How A 'Tumultuous Period' For The Naked & Famous Resulted In A 'Return To Form'

New Zealand outfit The Naked & Famous (TNAF) – with co-leads Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers – have presciently made an uplifting electro-pop album for the COVID-19 era in Recover.

The Kiwis – based in Los Angeles since 2012 – have endured an eventful lockdown. The pandemic impacted the roll-out of their fourth album, originally scheduled for May. In mid-March, TNAF suspended their Antipodean Wine Machine tour (they dropped by triple j to cover The Weeknd's Blinding Lights for Like A Version). 

Initially, the pair were on opposite sides of the globe – a plucky Xayalith flying home to LA to reunite with her pooch, Ginger, who inspired Recover's early single Sunseeker. (She jokes about "living on the edge.") Meanwhile, Powers settled into an Auckland Airbnb with live keyboardist Luna Shadows, who, having asthma, worried about exposure to COVID-19 in transit. However, the guitarist, too, is now back in California. 

"The funny thing is there wasn't a strict recommendation to quarantine," a bemused Powers notes. "We were quarantining because we were trying to be responsible. But LA has been a bit of a mess. People are legitimately suspicious of whether wearing masks is a conspiracy! So they're not doing well here."

Powers describes TNAF's arc as "an adventure". Bonding as Auckland music students in 2006, he and Xayalith – a real-life couple – conceived the vehicle, expanding into a five-piece. Merging euphoric '80s synth-pop and dramatic, broody '90s alt-rock, TNAF blew up with the anthem Young Blood from 2010's debut, Passive Me, Aggressive You (its 10th anniversary is this September). Eventually, Xayalith and Powers ended their romance – TNAF's last album, 2016's Simple Forms, chronicling the aftermath. Over time, they became music programmer favourites, with tracks synced for cult TV shows like True Blood. Yet TNAF consider Recover a rebirth.

During a tumultuous period, TNAF's bandmates – their longtime co-producer Aaron Short, Jesse Wood and David Beadle – amicably departed. 

"It has given Thom and I an opportunity to return to form; go back to how we first started making music – which was just the two of us in the beginning, before we decided to bring other people in," Xayalith says. "It has allowed us a kind of freedom creatively to just not have to think about whether the songs we write will have enough parts for everybody to play."

Recover thematises transition, if not transformation – TNAF universalising personal tales of setbacks, resilience and healing. "I think a lot had changed for us," Powers reflects. "We have new lives now." 

The duo commenced writing soon after completing Simple Forms, but only gained momentum in mid-2018 on cutting Recover's titular track. Xayalith wrote the lyrics about her mother, a Laotian refugee who passed from breast cancer when she was a child. Indeed, she approaches music as "catharsis". 

"If life has been stressful, if life has been really difficult for me, then being able to go to a place where I can be free to create is like a weight off my shoulders. That's therapeutic and it's helpful."

Despite that song and other emo titles such as Bury Us, Death and (An)aesthetic (which references Powers' health scare with blood poisoning in 2017), Recover is TNAF's most sanguine foray. And, somehow, they've developed a fresh, distinctive electronic dance sound. 

"Alisa was talking about positivity the whole way through making this record," Powers recalls. "She was constantly bringing that angle up, or that direction, and wanting it to be something that felt different to Simple Forms, which was very serious. There was a lot of struggle and pain and sadness in Simple Forms. [But] Alisa was adamant that she wanted us to try and make this fun and maybe echo some of the feelings that people got from our first record – sort of a return to form, but 10 years on and with very different experiences under our belt." 

Xayalith concurs, "I spent some time asking myself this question: 'What do people wanna hear from TNAF in 2020 – and what does TNAF sound like in 2020?'" Rhythm was key. "I feel like we were really focussed at one point on making shorter songs, but at a good danceable tempo."

For Powers, The Sound Of My Voice is especially "meaningful". "That was an older demo – one that had been sitting around for a few years. It was a half-finished song. I had some help with the lyrics from my friend Scott Hutchison, who was in a [Scottish indie-rock] band, Frightened Rabbit. He committed suicide, I think two years ago it was now. So I just felt really compelled to put this song out and release it. It's an important song to me."

With touring currently unviable, TNAF are plugging Recover via streamed performances – though both members miss audience interaction. 

Says Powers, "I hope that, because of the current state of affairs in the world, that we're able to get to as many people as possible – 'cause it's very difficult to promote anything right now." Ironically, he's already "itching to move on to something new," no longer being in the Recover "headspace". 

Xayalith channels angst into art, but Powers holds that the prospect of having "no plan" – and no pressure – is more conducive to his own creativity. "I'm OK with the idea that we don't have any live music for a little while," he confesses. "This is the first time where we've finished an album and I get to do what I always wanna do after we've finished an album – which is make another one right away."

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