Adelaide duo Nakatomi have been making a bit of a splash recently, popping up at various venues around Adelaide with their synth drenched electro goodness and even more recently, with the release of their brand new music video for “The Knife”. Ahead of their upcoming local gig at Rocket Bar and some sweet east coast tour dates, Hamish Cox tells us about the development of his music with Em Smart, the new music video and where Nakatomi is heading next.
The new clip for “The Knife” is really cool. How important do you think really creative and engaging clips are these days?
It’s really important. There’s so much content out there now that you need to do something you’re not only creatively proud of, but also something that you find interesting and fun. We just wanted to make something that we could still be excited about after watching over and over again, when our family and friends go, “Oh, show us your clip!”. That way, we don’t go insane after the 400th time.
It feels almost like a trailer for a straight-to-video cult classic movie from the 80’s, but in a good way. Did you purposefully play up the 80’s atmosphere in making it?
Yeah, we sure did. Our director made sure it hit all the 80’s marks. Cheesy love scenes, dystopian future and a lot of retro effects. He had me sold when I read the scene where the gun salesman gets shot. That was the most 80’s thing ever. Being in gun sales in the 80’s seemed to have at least a 90% fatality rate. They really needed to screen their customers or at least, not hand over loaded guns to robots or people in broken handcuffs.
What brought you two together to create Nakatomi?
We were both hanging out one night and I showed Em some electro song ideas I’d been working on that didn’t really fit with any other acts I was playing in at the time. She immediately got excited and started to write down ideas, going off into another room to record vocals on her phone. I sing about as well as Tara Reid can act, so having someone like Em come in and write these awesome melodies and help shape music with me was awesome. We slowly kept piecing ideas together into songs and the rest is history. I also owed her $20, so I thought I should get her involved so she might forget the debt…it didn’t work.
Who is most influential to your sound? With electronic music being such a hugely diverse genre these days, you can hear a little bit of everything in your music.
Tough question, because there are so many!! It’s like trying to decided who has been the bigger influence on you between your parents! Actually thinking about that now, it is definitely my mum…I can’t respect my dad, because he wears Crocs. In terms of music, we do have our foot firmly planted in some old school 80’s artists like Madonna, Kate Bush, Depeche Mode and Bowie. But we aren’t all 80’s. The last five years has also had such cool diverse electro music coming out that we are influence by. We love stuff from the Bloody Beetroots to Childish Gambino; from Northeast Party House to Major Lazer…just so much music. It does kind of depend on what you listen to around the time of your songwriting; sometimes you’ll just hear something and go, “I love this that vibe, I want to create something like that”. It’s like you are at an all you can eat buffet and you really wanted pasta, but then you see the schnitzel and realise you wanted that all along. Like an all you can eat buffet, when you’re finished, you just hope it doesn’t make you feel ill.
You’ll be supporting JOY. for her Adelaide show; she’s a pretty big name in Australia at the moment, what’s that going to be like?
JOY. is absolutely amazing and we’re so excited to be playing with her. We can’t wait and we’ve been really honing our set to deliver a big punch that night. You could say it will be an absolute JOY to play…I’m sorry. Feel free to burn this interview.
Your music is quite layered and intricate, how have you adapted in thinking about playing it live?
That was a real challenge, as myself and Em both came from bands that played everything live. As a duo, that was just something we couldn’t do. So we sat down and thought, “Should we just grab a laptop and play it that way, or try to actually craft something?” It was pretty clear quickly that we wanted to make a special show and give the crowd a performance they couldn’t help but dance to. We got a mate to play some drums and bass, I brought out all my old synths and Em started being a super weirdo on stage (in a good way) and then the songs just began popping live. It sounds much bigger at our shows and we match that energy with our performance. We give it our everything to get everyone in the crowd up and moving. If we don’t feel like death by halfway through the set, we immediately begin re-evaluating.
You’re playing at Futuresounds in November as well; any other festivals you’re keen on playing?
Futuresounds is an amazing upcoming festival. We co-headlined the last one in June and it was only our third gig, but the crowd just blew the roof off the place! It was a such a good night and it was amazing to see so many great electro acts and fans coming out of the woodwork. The sense of community in the Adelaide electro scene is just a really beautiful thing and to be back there playing again with such awesome acts like The Swiss, it is just going to be a hell of a night. We’re also travelling back especially from Melbourne that day to play the show and then we’re straight back the next day for the rest of the tour. That’s how much fun we know the show is going to be! It’s basically like Disneyland for electro fans. We love playing festivals, so any that would have us, we would go for. We try and make every show a festival-level performance, so we’re ready to go when the opportunity arises.
Going into 2016, what’s the plan for you two? Any releases on the way?
We currently have a tour planned in November this year and then first day back, we’re in the studio to do it all again. We have a handful of tracks ready to go, so we’ll see what works, what doesn’t and have something ready to go out by the start of 2016. We’re like music sharks, if we stop, we die…and by ‘die’, we mean ‘sleep and eat pizza’. Which I think a shark would do if given the choice.
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Nakatomi play Rocket Bar in Adelaide this Friday night (October), now alongside Owen Rabbit and Lonelyspeck. They will then be hitting up the following venues in November:
November 20th – Mynt Lounge, Werribee
November 21st – FUTURESOUNDS | Adelaide
November 22nd – The Toff in Town, Melbourne
November 26th – Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Sydney
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