9 o’clock Nasty opens up about their heartfelt single “Kid Blast,” blending loss, love, and raw emotion, while teasing deeper themes in their upcoming album This is Crowland.
1. "Kid
Blast" is a fascinating concept and tribute. Can you tell us more about
the person who inspired the song and what they represent to you?
The song is about a friend who passed away. He was an especially close friend
of Pete who wrote a lot of the lyrics, but in a way it is a song about loss and
love - we all have lost people and see the gaps left in the world where they
stood and the ways they live on in the people that they moved. Kid Blast was
his nickname, and also the name Pete’s father used when he was a boxer, so it
combines several emotional strands together. It’s probably important to say, it
is not a sing about some idealised super-person. We all get a bit keen to
eulogise someone who has died and forget the flaws that made them human. Kid
Blast is very true to the person the song is about and our way of remembering
them. It relays a message they would (we hope) have wanted us to give.
It’s like a
seance but with guitars.
2. Your music often carries a deeper meaning. What do you hope listeners
take away from the message of "Kid Blast"?
The central message is hopefully something they would have been entirely on
board with.
Be cool because there is already enough trouble in the world and we maybe all
need to take a step back and a deep breath and let the people around us live
their lives the way they want to. OK, let’s correct that, we all need to take a
step back, but some people need to take four of five steps back and stop
interfering with the lives of others.
Wrong none, because no matter what you do, if you’re going to face yourself in
the mirror, you should be able to know you’ve been fair to the people you met.
Don’t take no shit from anyone because, well because. Just don’t. Life is too
short.
3. How did the writing and recording process for "Kid Blast"
differ from your previous singles?
The song was very much Pete’s personal project for a long time. A lyric and a
tune that was always there, always getting tweaked and improved. That isn’t
unusual for us, some songs will be on the periphery for a year while other ones
get completed very quickly.
Then one day we picked the song up and we just filled in the gaps: Ted added
bass and wrote some words to complete it and we just recorded it in one take.
Pure “123 go” with no real detail of how it would end. It is very rare we hit
the final sound in one session, but this one came easy and it sits right. You
may notice that one of the choruses is shorter than the others. We didn’t plan
it that way, it was just how the tune unfolded.
The sonics of the song would be very hard to reproduce again, a lot is in the
magical moment when everything sounds right and you just hit it.
4. The video for "Kid Blast" is a key part of the release. How does the visual element complement the song’s message and mood?
For Kid Blast we had an idea for a video. We planned to set up the drumkit, guitar amps and lighting in the tiny kitchen at Studio 9 and film it there as a live band, but there was never time. So the video is an attempt to strip it right down to the basics. The words and the beat. We spend time on visuals and they’re a lot of fun to do, but the video needs to unpack the song, not be the main event.
5. You describe yourselves as "couture arthouse punk masterminds." How do you balance the artistic and punk aspects in your music and image?
We are none of those things which is why it amuses us to call ourselves that. There is a punk, or more accurately a garage rock aesthetic to a lot of what we do. Even when we’re doing electronic music and dance music, it is very much with a garage rock attitude and work ethic. Strip it down, break it to pieces, make it fit. Move on.
The Art side, well, we’re making something that isn’t just a genre based formula, so we consider it pretty arty. We aren’t performing to show we can play or to impress anyone, we’re trying to make people feel things and think things. That’s probably Art. We also call ourselves a “Broken Boy Band.” That’s probably more accurate.
6. The idea of leaving a mark on the world is central to "Kid Blast." What mark do you hope 9 o’clock Nasty will leave on the music scene?
We aren’t trying to leave a mark on a scene. We’re part of 2 or 3 “scenes” and we love them and everyone in them, but we do this because we have to, not to make a particular mark.
We make what we love and we like sharing it. If people take good things from it, then that’s the mark we want to make. The only music scene we care about is the other bands we’ve met and love and we’re proud to be on the same page as them.
7. Your upcoming album This is Crowland is described as streaking across the cosmos. Can you give us a sneak peek into the themes and sounds we can expect?
We always try to come up with some general ideas at the start of a new album and use that to inspire a body of work that sites together. Sometimes that’s successful, sometimes it’s just the starting point. For This Is Crowland we’ve become a lot more fascinated by electronica and dance music. We’re writing more songs at the keyboard and drum machine and then building them out from there. That doesn’t mean the final song is recognisably synth driven, often we’ll write on the keyboard, then play it on a guitar or bass and sample those sounds.
Writing on a keyboard seems to have encouraged us to strip things back and keep songs simple. The theme of the album is much darker than anything we’ve done before. We’re living in a difficult time. There is just too much history going on all the time. There is still a playful element, sometimes the best response to hostility is laughter.
Crowland is the land of English nostalgia. A world that never existed where we only had two channels of proper television, and men were men and women were women and everyone looked up to authority. It seems there are people who want to make us all live there. In a past that never existed.
8. Your music blends sonic mischief with serious purpose. How do you manage to keep this balance without losing either element?
There is never any effort to keep balance. The song knows what it wants. If we thought too much about the process we’d never finish anything. The mischief part is really all about playing with things. We don’t have a very good filter. If we hear something we like, if we have a random idea, we can get carried away with it. That makes it fun.
9. With "Kid Blast" being the ninth single from This is Crowland, do you see it as a centerpiece for the album, or is it part of a larger narrative?
It’s probably an outlier. Kid Blast would have fitted either of the last two albums perfectly. I think songs like that and Bad Monkey are examples of the music we’d make it we were a traditional live band that played 2 gigs a week and wrote songs in the rehearsal room. It feels really, really good to write a song like that. Natural. Physical. Songs like Crowland and Dead Pilot probably sit more at the heart of the creature. A couple of unreleased songs, Shrink Wrap and Pusher Needs a Haircut are probably the purest, most concentrated songs on the album in terms of the thing as a whole.
Can we just say, it is a REALLY good album.
10. How does being based in Leicester shape your music and identity as a band?
A couple of years ago we’d have said not at all. We’re from the city. We love the city. But 9 o’clock Nasty was born in a studio and lives on the internet. Very little of our audience is from the city and that’s fine. Since we started playing live and met more musicians that are on the scene now, we’ve definitely warmed to the idea that actually there is a very cool body of work here - as good as anywhere you could want to be. Collectives like Unglamorous Music and Soundhive are acting as incubators for a lot of talent, and watching those bands pushes us to try harder and be our best.
11. Your music and messaging often provoke strong reactions. What’s the most memorable response you’ve received so far?
Some of the best collaborations we’ve been involved in have been from other artists reacting to our work, reaching out and sharing ideas with us. Finding another human and making something cool with them is the best thing. Preyswitch, if you read this we’re particularly talking about you! When we played in London for the first time and had people come to the gig on the back of seeing us on social media, and coming to dance and shout that was really cool. Strangers choosing to cross the city on a dark winter night and share their energy with us. What can be better than that?
12. As we approach 2025, what’s next for 9 o’clock Nasty? Any surprises you can tease beyond the album release?
We are all-in on the album right now. We’ve played a decent number of gigs and probably taken our boy band show as far as it can be taken, so we’re going to rethink how we perform live. That might mean we get more experimental and strange, or it might mean we just play some gigs as a straight three piece with guitar, bass and drums just for kicks. Or both. We want to work with more people, connect with more artists and make stuff.
We’ve still got a lot of stories to tell. The tunes keep coming.
Post a Comment