NUDES aka Owen Wallace Lasch & Tom Giddins Q&A

What does the name Nudes represent to you?

O: Nakedness. Also, our music is quite personal to us and I guess the name suits because of that. We’re exposing ourselves, so making ourselves naked to the listener…
Somehow all of that sounds wrong.

Your music takes in a wide variety of influences. Can you tell us about the most important ones?

T – This is difficult because for me personally there are so many but the thing is it’s not just a particular artist or album. There are plenty of those influences from various genres but it’s the small moments in certain songs that make you feel like your heart just dropped to your stomach, not in a soppy way, just in a way that makes you want to rewind it back over and over. It might be a subtle key change or harmony crossover that does it and it’s these moments, and the feeling they provoke, that inspire us and that we try to achieve.

O: 80’s synths. 90’s r’n’b. Although it runs a bit deeper than that…
A lot of what I was exposed to growing up borrows itself to this project.

The stunning video for: Avec from your first EP was animated and directed by Maxim Northover. How did the collaboration come about and how do you feel it illustrates the music?

O: I’ve known Max for a few years. We were kind of brought back together recently. He expressed an interest in wanting to work with us, ‘Avec’ seemed the perfect vessel to toast that.
He’s a gifted guy so we trusted him enough to get on with it.
It was only when I probed him as to the meaning of some of the content that the real correlations began to appear.
The song is quite personal in terms of the lyrics, more personal than I feel comfortable with if I’m honest, but Max, in his interpretation, brought this out without actually knowing the meaning of the song. It was perfect.

T – I personally became aware of Max after I came across him on Instagram. I saw his previous work and sent him an email asking if he’d be into collaborating. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Owen and Max were longtime friends and had already spoken about working together. Owen was going to surprise me with the news but I ruined it by coming home early from work and noticing the balloons poking out from behind the sofa. Musically the song has a kind of sentimental feel to it, not that it was intentionally written like this, it’s something we felt on reflection and the animation definitely complements this aspect. Max has done an amazing job and we’re definitely going to work with him again in the future. Stoked you like the video, thanks.

Buy the NUDES EP https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/nudes-ep/id882662480

You were formed as Nudes in 2012. How have you found the process of getting yourselves heard?

T – Well I stopped refreshing our Soundcloud every five minutes a while ago, which I’m taking as a positive, either that or the OCD medication is working. The process hasn’t been too bad to be honest. We got a little bit of press from the first thing we put online and since then it’s been steady away. It’s still early days so I’d like to think there are a few pairs of oblivious ears out there that we’ll be intruding upon soon, in a nice, polite way though. We won’t flick their lobes.

O: We obviously utilise the ‘normal’ channels: soundcloud, YouTube, Facebook etc. Next to that we gig quite a bit. We’ve been lucky too. Sometimes I give our EP to people to play in shops. Not that it helps…spending money tends to make people pretty deaf, as far as that goes.

Your obvious love of synthesisers is clearly evident in your music. Which are your favourite ones?

T – We have love affairs with many and I wish we could be more faithful but unfortunately we can’t. The MS-20, Polysix and Monopoly were used a lot on the EP.

O: There are just TOO many…I LOVE the KORG MS-2000. When I grow up I’m going to ask my Dad for one.

You are signed to Zappruder Records. How did that relationship come about?

T – They came across our music online. I believe a Parisian friend of mine posted a link to a track of ours and through the power of the Internet it hopped, skipped and jumped its way to one of the guys from Zappruder.

Can you tell us about how you create music? What aspects of the traditional approach, or being more radical, appeal most to you?

O: I like some of the ‘classic’ recording techniques adopted by the likes of The Beatles, like how I sometimes record vocals.
 I’ll slow the music down and sing at normal pitch then return the track back to its original tempo. It gives the voice this strange otherworldliness quality that I like.
 Next to that there’s a lot of experimentation at work as well.
 We didn’t get to use that many recording techniques on this EP, but the next one will be more developed…so hopefully we’ll get to move a bit further in that direction.

T – We started out just sharing demos with one another and then sitting down in front of a computer together and inputting different ideas. As things have progressed, and as we’ve amassed more equipment, naturally the process has started to loosen up and we’ve been recording live. Very often we’ll be rehearsing a song we’ve already got down and then just carry on after it’s ended, caught up in the moment and just trying out new stuff. It’s a lot more fun and you can definitely tell the songs that have been written like this compared to the ones done the original way. Although, we haven’t introduced any of these new tracks to the public domain yet so we’re looking forward to doing so.

What is coming next for Nudes and where can people get to hear you play live?

T – We’ve got a few shows coming up in and around London but our next headline show will be at Birthdays in Dalston on September 30^th. It’s free entry so no excuses.

O – We plan to put some more music out too at some stage in the very near future…

21/8 – Bedroom Bar, London
4/9 – The Dury Club, London
6/9 – Private Event, London
30/9 – Birthdays, London

facebook https://www.facebook.com/nudesband
Twitter https://twitter.com/Nudes_band
Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/nudesband

NUDES ‘THE HEAT’ live