If you don't already know of Nada Surf, you'll soon fall in love with their soft melancholic sound. Nada Surf universalizes the personal, bringing emotion into everything that they play. Their songs tell the listener, "We're all in this together." With the upcoming release of Lucky, in early 2008, Nada Surf hit the road. Playing both the older material that established their sound and the newer material that continues in the same tradition, the band is sure to deliver an amazing performance. recess' Liz Tramm talked with drummer Ira Elliot about Lucky and Surf's Halloween show at Cat's Cradle.
Hi Ira. How are you doing?
I'm pretty good. I'm pulling into Nashville, Tennesee. Yee-haw. Woo.
Y'all are currently on tour.
Yeah we're just about at the halfway point. We're playing real well. The audience has been real nice.
How long has it been since you've been on tour?
It's been about a year. We toured pretty much up through the fall last year and then took Christmas off. Then we started working on the new record. Yeah, it's been close to a year.
Are you mostly playing stuff off the upcoming album?
Oh, we're playing everything. With the new record we've only figured out how to play about three of the new songs live. It's going to take a little more time to find out how to actually execute another five or six of them. So it's a mix up of stuff that people know and two or three new ones. It doesn't really make too much sense to focus too much on the new ones at this point. People haven't really heard more than one or two of them.
How would you describe the sound of Lucky?
The difference between this record and the last two is fairly subtle. It's not really a radical departure, I don't think. There's no great stylistic change. We haven't done some sort of crazy '70s '80s. The songs have a sort of darkness, a melancholy. That is definitely still there. So if there's a "Nada Surf" formula, it's still intact. There are some fast-paced songs. And if you liked those last two [records], this one is similar.
I saw that you have some guests on this album, including Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, how is recording with guests different?
Most of those people that come in are already friends of ours that pretty much know what we do. We also know them pretty well. We give them the leeway; we don't dictate what they should do. They come in and sing something, and we decide later if it actually works. It's pretty easy. Let people do what they do and add their particular color to it. Later, you decide if it works or not. That's kind of a fun thing, and then sometimes people will come up with stuff that you would never have thought of. A hard core, beautiful piano stuff that you could never do.
Is there a specific artist that you would like to work with?
We're just glad to have this group of friends who may or may not show up. I can't really think of any particular artist. I'd say anyone that wants to take a crack at it, I'd say, "Come on."
What's the significance of the new album's name, Lucky?
It comes from us looking at our general situation and feeling that that was the word that sprang to mind when we look at how things have gone for us, in general over our entire careers. It just seems to resonate with a lot of things in our lives. We lucked out on a lot of levels. And we continue to, so I guess we're just giving that credit. Giving luck credit where credit is due.
I saw you are playing some acoustic shows before the album release?
Yeah, we do that quite a bit. You break the songs down to a very minimalist style. It brings out certain qualities of the songs that you wouldn't normally hear. We've been doing that for years now. You get to focus on different parts: the harmony singing and the simplicity of the melodies. It's a nice way to sort of frame the song in a simple and beautiful way.
What have you been listening to lately?
I found a band the other day called Georgie James that I really like. It's a power pop band I heard on the radio. They're very good. I've been listening to a lot of old stuff. I've been sort of on a weird Paul McCartney binge, the past week or two. Solo Paul McCartney, it's very strange. When I listen to music now I tend to listen to stuff that I've listened to a billion times. Like old Zeppelin records and stuff. I been listening to a lot of '70s rock lately but I always listen to a lot of Neil Young records.
Who decides who opens for you?
Sometimes we do. A lot of times it's suggested to us. We'll get two or three to choose from. Seawolf was a natural choice. They're a great band. We're really glad to have them with us, it's fantastic. They're a good show.
You're playing Cat's Cradle on Halloween, are you guys planning on dressing up?
We are. We've been going at this for week now. We can't decide. We had initially thought of individual costumes. Which, take Matt for example, Matthew was going to do Angus from AC DC. I was going to do Tommy Lee, which is really easy for me. But we had a little change of heart in the past couple days 'cause we realized that we have the right characters in our band to do a really good Star Wars. So we're trying to get good Star Wars costumes. It's hard to get good Star Wars costumes.
It's going to be a good show. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm looking forward to it too. Tommy Lee or Hans Solo. It's going to be awesome.
Do you see yourself in ten years doing the same thing?
I definitely can see us pulling out another five years out of this, six. Maybe like two more records, three more. We could do it 10 years. Maybe I'll own a bar.
Nada Surf will be playing Cat's Cradle on Oct. 31 at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15.
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