Why The Naked & Famous Had To Move To America

"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."

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