This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Naked and Famous keyboardist Aaron Short jokes he's the "band therapist," helping melodies come together while also keeping the harmony of a band that saw some choppy waters ahead of its third album. After finishing a tour in support of its second album, "In Rolling Waves," the quintet took an extended hiatus topped by the relationship split of vocalists Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers.
Things were quiet until Powers began sharing song demos with band members in early 2015. The demos became "Simple Forms," an album topped by the anthemic "Higher" that Short described as "competitive." Ahead of a stop Sunday at The Depot in Salt Lake City, Short spoke with The Tribune to discuss channeling the negative energy of a hiatus and breakup into this album and getting back to the band's pop roots.
Between the hiatus and the end of Thom and Alisa's relationship, what was it like piecing things back together and writing "Simple Forms"?
Especially when you're in the middle of a tour cycle, you grow into this bubble and it's almost like anything that's going on with one person inside that bubble, you almost feel it yourself as well. All day long you're sharing backstage rooms, sharing buses, sharing hotels. You're always around each other so there's no point where anyone is solo on their own ... The split of Thom and Alisa in that pressure-cooker environment where something has to give at some point, we all really felt it. It made us realize how burnt out we were during that tour cycle, which is what led to that. When we got back to L.A., everyone was like: "Alright, time for a bit of chill time," not really knowing how long that would necessarily be. Then, a year later, there we were finally going. Everyone's had their time-out time, everyone developed their own little bubble and worked out what they wanted to individually do.
Did you find an overarching theme emerged for this project after you guys got it rolling again?
The actual writing of the record has come from a pretty different place for us this time around. There was a lot of downtime after the second tour where things got a bit wild and we went on I guess you would call it a hiatus now. At the time we didn't really know that's what it was. It was just taking it week-by-week of going through a bit of a quiet time. At the beginning of 2015, all of these demos starting appearing from Thom and that was what kicked the third record into action and pulled us all back together and got us back in the room working on it.
I think the main outcome on it that we've already noticed is that we've really gone back to the pop focused roots of The Naked and Famous, which were there in certain elements of the "Passive Me, Aggressive You" album. Really honing in on the core rising of the songs ... The production as well has taken on a very strong competitive nature I guess is what you could call it.
It seemed like you channeled some of that consternation into the energy that this album has. Do you feel that way?
Absolutely. We really felt when that first batch of very basic demos had come through from Thom, not only the lyrics but the sheer emotional power behind the instrumentation of the music, there was certain moments where you go: "Whoa." I know these lyrics are open to interpretation and everyone will have their own meaning behind it, but being inside this family and hearing these words or this song for the first time, there's some heavy stuff under the surface here. It's an incredible talent to be able to turn all of these things that have happened into something creative and to actually have an outlet for it.
"Higher" took me back to the first time I heard "Young Blood" and "Punching In a Dream." It's the perfectly distilled version of what a Naked and Famous anthem should be. How did that song come together?
Where "Higher" originated was a reproduction of a song that nearly made the second album. It was actually a lot more of a down-tempo, minimal electronic form and it was Thom singing it. Right down to the very last couple of days mixing the second record, Thom was in the other room trying like crazy to get it in the bag, but we just couldn't quite make it fit. Coming into the third record, I think we've all had this natural attraction to the side of The Naked and Famous that fits so well at a festival. That sort of outdoors, anthemic, "sea of happy faces" feeling you get from some of our songs. That's really what channeled the reproduce of "Higher" to what it is on this album. That's our anthem tune. That's what a lot of people associate with The Naked and Famous.
What do you want listeners to take away from this album that's different from the first two?
I think getting a little bit more immediacy from some of these songs. Maybe that's something we noticed more on this record. … I think the songs on the second record were a little more patient. They weren't as straight, in your face, here's the hook, here's what's going on. It was more like: "Stick a pair of headphones on, dive into the record a bit and discover all the fun things that lie within it." This one, the songs are so much more vocally driven and so hook-based, there's hardly any of the songs where it's just instruments.
Twitter: @BrennanJSmith The Naked and Famous
With brother-sister electropop duo XYLØ and The Chain Gang of 1974, the indietronica project of Kamtin Mohager.
When • Sunday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m., doors at 7 p.m.
Where • The Depot, 400 W. South Temple (The Gateway), Salt Lake City
Tickets • $30-$32; Smith's Tix