NYLON - April 2009 - (Page 156) radar: nathan williams is having a great ride with his lo-fi, punk-infused pop project, wavves. by stephanie trong. photographed by peggy ann mcdonnell rip curl p “WAIT, WHAT WAS the question?” asks Nathan Williams of the one-man project Wavves, for the second time during our interview. He is in Manhattan’s West Village, lying down on a bed at the DIY venue Less Artists More Condos (which doubles as a residence), where he is set to play in three hours. The lights are off, and his eyes are closed. He lets out a sigh of exhaustion and purrs, “Oh my God, this is so great,” before propping his Converse-clad feet up against the wall. He is stoned out of his mind, having smoked about half-an-hour ago. “Everything has been so nerve-wracking that it’s just kind of calming me down.” The question was, “How is this cluster-fuck of a tour going?” The San Diegobased musician—who specializes in lo-fi, crust-punk pop—is in the middle of a New York City marathon: four shows in two days. (Live, longtime friend Ryan Ulsh takes on drum duties.) Though Williams started Wavves from his parent’s guesthouse a little over a year ago, he has already released an eponymous cassette, a selftitled debut LP on Woodsist records, and a follow-up, Wavvves, just released by Fat Possum. All have earned him a sizable following among fans and media alike (a New York Times reporter is in the house this evening to review the show). “The only break I get,” Williams says of his upcoming schedule, “is the plane ride.” He’s not complaining. In fact, he’s been having such a great time that the boisterous late nights have him on the verge of losing his voice. “I grew up partying, so I feel like I almost got it all out of my system…until this weekend,” he says, while clutching a big mug of tea. “And now I’m, like, dying.” playing in a succession of bands before moving to San Diego at the end of middle school, only to drop out after the ninth grade. “I was a problem child, but everything’s kosher now,” Williams drawls good-naturedly. While playing in more short-lived groups, he took day jobs at American Apparel (“most of the managers were cool with you drinking”) and at a record store, quickly figuring out that punching a time card wasn’t for him. “That’s when I realized that I couldn’t work a normal job,” he remembers. “For a while I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to hate my life.’” Instead, he decided to record on his own, and Wavves was born. Thus began his “regimen.” Williams would wake up at noon, surf the web or watch TV, smoke out, and then work on his music. “It would turn out a bit differently than what I had in my head, but was always something I liked.” Using GarageBand, he created sing-along gems with simple chords, elementary drum beats, and scratchy vocals—each track drowned in so many layers of distortion that it sounded as if he sang it while wrapped in comforters inside a metal trash can at the bottom of a lake. “Sometimes it’s interesting to make people dig a little bit to find the melody,” he says. Williams is indeed a huge fan of melody, describing his output as “super pop songs.” For example, on the catchy “No Hope Kids,” he sings “Got no car/ Got no money/ Got no friends/ Got no girlfriend” but intersperses the lines with falsetto la la’s, making the track sound sunny and hopeful, rather than disaffected. Another recurring element in Wavves is repetition; verses variations on each .” “Everything ver and over,” ons. “Everyone , same fucking d bad days.” urself doing an n’t know. FROM LEFT: nathan williams and ryan ulsh
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