Swell Season

"We felt because we had reached a certain level that we couldn't let it go,” Powers says. “Without being too sombre about it, it's not easy to get out of NZ, and I'm sure it's equally difficult to get out of Australia. We're culturally isolated from a place like America, which is so insular and self-contained, so if you can crack it, the desire to keep it up and to stay involved so that you don't lose it becomes a priority.”

Eighteen months of work then became sophomore effort In Rolling Waves. The five-piece had always prided themselves on being an electronic band with no backing track, so the new songs were heavily rehearsed and refined prior to any recording to make sure that they could be performed live. Once the tracks were ready, The Naked & Famous headed off to the studio, taking maximum advantage of their new Californian home.

“We recorded everything at a place called Sunset Sound, which is right in the centre of Hollywood,” Powers says with bemusement. “Which is fun, you know, doing it in a Hollywood studio. I don't know if I'd go back and do it again: just because we've been there, done that, and it would be nice to do something new. We produced everything ourselves bar a couple of tracks where we worked with a guy called Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who's a bass player and long-time collaborator with Beck. He also played with Nine Inch Nails for a little while and he co-produced the latest M83 record that came out at a similar time to [our debut] Passive Me, Aggressive You. [He was] just a cool guy hanging out in LA that I sort of stumbled across and thought would be interesting to reach out to, so we got him involved with two songs.

“And then we went over to England and went to Assault & Battery, which is Alan Moulder's studio in [London suburb Willesden Green], but it's the dingiest, crappiest area. It's so lifeless, but there's this amazing studio hidden away in the middle of it. And Alan is so used to typical bands, just leaving the sessions with him and coming back when the mixes are done. But we had the whole band turning up at the studio every day before Alan did, going out and getting lunch [with him]. We basically worked at Alan's studio for a solid month, and then when we left, everyone in the building was like, 'Oh you're going? What's happening here?' It was quite fun. But that process itself, it was a bit of a dream come true, to sit in with a mix with Alan Moulder. So I learnt a lot from that.

“There's always the ambition,” he continues, “for us to do something more than what we've done before. Even if it's not overt or obvious to anyone else, it's just within ourselves. The idea of trying to progress as songwriters, or as musicians, or just be better producers or engineers is important.”

That desire for change, for improvement, is apparent when you listen to In Rolling Waves. It's still recognisably the same band, but there's a space in the music that wasn't there before, a paring back of the sounds that lets the compositions breathe. “Our first album was very much a brick wall kind of record,” Powers agrees. “Even the quietest moments are still kind of burning hot and in your face. It's like a slamming sort of record. And that's partly, or even mainly, a mix thing. We wanted it to be quite assertive, a very bright and high energy album. And then just naturally, the desire to try something a bit more dynamic, something a little less obvious, took us into the direction of In Rolling Waves.”

The Naked & Famous are spending a lot of this year playing festivals: Big Day Out, Bonnaroo, Coachella, and Groovin The Moo, and Powers says that there's always a lot of consideration that needs to go into those sets. “We consider when we're playing, and the kind of slot we have, and the kind of festival that it is,” he says. “If it's a high energy set, if it's a high energy day, it doesn't feel appropriate to test people's patience.”

Their own headline tour affords a lot more freedom though, and Powers guarantees that they'll be playing as much as possible from both of their albums. He's also very excited to unveil their new stage show: “We have this lighting guy that we've stuck with for a long time, and people keep trying to poach him, so it's quite a spectacle.”