The Nasty get naughty in “Sex“, a three-track EP filled with sexuality, booze, and a sh1t load of fun. Get down on it and bask yourself with the unorthodox charisma and funky attitude of this unpredictable trio.
One thing that I love about the Nasty is that you never know what to expect. One minute is pure garage rock, the other a laid-back mellow tune to pass the time. Also, the creativity they put into their image and music videos is unparalleled, from amusing meme-like single covers with Elon Musk in them, to strange face-masks and make-up, the originality behind these guys is really something to look at.
Now, after a successful string of single releases which include Growl, Dust, and Cut, Nine O’clock Nasty turns the tide and brings us a three-piece EP of cool, garage-rock-infused tracks that might be their best work up to date. The EP includes the songs: Do Me Too, What Have You Done For Me Lately?, and Indoor Boyfriend.
The three tracks are such a blast as a whole and in themselves. Starting with their characteristic rumbling bass sound in Do Me Too, the Nasty presents a sexy track that vibrates with an industrial vibe and the perfect amount of perversion. A song for jealousy and polyamory. Its catchy chorus and kinky lyrics will have you hooked in a matter of seconds.
Next, the coolest track, for me at least, is What Have You Done For Me Lately? Boy, oh boy, those drums sound fantastic! Just like the intro from When The Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin. A song for sexual politics, and the transactional nature of relationships. This is probably my favorite song by the Nasty. Badass riffs and dope chorus chants. Brutal!
“A friend, hearing the title of this song said “Oh, it sounds like a Morrissey song.” No, this is probably the least Morrissey song on the planet. Well, bottom 10 at least.” – NON
And, last but not least, the mellowest track of the Nasty (ever), Indoor Boyfriend, makes a delightful ending with its beach-rock groove and indie vibe. A song for the “party animal”, a man with so much pure sexual charisma the Nasty had to write a song about him. If one thing’s certain is that these guys know how to have a good time.
I had the amusing and eye-opening experience to share a little Q&A with the boys. And you can read it right here! Only in Less Than 1000…
1.- I don’t know why I didn’t ask you this before: How on earth did you come up with the 9 O’Clock Nasty name?
Although we would not say we were a Leicester band, it is where we come from and there are quite a few references and jokes in what we do that are very local. One of the things mothers would tell their children around here when they wouldn’t go to bed is that the “9 o’clock horses would come for them.” It’s a real thing, a local legend and some children did vanish into the night. The real story is too long to explain here, but it’s explained on the internet. So we were nearly the 9 o’clock Horses.
Then we were having a conversation about how during a night at a bar, at around 9 o’clock there is a deciding moment. The night could be quiet and everyone go home a few hours later. Or it can get nasty. You end up waking up in the wrong place with a leather hat and half of a moustache. We realized that in different ways, we sometimes provoked things to get nasty. 9 o’clock Nasty is about that moment. When the unconscious decision is made in the group to take the darker path and see what happens.
2.- Your sound is getting better by the minute. Would you care to tell us a bit more about your recording process?
We started determined to record everything with analogue equipment. We found and repaired some stuff and had some multitrack tape. There was a real pleasure in editing with a razor blade. We did however run out of fresh 1/4” tape and the process was getting frustrating, so we made the switch to digital for Politic. King Thing was the first song we made that way, in many ways it was an experiment, that became a song.
We know some seriously knowledgable sound engineers and we know that we break a lot of the “rules” in our approach. Truth is, we like a sound that is right on the very edge of distortion, so that is what we make. We’re getting better and better at it as we produce more songs.
How we record depends on who initiates the song. Sometimes it is a rough recording of us playing the song for the very first time that we strip down and re-record. As The Ship Goes Down is almost entirely made up of a single performance with a few tweaks. Sometimes it is built up in many layers. The one thing we’re really learning is the importance of stripping songs down. Deleting everything that does not contribute to the best version we can make. That can be hard when you’ve written a really clever bass-part for a song that ends up being taken out, but we have an agreement that we won’t let anything through that isn’t right.
So although we perhaps project an image of being quite deliberately amateurish and reckless, we are actually obsessives, that want to sound that way!
3.- It’s clear to me that you guys don’t take yourselves too seriously and that you like to have fun in the process. Do you believe that artists should take themselves a bit more lightly? What would you recommend for any aspiring artist to keep as lightened up as you do?
Seriousness is to some extent earned. A lot of very talented new bands make the mistake of thinking that cool is the same as being pretentious, that it is enough to put your work out into the world and your genius will be recognized. We’ve been around. We have the scars from being in bands and we know just what a tiny pimple on the arse of Spotify and the music industry we are. That actually makes it more fun. We can get away with things established artists can’t and we can be playful and bold because we genuinely don’t care if we get a negative reaction. As long as we are making something we know is good, we can have fun.
Our advice to a new artist would be to ignore any advice from people like us. If they did want to hear it, we’d say something about talent without hard work being pissing in the wind.
4.- Do you have any gig plans?
Yes and no. We want to perform, but playing live is very hard when your audience is scattered over the world rather than concentrated in one place. We have found a fourth Nasty to join us to play live. What we won’t do is play a straight forward gig in a bar to 50 people. We might put on a complete freak show for a few people and film it, or perform live online, or get together with other bands to put on a really twisted cabaret.
We’ve had some rehearsals and the songs sound good when played live.
If we could combine doing something really cool with playing a gig, that would be the compelling offer. To travel somewhere different and meet some like-minded folk and play a gig we would all remember forever, that would be worth the effort.
5.- Anything else you’d like to add
Thank you for your support. We feel like we’re getting some traction and slowly building an audience. The new material we have planned for March and April, and the LP that will follow are all really strong. The LP is called “By All Means Necessary.”
We’ve really enjoyed working with a number of other bands, some of which you’ve featured yourselves. We have a playlist we would really recommend to anyone wanting to hear good new music. You can find it at https://tinyurl.com/newindie
Don’t forget to support the Nasty by following them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, SoundCloud, YouTube, and Spotify. You can also check out their official website. If you enjoy their music and are able to provide monetary support, you might consider downloading it on Bandcamp.
It also helps to stream and share their music; you can obviously find it in the following Playlists: Less Than 1,000 Followers, Alterindie State Of Mind, and Sickest & Dopest.
Remember that you can always find me here Linktree MadZen for all my social media and collaborations.
P.S. If you enjoy discovering new artists and fresh new music you can subscribe to this blog Less Than 1,000 Followers and follow the Playlist with all the artists that we have presented here!
This coverage was created via Musosoup #sustainablecurator