A Chat With: The Nude Party

During Warble Daze last month, Alec Castillo and Shaun Couture of The Nude Party took some time to quickly catch up with ANCHR about their new music and what's next for them in 2018. Although the six piece have yet to put out a full length debut and they hadn't played Chicago since January of this year, they remained one of the most anticipated and buzzy bands of the two day DIY showcase. Based on the energy they stirred up during Warble Daze with their gritty blend of garage, surf, and psych rock, their set surpassed the high expectations. Prior to their rambunctious set, we caught up with Castillo and Couture to talk everything from the process behind their upcoming full length to their best and worst Halloween moments. The two also recalled their early days of getting naked at parties and filled us in on their favorite bands at the moment...Tune in now to our chat with The Nude Party! 

Photo By Devon Bristol Shaw.

ANCHR Magazine: What do you guys remember as your first musical memory, or what inspired you to first start playing?

Shaun Couture: My older brother got an acoustic guitar. I remember the first song I ever learned was this Linkin Park song. 

Alec Castillo: I played drums when I was younger but I never really stuck with it. I didn’t really have anyone to teach me or anything. So I just stopped music until I met Shaun and the rest of the band members in college. We’ve known each other since high school.

ANCHR Magazine: Who initiated the band starting then after you met?

Shaun Couture [To Alec]: Probably you, cause you had a lake house.

Alec Castillo: Yeah, I had a lake house and we all went there one summer.

Shaun Couture: We tried to play music during that summer.

ANCHR Magazine: Do you have any good stories from the time at the house?

Alec Castillo: Uhh one time we sunk the canoe when we were all naked.

ANCHR Magazine: Is that where you got the name from?

Alec Castillo:  I guess so. We had nude parties.

Shaun Couture: We joked around what if you have parties where you had to be nude to get into. Then we just realized it was only us at our parties that were all naked.

Alec Castillo:  One time we waxed Shaun’s ass.

ANCHR Magazine: Waxed Asshole could have been a good band name...Are you working on new music then? I saw you guys were recording on your Instagram.

Alec Castillo: Yeah we just finished recording our like first full length record.

ANCHR Magazine: Right the last one was more of a long EP with 7 tracks. What can you tell me about the recording process?

Shaun Couture: We recorded it at this studio outside of Woodstock. It’s called Dreamland. It’s an old Church. It’s got like a house connected to it, so we lived there for four days while we were recording. We did a bunch of pre production stuff beforehand, but we did 14 songs in 4 days, so we were pretty busy. 

Alec Castillo:  Our roommate Oakley Munson produced the record and Matthew Cullen engineered it. 

ANCHR Magazine: Have you been playing the new record live?

Shaun Couture: Yeah the songs we’re playing tonight are mostly off the new album. We usually play one or two off the last one. But they’re pretty much all new songs.

ANCHR Magazine: Which songs are some of your favorite?

Shaun Couture: We got one called "Chevrolet Van" that we all really like.

Alec Castillo: We’ll play most of the new ones. I like "Chevy Van" too. It’s one of my favorites.

Shaun Couture: We have a slower one called "Astro Man." It’s about a spaceman...It’s about space and shit. That one’s really fun to play.

ANCHR Magazine: You just played yesterday with The Evening Attraction in Carbondale, IL. How did that show go?

Shaun Couture: It was fun!

Alec Castillo: It brought us back, or at least reminded me of the first shows we ever played. Which were all in basements. People are getting down and dancing and having fun. You don’t see a lot of that in venues. People are just arm folded and don’t care, but at parties like that, everyone is getting down.

ANCHR Magazine:  So you toured a bunch this year, playing SXSW, etc...What have been some highlights?

Shaun Couture: I think we all really like San Francisco.

Alec Castillo: I liked San Diego!

Shaun Couture: San Diego was cool. Salem, Oregon was really cool...

Alec Castillo: Yeah, Salem was very cool.

ANCHR Magazine: Yeah, I love that part of the country.

Shaun Couture: We met some long time friends there.

ANCHR Magazine: What albums have you guys been listening to? Or other bands you’re really into? I know, it’s always hard to think on the spot.

Shaun Couture: We have to look on our Spotify! Oh, I really like this band from San Francisco called Mapache . They’re like a West Coast Flying Burrito Brothers... Cosmic Americana.

Alec Castillo: We’re really into the Allah Las right now.

Shaun Couture: I think both of us have been into Drugdealer.

Alec Castillo: I think I saw Drugdealer filming a music video on the beach actually a couple weeks ago. 

ANCHR Magazine: What are some good bands from your local scene?

Alec Castillo: We don’t have one where we actually live right now. There’s not a scene at all.

Shaun Couture: Acid Dad is from New York!

Alec Castillo: Yeah, the city...we live upstate now. 

Shaun Couture: New York City is like our scene now. White Lighters is really cool. BOYTOY! Ghost Funk Orchestra.

ANCHR Magazine: What are your best and worst Halloween moments, either as a band or individually? 

Shaun Couture: Remember that time we played--so we used to live in Boone, North Carolina. Which is like a college town in the mountains up there. There’s a venue called Black Cat and it’s a burrito place but they move all the tables and the bands just play on the ground. Those shows were basically house parties. We played there one Halloween and Connor had to piss, so he fucking jammed the top of a PBR Tallboy and pissed in it. And I drank his piss.

ANCHR Magazine: That was the worst I’m guessing?

Alec Castillo: Definitely the worst. One Halloween, Don got beat up by a fraternity.

Shaun Couture: Those are two really bad ones.

Alec Castillo: It ended up being really funny. He was dressed up as a nun.

Shaun Couture: I was Alan Jackson the last two years in a row, so I was pretty happy about that.

ANCHR Magazine: Nice, anything else you’re looking forward to in the next year, besides the new album? Do you have a timeframe for the release?

Alec Castillo: It’s not really up to us. We’re looking forward to getting it out, though. We like to make music videos. We’re starting to plan some stuff. We don’t know which song yet...

Shaun Couture: We have chickens at our house now, so I’m looking forward to eating their eggs!

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The Nude Party at Warble Daze

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There you have it! Stay tuned for some new tunes and tales about their new chickens from The Nude Party. You can connect with them on Social Media below, and listen to their EP in full below!

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A Chat With: Elliot Moss

The New York City based singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Elliot Moss released his stunning new EP Boomerang in April. Layered and complex. the seven song EP takes its listeners on a dynamic journey. There's the seamless flow between the third through sixth song, with their blurred edges, and there's the James Blake-esque tune "99," as well as the rhythmic "Closedloop" which opens the EP. Essentially, Boomerang mimics the actions of its namesake; it keeps moving, but eventually it comes back to the core sound that Moss has developed. Moss will be taking these new songs out on the road this month, starting in DC today and ending in Chicago on July 1st. We'll be covering his hometown performance at the legendary Baby's All Right in Brooklyn this Saturday, June 24th. Before the show, we chatted with the multi-talented Moss about his creative vision, his tips for wearing multiple hats in the studio, and what's next for 2017. Get to know all of that and more in our chat with Elliot Moss!

Photo Courtesy of Elliot Moss

ANCHR Mag: So I wanted to start off by talking a little bit about your new EP Boomerang. Congrats on the release! You’ve mentioned it’s best to listen to straight through, and the transitions are really strong. Did you map it out ahead of time or did it come together once you’d written some of the songs?

Elliot Moss: A bit of both, probably. When I wrote “Closedloop” I didn’t have the idea yet of having it have these sort of seamless moments. There is something nice about something stopping, and then a song coming in. So it has a bit of both of that. It goes in a particular order because it takes you through a certain experience of kind of removing yourself from the world around, and then sort of coming back into it. Dipping your feet in the water and then diving in. So the moments where they didn’t feel like they needed to be jarring, they’re not and they kind of move in a more fluid way. It just sort of seemed like the way to do it. I worked on the three tunes that are seamless all in the same session. It was like 300 tracks. It’s a lot of work to make things move seamlessly like that. To change keys without feeling forced or wrong. But yeah it was an idea that sort of developed after I wrote “Without The Lights.”

AM: So you’re writing your music, you’re playing multiple instruments, and producing your own music, which has got to be challenging. How do you deal with those challenges while you're recording, and were there any particular songs that were more challenging than others?

EM: “Without The Lights,” by far. That was the single hardest--producing it was tricky because there’s so many different parts to it, but the mix for that song, I’ve never worked harder on anything in my life. It was waking up every day for a couple of months and just trying to figure out how to make it feel like nothing was done, but everything is in order and presented to you as clearly and as discreetly as it can be. Cause you know when a song sounds mixed, it can almost take you out of it and sound overproduced. Giving it this maximalist approach, but having it be natural is a really tricky thing. Most of my music is not that dense. It’s hard when you’ve played everything, because every little part is your baby. I’m so grateful for the things here or there that I’d get friends of mine to add to the music. Like the bass lines on “Closedloop” and on “Falling Down and Getting Hurt.” It sort of takes the responsibility out of my hands a little bit and allows me to just enjoy what he played. And it’s somewhere I would have never gone. I think it just adds a dynamic to the song that wasn’t there before, that I couldn’t possibly generate.

AM: Do you have any tips then for managing it all or being able to handle producing and writing?

EM: I guess, just don’t get lazy. Don’t rely on what you’re good at to finish a song, and instead sort take a step back and ask yourself what it really needs and what you should do. Then put in the hours to make that happen.

AM: That’s great advice! So you also have some great music videos to go along with your songs. Are you really involved with the concepts behind the videos, and does that kind of come into play when you’re writing the songs?

EM: Almost too involved. Like standing on a mountain and flying drones involved. Actually for some of the shots in the “Closedloop” video...I’m not built to climb the side of a mountain holding a bunch of gear, so that was very challenging. But worth it in the end. It was freezing cold and you couldn’t find the light up there. We shot it all in Utah where you can just sort of drive into Nowheresville pretty easily. That song, the visual representation is sort of, it echoes a lot the same themes of what I tried to achieve in the production. Where it’s like these two worlds at odds almost, and “Closedloop” is about retreating to a place where you can process things at a safe... at a speed where you’ll be able to assess things and come up with a solution. So the light and the spotlight in “Closedloop” that we shot out of these drones, was just focusing on that piece of the world for the time, rather than everything at once. It also looked really cool.

AM: For sure! So you’re really into putting a deep meaning into your songs and just from talking to you now, it’s clear you’re passionate about the visual concepts in your videos as well. Do you look to other art forms besides music, like film or certain visual art for influence on your own projects and your music videos?

EM: Well sure, yeah. Art can put you in a particular mood and I guess after walking out of a movie or looking at a painting, you can paint in those colors, if that’s not too cheesy. I definitely try to keep my mind open and look at new things as much as I can because it keeps your gears turning. Definitely, I think I draw on all of what I’m consuming. More than just art too. Just lots going on in my life....books I’m reading, etc…

AM: Totally. Do you have a specific book you read or a movie that might have inspired a certain song on the Boomerang EP?

EM: Richard Ayoade directed a movie called The Double with Jesse Eisenberg that I thought was really, really cool. It sort of has this murky, shadowy vibe throughout. It’s coupled almost with this fluorescent blue every now and then. It looks almost electric. “Closedloop” feels that way to me, sort of wading through murky water and then suddenly there’s this fork-in-the-wall voltage right up in your face, which came from this synthesizer that was not processed in any way. It was as direct as I could possibly get it from synth to iPod earbuds.

AM: Taking these songs to the live sense, you’re starting tour this week. Are there any new songs you’re particularly excited to play, or any new arrangements?

EM: Yeah, we did a live in the studio video of the whole EP, that we’re kind of dropping one song at a time. There’s a really interesting arrangement that we did of the three songs that are seamless- “Boomerang,” “My Statue Sinking,” and “Dolly Zoom,” where I stay on the piano the whole time, and we start with my bass player actually on the piano with me. That was a lot of overdubs on that song, but live, there’s only one piano that can fit in the room. So we had to find a way to make that clunky, disjointed rhythm work in a way that it wasn’t weird sounding in a studio setting. We’re taking elements of what we learned from doing that live video to the stage. I get excited about “Falling Down and Getting Hurt” and “Without The Lights” because we didn’t have a lot of big, loud tunes to play. Live, depending on the room, sometimes this big mezzanine and all these seats demand that you play a little bit louder and faster because you want to fill the room with sound. I’m excited to have a few more tunes that do that.

AM: Are there any cities you’re particularly excited for?

EM: I actually like all of the cities that we’re doing this tour! I’ve played them all before and they’re really cool. DC is always really cool. DC9 is right around the corner from 930 club, which is one of my favorite venues we’ve ever played. And Montreal, I feel like I have absolutely no understanding of the layout of that city. I like getting to explore every time we play there.

AM: Yeah, awesome! Then are there any new artists that you’re really into, or new music from an older artist that you’re into?

EM: I could tell you that for sure. I’m probably the last person in the world to listen to it, but up until a couple of weeks ago, I’d never listened to Dummy by Portishead, and I’ve been completely obsessed with it now. It’s one of my favorite records now, it’s just too cool. Speaking of production that sounds natural, it’s exactly what Beth’s voice needed behind her. I think that will be a real source of inspiration in the future. I’m trying to make my music as effortless and as fluid as theirs is.

AM: Nice. When you’re on the road and on tour, what do you do to stay entertained besides listening to music? Any podcasts that you’re into?

EM: I like the Adam Buxton podcast. He interviews some interesting people. I try to make as much music as I can on the road. I have this makeshift desk thing in the van, that I try to stick a keyboard on and at least come up with an idea or two per day. My bass player, Evan, is just so prolific. It's hard to keep up. Just watching him work away on his computer makes me feel like I need to be working too. 

AM: Anything else you're looking forward to this year? Do you think you'll release more new music, with some of the stuff that you're working on on tour?

EM: I hope so, yeah! There's a lot done already. I'm just trying to get my bearings and understand what it means in terms of whether it's an album, or another EP, or some singles. I do want to get an LP2 out there and happening in the near future. I guess I'm really excited to just do some more touring too. Last year was a working year in terms of getting an EP and a lot of new songs done. This year marks the beginning of touring for us. Do the west coast, and some European dates. We get to see the world. 

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New York, come dance with us on Saturday-- grab tickets to the Baby's All Right performance here! To check out Elliot Moss in a city near you, find all the tour dates here, and listen to Boomerang in full below!

Get To Know: Skela

Independent, fearless, genuine: Skela is the New York based singer-songwriter you need to know about. A power vocalist and a poet with the knack for crafting catchy pop melodies, Skela's not afraid to pack a punch with her message. After playing an incredible show at The Mercury Lounge in NYC last month, Skela took some time to chat with ANCHR about her upcoming debut EP, new music video, and her other writing projects. Get ready for Skela's takeover in 2017 by reading up on 6 things you have to know about Skela. 

Photo Credit: Grace Watts (@gracexless)

Powerful Vocalists and a Chipmunk-Tuned Cassette Player Got Her Started in Singing

As a self-taught musician, Skela definitely took an unconventional approach in teaching herself to sing. "I actually have one really distinct memory," She revealed. "My earliest memory with music and realizing how obsessed I was with it...I used to live in Sunnyside in Queens, and we had this little Mickey Mouse cassette player. I was really little, I think I was maybe 5. It had this little chipmunk option that made it go really, really fast. It was this song called “Toy Soldiers" on one side, and on the other side was Mariah Carey or something. And I remember that’s how I taught myself how to sing. By mimicking exactly what I heard over and over again, and I would mimic the chipmunk voice. I wanted to sing high. That’s when I first started singing. I would do that all the time until my mom came in one day like 'What are you doing?” I was like in a trance, it was just so normal to me," she continued. 

As far as other inspirations behind teaching herself to sing, Skela credits a lot of female power vocalists, from popstars to pop punk front women. "It’s so broad, it changes over the years when you go through different phases," Skela says about her influences. "Growing up I guess I started off with all the great vocalists. You know, Aretha, Etta James...Christina Aguilera was huge. Mariah Carey. We would listen to a lot of Janet Jackson. As I grew older and kind of got my own ears going, I would listen to The Beatles all the time. I went through that whole emo pop-punk phase of Paramore, you know," she revealed.

Although her influences include a meld of all these different artists and they're ever-changing, Skela says, "I definitely started out with vocalists. That was like my number one. It still is. I could listen to Ariana Grande sing for days."

She Directed Her Upcoming Music Video 

Skela's got a new single on the way, but rather than just releasing the song, she's going all out. The new track, called "Hella," will be accompanied by a music video that she directed. Talking more about the new video, Skela says, "We have Mithsuca Berry as the romantic lead, then the very talented photographer based in New York called Maksim Axelrod. I’m just so excited. I feel like it really is coming together artistically." The new single was originally scheduled to drop in April, but it sounds like everything will be well worth the wait. "We’re wanting to make everything kind of perfect," Skela elaborates about the pushed release date, also mentioning the wonderful flexibility and freedom that comes with being an independent artist. Regardless of the exact release date, get ready to be "Hella Skela" when this music video drops! 

She's Not Far From Releasing Her Highly Anticipated EP

Skela says that her EP should arrive shortly after her new single premieres.  Speaking of new music, some lucky New Yorkers recently got to hear some of the new tracks performed live at Skela's show at The Mercury Lounge last month. Talking about the show, Skela gushes, "I was actually shocked how well it went. It was a pretty packed room. Which is crazy. I’m a small artist, I’m pretty indie...So to have so many people out was really really special. We had a lot of cross promotion with a company called What’s in Your Box? And then we had female based brands like Millioneiress. We just had a lot of love and support. The new music went over so well. Like all of the unreleased music that we played people were like 'Where can I hear that?' And that’s such a good sign that people want to hear it again. I can’t wait to put out the new music. I just can’t wait."

Skela also revealed more about the theme of her new music and her writing process when we chatted. "I think I’m kind of like an odd songwriter because I never really...," she pauses before continuing on to say, "I do write about experiences and events to a certain degree, but most of my music is based off of the literature and the subjects I’m interested in within a certain time period. You know what I mean? I read up a lot on my interests and all of that sort of pours through to poetry, and then I’ll make songs from the poetry. So I’m hoping to release some poetry with the EP. I guess it just shows a little more of what the songs truly are about."

In a way, you could say that her poetry is the skeleton of Skela songs (say that five times fast).  

Her Advice For Other Independent Artists Is...

Skela recently wrote a guest blog for Tunecore about her experience in the industry as an independent musician. Touching more on that subject, and being a new artist, Skela gives her number one piece of advice. "You’re just so overwhelmed with where to start. And just eager. But I think-- just navigate from a point of rationality and logic as best as you can, and it’s gonna take a while 'til you can. Cause you’re so eager that you’re just down for anything and excited to work with everyone. That’s so great, but at the same time, you should be focusing on who you are and what’s right for you. What’s your decision. It’s easy to let people tell you what to do, from agents to managers to you know, anyone with opinions. It really takes a long time to be like no, I got this. I got this cause I got me. For me, my number one thing is just to stay as grounded as possible. And not in a humble way. In a literal, grounded place. Be grounded in your music and who you are. That’s a very hard part of chasing your dream. You lose that because you get discouraged, or you get one good thing that happens to you and it doesn’t work out. Then you’re devastated again. Just staying grounded."

For anyone starting a creative project, not just in the music industry, that advice to remember your intent behind the art is so important. 

“It’s easy to let people tell you what to do, from agents to managers to you know, anyone with opinions. It really takes a long time to be like no, I got this. I got this cause I got me. ”

— Skela on standing your ground as an independent artist

She's Not Just a Singer, But a Screenwriter As Well

Singer, songwriter, director, poet, blogger, and that's not all. The gem of Skela's writing possesses many different facets. "I actually just wrote a short film script," Skela says while talking about what's next for her this year.  "It’s going into production this year, and I’m actually really excited about that. That’ll be pretty cool to have my first screenplay actually going into production. It’s called 'Le Reve,' and it’s being produced and directed by a very close friend of mine, Chiara Gerek," she continued. 

So besides the massive amounts of writing talents, does Skela have any secret talents? "I don’t know if this is a talent, but I always twirl my hair, and I can do it really fast. It’s more of a nervous tick, really," she confesses. 

She's Got a Love For Lo-fi Music

Skela will easily become one of your favorite musicians once her EP comes out, but talking about her favorites, she says, "I’ve been listening nonstop to this one artist called Ben Rosenfield. He’s very awesome. I have this big love for lo-fi music. I’ve been listening to him a lot. I always go back to the basics, like [Sandy] Alex G...Day Wave...Mitski. Diet Cig is really dope, they just came out with a new EP that’s really good. Those are the ones that I go back to. Oh, Active Bird Community. My friend- he goes by Kraus, but his name is Will Kraus and he’s super talented. I feel like he’s about to blow up in that scene. I listen to that music pretty regularly, and it serves as a strange platform for pop music. If you listen to the new music, you’ll definitely hear it. It’s in the melody...it’s all over."

Elaborating specifically on her favorite local artists, Skela has some hot tips about the NYC scene. "I have some friends and musicians that I think are really talented, and I really only try to work with people that I genuinely support and love. A few of them are Josh Jacobson. He’s a producer and a songwriter I work with. He’s dope...he’s got great stuff coming out. Florio. He actually opened for me at the show. Then the Frances Rose girls are so talented. They’re kind of Synth, 80's pop. This girl May, she is amazing. She has this crazy voice, just crazy operatic training behind her. There’s a lot of great musicians in New York, but I feel like right now those are the ones I really pay the most attention to cause they’re somewhat in my lane, but I also really admire them," she says. 

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Stay "Hella Skela" by keeping liking Skela's Facebook page to keep up to date with any updates. You can also listen to this killer Spotify playlist that Skela made, featuring some of the artists she hyped as her favorites while you wait for the EP.