New Zealand’s newest indie-pop darlings The Naked And Famous have skyrocketed to international acclaim over the past year.
New Zealand’s newest indie-pop darlings The Naked And Famous have skyrocketed to international acclaim over the past year. Through their implementation of electro-laden hooks and catchy pop sensibilities, the quintet have found themselves the subject of every summer playlist nationwide. On the eve of their biggest tour to date, their singer and lyricist Alisa Xayalith shares the story of their unique rise to fame. “It’s amazing how much a single song can do for a band,” she muses. “We put Young Blood out on our Myspace and someone linked it on their Facebook page and this got noticed by Neon Gold, who decided to blog about it… which created a weird domino effect”.
One of the unquestionable anthems of 2010, Young Blood is a celebration of youth, innocence and fleeting pleasures. The outstanding urgent yet effortless vocals battle against the ominous swirling of the bass and heavily affected rifts. “We don’t have any overseas promotions team at all, it really just did the work all on its own,” Alisa explains. ”Young Blood ended up travelling around the world through all of these different blogs where people were just writing about it and sharing it with others which created this weird but amazing buzz about us.”
Following this dramatic rise, The Naked And Famous have continued their success through releasing a string of singles that have since become hits, as well as their now-critically acclaimed debut Passive Me, Aggressive You. “We’ve kept the album true to ourselves,” Alisa argues. “All of our favourite aspects of music are in there; we’ve spread a lot of our loves all throughout the album so it’s quite varied.
“There’s a theme of duality throughout the entirety with the male/female aspects of Thom (Powers, co-voclaist) and myself singing and collaborating. There are harsh and soft, dark and light and all of these different elements” explains Alisa.
Passive Me, Aggressive You itself is deceptively intricate, encompassing obvious ‘80s and ‘90s synth-pop influences, to shoegaze and often frenzied electronic distortions. It’s a risky juxtaposition, but it somehow seamlessly blends into a carefree and rebellious artistic piece of eclectic indie-pop.
“It’s easily been the biggest highlight of our career so far,” Alisa admits. “It took us about a year and a half to write and it’s been really well received. It was also great as we picked up a song-writing award for our work, which was voted for by the members of APRA. This was such an honour because it’s a song-writing award voted for by other musicians; it means a lot. We definitely weren’t expecting the monumental reception that we’ve received, but we couldn’t be happier.”
The group’s recorded success has only been reinforced by their energetic, powerful and artistically honest live shows. Through the hybridisation of their collective sounds and influences, they have shattered stages all throughout New Zealand. “We try to keep our live performances as true to the recorded songs as possible,” Alisa explains. “When we write a song we always have the mindset and rule that if we aren’t going to be able to play it live, such as there’s an extra layer or two in the song, we won’t record it. We like to have a lot of fun on stage but we need to be able to do that whilst still being honest to ourselves and our music”.
Recently announcing they would be venturing across the sea to visit Australian shores, Alisa shares her hopes for their album launch tour, saying “We’re not going over to Australia with any unrealistic expectations, but we’re hoping for a lot of fun.
“Our album’s just been released there, and we want to come over and take in the vibe and the atmosphere” she shares excitedly. “We had a very brief visit for the Big Sound Festival, but it was really good. The crowd really got into our music and engaged us well. We’ve always been told that Australians are really up-to-date with new and fresh music, so we’re hoping people will have listened to our new album and we can vibe off that and put on a really great show”.
With the musical world seemingly well and truly their oyster, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Australian soon try and claim them as our own. That’s how these trans-Tasman relationships work, right? With the future possibilities growing further and further with each passing day Alisa shares the future prospects for the group. “After we visit Australia for our November tour we’re heading over to New York and Los Angeles, which is a really big thing for us as we’ve never toured overseas as a band before.
“Then we get to return for the Big Day Out tour!” she pauses, “We really can’t wait for that. We’ll be playing with our good friends Kids Of 88, but it’ll be such a surreal experience to be on a line up with so many amazing names.
“We’ve heard it’s going to be LCD Soundsystem’s last tour, yeah? We have to see that!” she laughs, “And then we’ve got absolutely no idea what will happen after that, anything could happen. We’ve been talking about relocating to the UK, a lot more recording and hopefully things will just keep going as they have been, it’s been amazing so far and we really don’t want it to stop.”
THE NAKED AND FAMOUS launch their brilliant debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You at The Northcote Social Club on Wednesday November 3 (tickets and info from northcotesocialclub.com), as well as an already sold out date on Thursday November 4. Passive Me, Aggressive You is out now through Universal.
