Every so often you find yourself chatting with someone who is just downright pleasant.Witty, warm, insightful. Likes long walks on the beach and scuba gliding (sure it’s a thing).
Thao Nguyen is all of this and more; an artist whose career arc has not only been growing steadily, but has been branching in truly compelling directions. With her band The Get Down Stay Down she has collaborated with Joanna Newsom, and since 2005 has released seven albums across various incarnations. It’s been a wild ride for the San Franciscan performer who hails originally from a small town in Virginia. Though as it turns out, her home of Falls Church is actually the richest county in the entire United States.
“Really?” Nguyen sounds pleasantly shocked. “No-one told me! It’s in an affluent county because we’re so close to Washington, D.C. and there’s a lot of money there. I definitely did not grow up that way. We were much more middle class. My experience there was really solidly suburban, in a chain strip mall kind of way. I didn’t really grow up with any kind of interesting scene, so I wouldn’t be the one to tell you. I can tell you what my room looked like, my mum’s cooking. I had a Janis Joplin poster there, an Ani DiFranco poster, and a poster of guitar chords. My mum owned a laundromat, so I spent a lot of time there doing other people’s laundry. But I love San Francisco. I moved here ten years ago, after my first tour. It was always a bit of a beacon to me, even though I’d never lived there. It was always a city that I wanted to return home to.”
Thao and The Get Down Stay Down’s new album, A Man Alive, delves into an arguably deeper side of Nguyen’s life and writing. The recording process has been described as an experiment, which sounds enticing and also suggests the band members were garbed in their best mad scientist gear throughout. Produced with familiar cohort Merrill Garbus, it allowed for a much more spontaneous approach to shaping the latest sound.
“That’s exactly right! We had white hair and test tubes,” laughs Nguyen. “It was really fun, and an incredibly warm creative environment. And time, even though it wasn’t necessarily a luxury, it felt like enough time was carved out that we could meander down different sonic paths. Our engineer was with us as well, and he was an instrumental part – ha, I didn’t mean to make that pun. We’d do a bunch of different takes with these incredibly manipulated guitar sounds. That was incredibly fun. I wanted it to be deep, and evoke our live energy more than any other recording has, and I wanted to be able to have fun performing these songs live. We wanted people to move to it, to feel it, even if they don’t actually know what the song is about.”
Nguyen has long been celebrated for the strength of her live act, and just as the course of her musical output has evolved over the years, so too have her live strengths grown. The live energy she hopes the new album captures is something she has worked hard to conjure onstage, although as with all performance, the fear of laying yourself open in front of fans is never far away.
“True, but at the same time, I can determine the parameters in which I’m vulnerable in a way that I can’t do in real life. I think this is a chance to tap into that irrational energy and frustration, whatever that is. I think I’m more kinetic and aggressive in my live show than my day-to-day. I think it’s important and I really welcome, I think, the opportunity to show myself a little bit more, and I do believe that’s the kind of live show I would want to go to – where it feels like whoever is trying to communicate, and you feel a connection with them.
“You know, I miss a really intimate show where I’m just there performing solo. I think that challenges and frightens me in a way that’s quite healthy. I should do it more. I miss talking in between songs, and being more casual about interactions. It’s important to me to still be able to engage, but now it’s more of a one-liner or a joke here and there. But I also want our full-band shows to feel like a party, like a celebration, and I don’t necessarily want to hold up the moment with some long and winding story. That’s not the right environment. But I still try and crack jokes. I don’t know if I’m funny, but I’ll try.”
Before we wrap, there’s something I need to know. The mandolin has started to feature quite frequently in Nguyen’s work, and she’s not the only one. Mandolins are suddenly everywhere you turn, and I wonder exactly what the allure is.
“I started writing on mandolin for [2013 album] We The Common because I wanted to move away from writing on guitar. It’s easier to write on a familiar instrument, so I introduced banjo and mandolin. I just wanted to try exploring something else. I think it’s helpful to take an instrument that you’re not incredibly familiar with and have fun with that. Plus, it felt silly just to have it for one record and tour, so it’s with me now.” Nguyen laughs. “I just didn’t want to waste the money.”
Thao And The Get Down Stay Down‘s releaseA Man Alive is available Friday March 4 through Ribbon/Domino.
