The Nude Party is headed back to The State Room on Saturday, March 28. Teddy and the Rough Riders and Love Audrey open. Doors are at 7 p.m.
When I spoke with Patton Magee, The Nude Party’s frontman, he was calling from between the rural parts of New Mexico and Arizona (definitely one or the other). And while most bands will admit they’re excited to visit Utah, Magee seemed to genuinely mean it.
“We get to hit so many of my favorite cities — New Orleans, Austin, San Francisco — but I love Salt Lake City and Utah. I grew up there and still have a lot of friends there,” Magee said, as he rattled off what he might do while he’s here. “I have a week off, so I might go horseback riding. If there’s still snow, I’ll borrow a snowmobile, and maybe even get a 4 a.m. Beto’s burrito!”
Q: Why’d you record Look Who’s Back in Joshua Tree?
Magee: We were already there, and a good friend had a studio out in the desert, so it all lined up. Originally, we were going to party in Los Angeles for a week, but smarter heads prevailed.
Q: And what was it like recording there?
Magee: Cool. Desolate. Nobody to see, so we were locked in. You can still get Domino’s delivered there, though.
Q: Do you feel like it’s the best album you’ve created so far?
Magee: I always think that actually, and especially this time. We’re still learning some songs that we hope we know by the time we get to Utah. It’s fun, and the band gets a little tighter every show.
Q: Do The Rolling Stones count as an inspiration? I swear I hear that in there.
Magee: I love the Stones, so it’s probably baked in, but this one’s a big mixed bag.
Q: And you’ve been dabbling in the country rock sound lately.
Magee: Yeah, for a few years there’s been some of that jingle jangle California country stuff. Not so much deep south or Nashville, but along the lines of Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds and Gram Parsons.
Q: Is there a band that does no wrong in your eyes?
Magee: I can’t say “does no wrong,” but my favorite is Neil Young. Dylan is up there, too, and he’s definitely the most seeable of the two. When he made his first album, he sounded like an old man. Now that he’s an old man, the sound has grown into him, you know?
Q: Does having nearly the same band lineup make the experience better this far into it?
Magee: Yeah, there’s just such a deep memory bank. You can pull out an old song and, even if no one knows it quickly, everyone does know it eventually. And if you think of an old funny story that happened over the last 13 years, we all have some memory of it.
Q: You’ve been doing this since 2013. What industry changes have you noticed?
Magee: When we started, social media existed and we used it, but it wasn’t so pervasive. In the earlier days, it would have been really silly for a company to have an Instagram account. We wanted to promote shows and get bodies in rooms and see who could have the biggest party, and social media was a tool to achieve that. Now it seems like it’s turned on its head. Industry people seem to want big numbers of followers and to always be engaging. But then there are bands out there that have a lot of dollars, and a lot of engaging, short form content, and they can’t fill a 200-capacity room. So it’s all very weird. I’m not an expert at it, and I don’t think about it too much. For me, it’s questions like ‘Do I need to do my laundry?’ or ‘Is my guitar still fucked up?’
Q: Social media will always be a hard to manage beast.
Magee: It’s just infinite. People in the arts probably feel the same way. It’s an infinite task that hangs over your head and is never fully complete, a checklist that doesn’t diminish. The rewards are very unclear, but the cost, time and attention are very high. It’s not my favorite experience for music promotion, but we’ve had a lot of great shows, and are still having great shows. People still come, buy records and have fun, so it hasn’t killed the spirit of what we are doing.
Q: That’s the purity of it, right? Playing music, getting fans there and having a good time.
Magee: And doing interviews. Taking photographs. Making little videos. Everybody feels the same way.
Q: Is there a message for Salt Lake that you want to deliver before the band gets here?
Magee: If they want to see us play, they will. We have had good times and are going to do it again.
Q: You’ve developed a reputation for putting on great live shows, too.
Magee: Yeah, we’ve toured around so much now, sometimes I get to talk and hang out with the same fans six different times over the course of eight years. It’s pretty neat. I really do like our fans across all these different places in America, particularly because it’s a very positive group, a hopeful group that likes the good things in life, like music and dancing.
Like dancing? Like music? Get your tickets.
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