motel void

MOTEL VOID: Naked Giants formed in 2014 when you were all eighteen years old. How did you first come together as a band?

NAKED GIANTS: Indeed, we came together in that summer right after high school… it was filled with long jams in Grant’s parents’ basement, lots of frisbee in the parks and a healthy dose of Super Smash Bros to cap it off. The band really formed right alongside our friendship in that crucial young-adult time!

MOTEL VOID: How has your music and approach to creating it evolved from your previous albums, SLUFF (2018) and The Shadow (2020), to Shine Away (out this October)? Can you tell us more about the recording process for Shine Away? Were there any new approaches you tried for this album?

NAKED GIANTS: Our creative process hasn’t changed so much as deepened. The three of us are always writing music individually, and the collaboration typically begins when one of us brings a little “seed” of a song to the others – a catchy riff or a few lines for a chorus. From there, we lean on our foundation of musical trust in each other and really just jam songs into existence. By this point, we’ve developed what we think of as our little “Naked Giants musical language” and each of us can usually hear where the others want to go without having to talk about it too much. 

What strikes me as different from the previous albums is more emotional than creative. The first two albums were so full of this young anxious energy; with SLUFF we were just excited to be recording in a real studio and touring for the first time, and with The Shadow we were trying to grapple with our internal issues and our societal concerns. All the while we struggled to capture in a recording the liveliness that makes our live shows so much fun. This time around, we’ve relaxed into the band, relying on that “Naked Giants language” and just making music for the pure joy and catharsis of it. We’re still young, we’ve still got a lot to learn, but we’re at the stage where we can trust the process and follow what feels good. We don’t have to try so hard to cram all our energy and emotion into one thing, because we know it’s not so do-or-die – life goes on and we will have new energy and emotion just around the bend! 

MOTEL VOID: You’ve just released your new single, “Apartment 3.” Could you tell us more about the inspiration and story behind this song?

NAKED GIANTS: This song was written in the early days of the pandemic, and we were all there so I don’t have to tell you too much about what it felt like to be isolated in an apartment trying to make sense of something you’ve never experienced before. But in classic Naked Giants synergy, the song picked up different emotional perspectives from each of us. The name Apartment 3 actually refers to Henry’s first apartment with his partner (now wife!) and I think the tender intimacy of that is so beautiful in the context of the terrifying uncertainty of this world in the 2020s. 

MOTEL VOID: You’re from Seattle, Washington. Could you recommend a few of your favorite local artists and venues?

NAKED GIANTS: Too many to name! There are always shows going on here, and we’ve all lost the energy to stay out and see them all! Here are some friends and venues off the top of my head: La Fonda, Little’s House, Black Ends, Tres Leches, Enumclaw, Parisalexa, DoNormaal, The Clockout Lounge in Beacon Hill, Lazy Cow in Fremont, Neumos/Barboza in Capitol Hill. 

MOTEL VOID: Who or what is your biggest inspiration right now?

NAKED GIANTS: Henry got us all into the Grateful Dead over the past few years – it’s been really inspiring to see how one can take a song and reimagine it over and over again, and it’s also helped us see that we can let our live shows breathe more dynamically. We’ve always jammed as a band, but the days are swiftly approaching where we become a bonafide Jam Band!

MOTEL VOID: What are your plans for the rest of the year?”

NAKED GIANTS: Put out the album, play a bunch of shows, engage with and build community which rejects the two-party system, frees Palestine and in so doing frees all of us!

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