Thao with the Get Down Stay Down performs at the Duke Coffeehouse on East Campus with Sister Suvi and Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers Saturday. Tickets are $8. Doors open at 9 p.m., show starts at 9:30 p.m. She is also making an appearance at Chaz's Bull City Records at 5 p.m. for an acoustic set.
Jessie Tang: I can’t believe it’s been a year since your record’s been released.
Thao Nguyen: Yeah, you and me both. It was a quick one.
JT: Looking back, what were some of the highlights of the tour?
TN: Let’s see… it feels like it was one really long tour. We were on the road for most of it, which is frustrating for me because I am a fruit fly. Highlights were touring with Rilo Kiley, which was a lot of fun getting to play with an established, well-known band. And we’re fans of theirs. It was a big morale boost as far as thinking that we’ve legitimately tried to do this and it was well received that we didn’t just put out a record and no one heard it.
What else? There were little things. The thing was that I was trying to give you an overview because I thought that it would be more professional of me. But the true highlights were, well, one time in Canada I bought this western shirt with eagles—American eagles, I think, and I always thought that was funny. There is a clear contrast between eagle and the white of the fabric. This other time, [bassist Adam Thompson] found out he had been sleeping on this wet, brown stain. We thought it was blood, and I went down to the office to ask the woman. She took it to the back and returned with it, telling us it wasn’t blood—it was feces, which is a hilarious story, but Adam almost died.
We accidentally got married this year because of the time commitment. We’ve definitely solidified as a band and feel comfortable and are trying to navigate how to make music for a living, you know, and how to maintain having a life when you’re in a band all the time.
JT: I know you just played South by Southwest. Was it what you expected?
TN: Well, we were advised not to expect anything. I’m from San Francisco, and the weather is never really warm there, so it was fantastic. I didn’t wear pants the whole time. We played a lot of shows—one day there was three shows in the row, so you have to stay hydrated. It was a good time, everyone was friendly and festive, and we always like to go back there.
JT: Is there anything new we can expect from the new record?
TN: Yeah, I think this new record captures more of our live show, because our live shows are a lot more energetic than that first record, but you know it’s because when we recorded that record we were barely a band and didn’t know what our live shows were like yet. And that informs our sound a lot and informs my song writing. It’s a big undertaking for us, and I wanted a lot more emotion and intensity. We have a lot of guest musicians and vocalists, and they sound amazing, and it’s almost all electric guitar, which is a departure from the first record. It’s a lot more high energy and a lot more emotionally intimate, I think. A lot of it is a heartbreak record, so all the new emotions that go into that.
JT: I know that you’ve said before that you write your songs when going through a depressed phase. Do you feel like you’re in that state constantly?
TN: Well, now I’m starting to think my whole life is a depressed phase. You know, with the end of a relationship, comes some of the most profound opportunities of reckoning and introspection. So yeah… dude, I was really sad.
JT: I recall watching some of your home-made videos back from the summer. Will you be bringing them back anytime soon?
TN: Yeah, I think we will be. We actually love doing little skits like that because their really stupid, and we are really amused by ourselves. We will be releasing them on our new website, which is being redesigned, which will have a bunch of little video clips that we’ve filmed. It’s one of the most fun things we do. I’m just afraid that whenever the label gives me a video camera, I’ll lose it. That’s really why we don’t do it as much.
JT: There seems to be a new trend where bands have lead female Asian vocalists. How do you feel about it?
TN: Ethnicity is a really weird beast. When I was first starting, it was the qualifier. All the write-ups ended up about me as a “Vietnamese-American Asian act.” I understand that there needs to be an angle, but I’m not interested in peddling from that platform. I don’t write about it. I would say more just being a woman in music—it can be not a factor or it can be a pivot. It’s hard not to make it a non-issue while still respecting the difference. As a musician or a woman who plays music, I’m totally interesting in progressive those views or perspectives… but yeah, in indie rock there is that thing. They have a shaker or tambourine on the side. I don’t know.
JT: People have called you a feminist superstar. Do you feel that this aspect is going to play more into your music in the future?
TN: I’m totally into that. I think it factors in because it’s a huge part of my identity, just as any other element of my biography will play a part, but I’m not interested in my music being overtly political and I intend to spend as much of my time being active with other aspects outside of music. The most that I can hope for or aspire for is the freedom to do what I want and to portray myself as how I see fit without any dictations without any gender specialization. As far as my feminism, it’s always an undercurrent, sometimes it will be more overt than others. But with respect to music, I’ll tend to stray away from that only because I’m not as interested in that artistically.
JT: With all the touring that has been going on, do you feel like you’re going to get a break?
TN: Well this summer is pretty light, and I’m going to be staffing the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls, which I’ve always wanted to do.
JT: Who would you most like to go on tour with right now?
TN: I’m a huge fan of Andrew Bird and Neko Case, but it’d be terrible because I’d feel too inadequate to go on stage and just hang out backstage and not play our set. I’d love to open for them.
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