Shy Child

Thu 3rd Jan, 2008 in Features

New York indie-dance duo Shy Child doesn’t do down-time. After releasing their third LP Noise Won’t Stop in early 2007, the boys have been busily living up to the album’s title. They’ve supported everyone from Klaxons to Hot Chip to Muse (at their Wembley Stadium spectacular, no less), whilst packing out their own headline shows.

Shy Child is en route to Australia this month for the Big Day Out tour, and it seems they’re as excited as we are. FasterLouder’s Jack Tregoning spoke to drummer Nate Smith about the band’s heady schedule.

I see you guys have a gig coming up at Fabric Nightclub in London. Do you spend a lot of time in Europe and the UK?
We’ve actually been touring Europe almost constantly this year, but right now we’re in New York. We’re coming back to London for a one-off show at Fabric which we did last year too. We’ve spent so much time in London it’s kinda weird not to be there. We want to go back and see some friends, play a good show. Fabric is a great club. It’s got sub-woofers in the floor, so that’s cool!

How has the response been in Europe generally?
It’s been really good – in England especially, but France and some other places as well. It’s been solid.

How is the live music scene in New York at the moment? Is it comparable to Europe?
I dunno, since we’ve been back we haven’t played any shows. I don’t know if we’ll have a chance to play any before we come over for Big Day Out. We also haven’t put out the album in the States yet, and it won’t come out till March.

Was it a conscious choice to try the album out elsewhere before releasing it in the US?
It was just sort of circumstance. We have our label in London and they don’t have distribution in the States, so the idea was always to license it to someone here. But we’re already writing new songs and hoping to record in spring, so if all goes well we’ll have another album out in 2008.

In addition to your own shows, you’ve also played a few high-profile support slots. Does opening for another band sharpen up your live show?
Oh, definitely. We’ve been lucky with the bands we’ve toured with, like Hot Chip and Klaxons. Those are two bands who have really, really solid live shows and you can definitely learn something from seeing them every night for a few weeks. Klaxons have just got amazing energy and absolutely get the crowd going, so I hope that’s rubbed off on us a little bit. It’s important to know how to interact with the crowd without going too far.

There was a three-year gap between your second album One With The Sun and its 2007 follow-up Noise Won’t Stop. Did you have a clear idea where you wanted to take your sound on the new record?
We never really recorded an album in a studio. We’ve always done it in a bedroom. So doing it in a real studio; spending time with it and doing – œreal’ production stuff was something we really wanted to try. We wanted to make it sound as good as possible. Playing live is great, but we don’t really want the live shows to sound like the albums. We love well-produced music. We didn’t want to do something garage-y and lo-fi. It had to sound high-quality when you play it through speakers.

There’s a lot of – œ80s pop and R&B influence in your music, and your bandmate Pete Cafarella even plays a keytar onstage. Do you like to play with that element of kitsch?
It’s not really something we think about. I mean, the keytar has got a kitsch reputation, but it’s more of a utilitarian device for us. We did an interview with a magazine that was doing an article about the keytar and they wanted to take a photo of Pete holding one. They handed him this little, cheesy-looking ‘80s Yamaha thing. He was like, “This is a toy. Not to be a pain in the arse about it, but this is what I do: I play a professional keytar, not a little toy! I can’t pose with this thing!” [laughs]

Were there any specific influences on Noise Won’t Stop?
There were tons of influences, lots of stuff that we were listening to at the time. I can’t even remember any specific things. We’ve got tons of music on our iPods, and we listen to pretty much anything. I think we’re more influenced by production values. Obviously Timbaland gets mentioned a lot, but that’s someone we have a lot of respect for.

Do you think there’s a general movement towards the breaking down of clear-cut musical genres?
I’d like to think so, but it’s hard. New genres get invented all the time – whether they’re real or not. We got labeled as – œnew rave’, which we didn’t understand – œcause we’re playing the same music we were playing before the term was invented. It doesn’t make sense though to actively disassociate yourself with that tag, though.

You’re coming to Australia on the Big Day Out tour. Have you been versed on what to expect from the crowds down here?
I know it’ll be huge! And there’s tons of amazing bands: Bjork, Battles, Rage Against the Machine, Kool Keith … I’m psyched to come. It’s going to be summer, so I’m really excited.

Catch Shy Child bringing the noise on the Big Day Out tour and sideshows:

Sunday 20 January – Gold Coast Parklands
Tuesday 22 January – Spectrum, Sydney (sideshow)
Friday 25 January – Sydney Showgrounds
Monday 28 January – Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Wednesday 30 January – Revolver, Melb (sideshow)
Friday 1 February – Adelaide Showground
Sunday 3 February – Claremont Showgrounds, Perth