Rolling With It

Lorde isn't the only Kiwi conquering the world. The Naked & Famous, their sound an amalgam of '80s synth-pop and '90s alt-rock, dropped their second album, In Rolling Waves, late last year. They're returning to Australia for a much-anticipated headlining tour in addition to Groovin The Moo.

These days TNAF are based in LA, but Thom Powers, co-lead singer with the Laotian, Alisa Xayalith, is speaking from Nashville. “It's a travel-day-slash-day-off today,” he quips. The Auckland five-piece briefly settled in the UK, close to their label, Fiction Records, but decided to retransplant to the US. “At first I thought it sounded like an atrocious idea. I was the one to say, There's no way in hell we're gonna be one of these idiot rock bands who says (drawls), 'Man, get a move to LA!'”

TNAF broke out with 2010's post-emo Passive Me, Aggressive You, spawning the hit, Young Blood. They secured countless TV syncs, giving them invaluable exposure. “Everyone wants to sell out – it's great! Just get your music in commercials and films and all that stuff – 'cause no one cares anymore. There's no pretence about [how] you shouldn't be allowed to do that 'cause you're supposed to be this tortured soul. Screw that. I wanna make money – I wanna go to the dentist and buy groceries.”

However, media types were puzzled by the soft release of In Rolling Waves, its lead single, Hearts Like Ours. Finishing the LP last July, they pushed for a prompt issue, not allowing set-up time. “We just kind of accepted that fate, like, whatever.

“I always feel weird if everything is going super well. I'm not used to everything going perfectly. It's always gotta be a struggle. I don't know how ambitious I really am?” In Rolling Waves is an advance. “We wanted to progress – and the stuff that we did to do that wasn't super-conscious in a shallow way. We weren't like, 'Oh, we wanna be seen as a deeper, darker band,' or something stupid like that. It was very experience-based and very insular.” Reportedly, Powers and Xayalith, romantically involved, split up during recording only to reconcile.

On successive Australian festival treks TNAF have performed early where their music demands a nocturnal slot. “We were all just like, We need to go back to Australia and do our own proper headline shows – because we've almost become a festival band in Australia. It's a very different show to the festival. We are a high-production band – for a band of our size, we do put a lot of effort into making it feel like it's a mini-arena show – so it's quite a spectacle. It is much moodier and more dramatic. But, at the same time, I feel like [with] our personalities as musicians, it kinda suits better for it to be more theatrical and more dramatic. We're not such a rough and ready rock'n'roll band.”