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Nada Surf: It is hard to not get cynical

After their second album The Proximity Effect, things went silent for Nada Surf. Until they recently surprised everyone with Let Go, without a doubt the best album they've made. And what's more, Nada Surf is doing what they're extremely good at: making pure, melancholic, American guitar rock.

Tekst: Theo Ploeg

Publicatiedatum: 23 oktober 2002

It must have been years ago since I put Nada Surf's High/Low in my CD player. Not that I don't like the record. It has some brilliant moments. But for some reason, the album always reminds me of Popular — a nice college rock song that I've heard so many times that it only makes me think about the old brown jacket I used to wear in college or the tasty garlic mushrooms I used to eat at a little vegetarian restaurant in Utrecht. To be honest, I don't even own Nada Surf's second album The Proximity Effect. I listened to it twice, but the overproduced stadium-rock songs did nothing to me. Except make me think of young college girls wearing too-short trousers and no socks. The ultimate bore. Both my confessions don't do right by a band that started out making pure American guitar rock. Somewhere in the early nineties, collegemates Matthew Caws and Daniel Lorca, who spent some years in Spain, started the band Because Because Because. After changing their name to Nada Surf and recording a first album, their drummer quit and was replaced by Ira Elliot, who formerly hit the drums with Fuzztone. With Elliot and a fresh record deal with major Elektra, Nada Surf recorded their debut album High/Low. An album that labeled them as a Weezer-wannabe. Undeserved, but understandable. Nada Surf's post-grunge college rock had the same feel. Furthermore, Ric Ocasek's clean production made Nada Surf sound like the Byrds using Pink Floyd's recording studio. Maybe you can't call High/Low overproduced, but the fact is, on that album, Nada Surf doesn't sound anywhere near their edgy, rough selves. And The Proximity Effect is even cleaner. As if the band is desperately aiming for a successful sequel to their hit Popular by banning all Kinks and Who influences. Fortunately, the album wasn't a success at all.

Although it put Caws, Lorca, and Elliot through some hard times, the lack of commercial success of The Proximity Effect was their savior. Musically, that is, because it marked the return to the good old Nada Surf sound: melodic guitar rock with rough edges and, most important of all, a "live" production. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Matthew Cows is overtly proud of Let Go, Nada Surf's third and latest album. "This is the first album we recorded without feeling any pressure. Maybe that is why it sounds exactly like we want it to, like we sound at our live performances." It only took the band two months to record Let Go in a California studio in the middle of their American tour. They produced it themselves. A vital decision, Let Go sounds like Nada Surf should sound. It also is their most intense and diverse album. Byrdsian songs like The Way You Wear Your Hair, Fruitfly, and Inside Of Love stand familiar next to rock songs like Hi-Speed Soul, Happy Kid, and Treading Water. A brilliant combination but completely different than Nada Surf's first two albums. Caws: "This album is much more Nada Surf. We are influenced by Surfer Rosa [the Pixies' first full-length], Kinks, Byrds, and melodic guitar bands like Grandaddy, Built To Spill, and Guided By Voices." "Don't forget the Ramones," interrupts drummer Elliot. "They are the Fleetwood Mac of rock. Rocket To Russia is a great rock 'n' roll album. Just like that live album, It's Alive — great!" The next minutes Caws and Elliot are listing what they like about the Ramones, talking about Elliot's wish to do a 15-minute drum solo — "like the one in Zeppelin's Moby Dick" — and the band's passion for pure, uncut rock 'n' roll and early eighties electronic music.

In a way, you could call Let Go a rock 'n' roll album, or at least a pure rock album. An album that breathes the same atmosphere as Lovey by the Lemonheads and Turn To Grey by the Dream Syndicate. The track Hi-Speed Soul, for instance, could have been a classic Dream Syndicate track with its melancholic, new-wave-like guitar riffs and Caws' soulful, slightly nagging vocals. But Hi-Speed Soul also starts with a great rock riff that reminds you of the Cult's Love Removal Machine. It is those combinations that make Let Go a classic American rock album. A nineties album, laced with a touch of eighties. Caws: "All three of us are, lately, into early eighties music and Kraftwerk. That early electronic music sounds imperfect, and that makes it interesting. I also like the atmosphere in New York, lately. The city is alive again. Every evening there is a concert of a new talented band, and I also like the new electronic revival, although it has become a real hype." Elliot completes: "The whole no-wave thing is cool, but it is hard to not get cynical. Some bands sound exactly as the Fall or the Buzzcocks did! On the other hand, it is awesome to live in New York at the moment, with enough exciting new music." But what about Nada Surf? Will Let Go be noticed in the giant stream of fresh new talent form New York City? Although Caws and Elliot don't mind selling records, they could care less. Let Go is their album; it sounds like it must sound like. It is their accomplishment, their victory after years of struggling with former record company Elektra. What is next? A double live album recorded at the Japanese Budokan, complete with 15-minute drum solo by Elliot, and Caws leading the enthusiastic crowd into ecstasy? Caws can't stop laughing, but Elliot looks seriously and whispers: "Perhaps . . . why not?"

http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/nada-surf/nada-surf-it-is-hard-to-not-get-cynical/1960/
Meer Nada Surf op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/nada-surf