Thomas Powers is apologising for sounding like a grumpy old man. “The music industry doesn’t go, ‘Let’s set up certain systems for this’; it just goes, ‘That’s where the kids are. That’s where the money is. Go there.’ It’s reactive.” He passionately detests the chokehold TikTok has on the music industry.
At 36, he’s far from geriatric, yet he’s had what to some is a lifetime of achievement. The Naked and Famous, the band he formed in Auckland in 2007 with Alisa Xayalith, achieved a stardom many local musicians can only dream of. The indie electronica group took on monstrous Los Angeles with a tenacious spirit.
Their songs Young Blood and Punching in a Dream became hits. They had Spotify streaming numbers of more than 280 million and 120 million respectively, as well as 75 million YouTube views between them. These days, the band seems to have reverted to the original duo of Powers and Xayalith, who parted ways as a couple after the band’s early 2010s run of success.
Powers’ new solo album, A Tyrant Crying in Private, doesn’t aim for The Naked and Famous’s youthful euphoria. It’s something slower, more careful, and cohesive. It has musical motifs that call back to one another. The work swims through a space between alternative and neoclassical. It’s not without some catchy hooks but Powers says it felt decisively and indulgently him.
It also sounds like Powers’ calling card for scoring movies, especially on tracks such as An Opening and Half Pirouette which are evocative instrumentals. Powers cites a musical hero, Trent Reznor, who alternates between the screaming industrial rock of his band Nine Inch Nails and and his gentler, Oscar-winning scores for films. It’s something Powers aspires to as well. “You know when men scream at the television when their sports team is winning? That’s me listening to film scores.”
Opening track Little Lungs involved arranger-producer-conductor Rob Moose collating key moments from the album into a cinematic overture. Moose’s credits include arrangements for Bon Iver, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens and Taylor Swift.
Other collaborations on the album include indie-rock artist and boygenius member Julien Baker on Empty Voices, a darkly harmonious duet with a mechanical production slicing through. Powers met the singer-songwriter in 2017 and they finally collaborated when the pandemic hit, and touring stopped. “What are you up to? We’re all stranded. Do you want to work on some music?” he asked.
Remote work turned into a meeting in LA at the same home studio Powers is beaming into his Listener interview from. Baker’s next studio appointment was with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus on sessions for the Grammy-winning boygenius album, The Record.
Fellow LA-based Kiwi musician Chelsea Jade Metcalf also features on tracks The Big Feel and Li. “I’m extremely grateful for who chipped in on A Tyrant Crying in Private because I feel like maybe without their endorsement, I would have been too scared to commit,” Powers admits.
Powers says the time spent gaining experience, inspiration and identity has allowed him to be more selective about his image as a solo artist. The timing’s right to take centre stage now rather than as his 17-year-old self – he thinks he would have failed had he tried at the time.
“I was seriously “angry man in the studio” type of thing. But Alisa listened to Fiona Apple and interesting indie music. I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll just do this, I won’t think too hard about it.’ And then The Naked and Famous became my baby.”
That band, Powers says, is his identifying mark, and it’s difficult to let it go. “That’s who we are. She’s Alisa from The Naked and Famous. I’m Thomas from The Naked and Famous.”
He says every artist like him who wants to be seen as multifaceted struggles with the bittersweetness of being associated with one project. But he’s quick to reassure his gratitude and pride. “I grew up watching 90s alt-rock guys be interviewed about their accidentally successful thing and be bitter about it,” he says, “I would feel bummed if my hero made me feel like a dumb-ass for loving their biggest song.”
Early The Naked and Famous records are something he looks back on with nostalgia. But perhaps it’s too soon to talk about the band retrospectively.
“I just came from Alisa’s house. We’re working on new demos,” he chuckles in answer to a question about the group’s status. He must have expected it, following the Fleetwood Mac-like break-ups and make-ups within the band’s almost two-decade history. “Alisa and I will be 80 years old in a nursing home fighting over mixes. We won’t ever quit.”
A Tyrant Crying in Private is released on May 17.
