EMP win brings Nude exposure
Local band Nude had a literal sound off experience at the highly hyped Seattle band competition of the same name.
During the first song of the final round of this year’s Sound Off battle last month – in front of 600-plus people at the Experience Music Project’s Sky Church – Nate Mead’s guitar amp blew out.
As they say, the show must go on. And that attitude just might have put Nude over the top.
“We just kept going despite not having one guitar,” said lead guitarist Jeff Bass. “When we came to the next song we started doing some looping and shoegaze-y stuff while the sound techs were replacing the amp and it wasn’t planned but it went smoothly. I think that scored us a lot of points with the judges, them seeing us and how we dealt with that.”
Much to their surprise, Nude won first place at Sound Off, with the grand prize being a slot at Seattle’s 2012 Bumbershoot Festival, plus a studio recording package. It’s a big step in the right direction for the young Spokane band, which has played little more than a handful of shows around town.
Since winning Sound Off, though, Nude has been gaining more recognition on a local, and international, scale.
After winning the competition, the members were interviewed on camera by popular Japanese music website, Ninonico (www.niconico.com). Here in Spokane, they’ve been offered to play high profile venues, including 2012 Elkfest, and this month’s BeGin! party tonight at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.
“We’re getting invited to play gigs we’re excited about and it’s a lot of fun for that to be happening, but we’re trying to work hard at getting recordings together and keeping the momentum going and stay in people’s heads,” Mead said.
Nude, made up of mostly Whitworth University students, includes lead guitarist Bass, singer/guitarist Mead, drummer Cody Thompson, and Seattle bassist Mikey Farrow, who is pinch-hitting for Jackson Cate while Cate is studying abroad.
They play big, surreal and thoughtful indie-rock that is built on synthetic and organic layers with loops and electronic percussion, and oodles of reverb on guitar and vocals, all couched in a melodic prog-rock context by off-kilter time signatures and odd chord progressions.
The intent of the music, Mead said, is to sound more like a dream, both lyrically and aurally.
“My favorite lyrics that I’ve written with the band come from images I feel the music inspires. And we talk about those images as a band and try to develop it. As I try to move through those images I try to make myself have a dream while I’m awake, and write about it. I want to write atmospheric music you can feel surrounded by and engulfed in and impacts you as a listener and acts as a catalyst for images,” Mead said. “Besides sounding cool, that’s what we’re about.”