definitely not impatient. “I’m still enjoying where we’re at,” he says. The release of In Rolling Waves hasn’t broken vast commercial ground but he reckons their focus is set firm and near. “We haven’t jumped up in venue size, but maybe for the next record we’ll be more ambitious in trying to reach a broader audience.”
The subject of Thom’s ambition is surely alternative rock, and he believes the band is already in a kind of transitional phase to that sound. Hits Hearts Like Ours and I Kill Giants are organic successors to synth-heavy party favourites like Young Blood and Punching In A Dream but he asserts a subtle shift is present. “I think we achieved similar success to Young Blood with these newer tracks. They’re a different kind of pop song -–they helped to establish us as a more alternative band.”
Such a quest for alt-rock legitimacy – much like any musical venture needing to alter fan perception amicably – requires a songwriting skill Thom feels he has most of the time. “Some days I feel not so confident as a songwriter,” he concedes, “and some days I do. I think I’ll struggle with it my entire life.” He’s working at his craft, though: “I think I’ve always suffered from an inferiority complex [laughs], but writing songs for me is a part of overcoming that.”
Thom is quick however to quell any implications he struggled, or is struggling now, with an older Passive Me, Aggressive You: “Everything we’ve released we’ve been satisfied with. And I’ve definitely moved on from stuff I wrote when I was younger.” He doesn’t see the sense in being negative. “I feel like it’s more important to accept and acknowledge where you came from. I hate when an artist says they hate their earlier material. It almost seems like an insult to their fans. You should never undermine yourself.”
“Relentless touring” must come before any new material and Australian punters are happily awaited by Thom and the band. “I can’t wait to get to Australia and actually do a full set,” he laughs. “I love doing festivals, but we’d love to do much more than that.” The Naked and Famous have limited experience, it seems, with playing to a crowd totally their own: “There’s something really intimate and cathartic about being able to play to your fans. You feel as though you’re in your element, with your own identity.”
Thom wants a long life for The Naked and Famous but thankfully not at the expense of creative prosperity. “I feel like I’ve become more realistic about the future now,” he says. “I look to the short-term.” He adds he doesn’t know how tracks like Young Blood will age, nor how they’ll be preserved, but hopes for the best. “Something about singing Young Blood at 40 seems a bit weird. I hope we can still do the track in a cool way then, and people won’t care that we’re old. In 2015 we’ll have been a band for ten years, and that’s totally fucked, it’s crazy,” Thom says. “I still feel like the stupid 19-year-old guy who didn’t want to get a real job [laughs].”
He believes he is content to remain with Alisa as a creative force long-term but, should an end come, his love for music will keep him around. “I think of myself one day doing something like Max Richter, who does a lot of composition work. You know – too old to be in an alternative rock band, young enough to restart as a different musician.”
Whether looking forward to 2015 – when fans will ideally see a more mature version of The Naked and Famous surface – or to 2025, Thom believes their music is not for a singular time and place. Watch this space.
BY NATHAN HEWITT
