For Nude Beach, It’s All About the Music

By Tony Rettman
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jun. 12, 2012

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Nude Beach: Don’t worry, they’re fully clothed.

Nude Beach are something of an anomaly in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s music scene. Why? Well, they’re just three normal dudes in normal clothes who play straightforward guitar-based rock music. No funny haircuts. No flavor-of-the-month posturing. No abstract, electronic beeps or farts anywhere in their music. Just rockin’ tunes. Nothing more and nothing less. Quite a concept, don’t you think?

Their recent self-released LP—appropriately titled Nude Beach II—is packed with chiming guitars and heart-on-sleeve lyrics that reference early Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, making it the first good-vibe platter of the BBQ season. Somewhere inbetween the headaches of releasing their own album, going on tour with that much-loved Brooklyn-based band the Men, and doing a damn fine live session on the prestigious WFMU radio station in Jersey City, Nude Beach were kind enough to answer some of our questions. What swell guys!

You just released your second LP on your own after dealing with another label for the first one. Why was that?
We shopped the record around a bunch and no one really went for it. We realized that a lot of labels are caught up in crazy deadlines and schedules. Basically, they don’t have time to consider new bands much. We always talked about putting our own records out and saved up some money. Then the Men asked us to do some dates with them and we figured we should have the LP for those shows. It’s been a great experiment. We got the record to a lot of awesome people. We’re pretty much [sold] out of it!

What do you most look forward to when coming into Philly?
Philly is cool. We’ve played here a couple times. Maybe some good Vietnamese food? Good beer? We have some friends out here who moved recently from New York. We like playing with Bandname; they’ve been our buddies for quite a while.

I think I might touch on this whenever I talk to you guys, but where does Nude Beach—a band free of hairdos and vintage synthesizers—find themselves on the trendy Brooklyn and New York scene?
There’s a lot of cool stuff going on in New York but also a lot of not-so-cool stuff. It’s a big city, ya know? Hardcore shows have gotten really violent. Punks seem bored when we play. It’s hard being a band that fits in socially but not musically. We do think ‘indie rock’ is a boring thing, though, and want to try to avoid getting too lumped in with any of that. However, in a way it does feel like things in New York are changing and it’s exciting to think about what the music scene might be like in a couple years.

Nude Beach perform Tues., June 19, 8pm. $12. With Reigning Sound. Kung Fu Necktie, 1248 N. Front St. 215.291.4919. r5productions.com

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