Nada Surf: The Interview

February 27th, 2008

It’s a little known fact that Nada Surf were recently in town (and will be again in April for a proper show!) to do an exclusive in-store performance in support of their (then unreleased) new album Lucky. We had a chance to talk to Matthew Caws (vocals) and Ira Elliot (drums) about a bunch of things that we were dying to know, and here’s what the lads had to say!

Do you have any current fixations? Like TV?

Matthew: You know, the only show I’ve watched first episode to last – and I mean, glued, like, had to be home to watch it was The White Rapper Show. It was flippin’ fantastic. I was thrilled.

Ira: I’m a really fan of The Whitest Kids You Know. They showed it I think on Fuse. It’s five young kids doing sketch comedy, kind of like Kids In The Hall – really irreverent and super funny. I’m kind of in love with those guys.

What was the first record you bought with your own money?

Matthew: My first record was a Jackson Five triple set – it wasn’t gatefold or anything, just three records crammed into one sleeve. They were wearing nudie suits! It was a white cover and they were wearing white nudie suits with clouds and sheep and fences. Bill Cosby narrated one song called “The Day That Basketball Died”.

Ira: Mine was a double album – 1975. Kiss Alive. Not Kiss Alive 2 – that was crap. Kiss Alive is a proper rock album. I was obsessed with Kiss for about two years.

And…what word makes you cringe when you hear it?

Matthew: Well, I like the concept, but I don’t like the word “fantasy”. It’s the T and S – so close to each other, and yet, making such a ruckus. I’m not fond of that word at all. There’s a word in French that I really don’t like. It’s the word for spoon – cuilliere. It’s queasy. It’s got queasy built right into it!

What’s the most confusing trend that you’ve seen develop in the last few years? Crocs, Ugg boots, you tell me.

Ira: Those are very good examples right there!

Matthew: There’s a new trend in Europe that was being described to us, called Techtonic. I went online and checked it out. It’s a lot of arm jive, hand jive with oversized neon t-shirts. But a LOT of jive. A lot.

Ira: And the soundtrack to it is classic Euro disco really fast. It’s sort of modern rave. Some weird French subculture.

Matthew [pondering]: I mean…Ugg boots in summer. ARE they comfortable?

Well, I don’t subscribe to that particular fashion phenomenon.

Ira: Yeah, why would SHE know? That’s just terrible.

Do you have any favourite recent music videos? Do you still watch videos?

Matthew: I guess I watch them on YouTube. A friend of mine, BA Miale, she won the Les Savy Fav contest to do a cheap video for them and she just did another one.

Ira: I haven’t been watching videos at all, and if I do, I turn on one of those retro classic channels.

What about your own videos?

Matthew: We just did a video for Whose Authority. It follows a bike messenger’s day. We play little cameos and at one point he almost runs two businessmen over and that’s me and Ira. Daniel wasn’t in town at the time so they made posters for his fictitious solo album and Ira and I walked to rehearsal past this wall of posters in the video. And then you see someone sitting under a tree reading a magazine and it’s got Daniel on the cover. It’s super low budget except for at the end where there’s a helicopter shot that pulls back to show the whole city.

What do you consider your career high & low?

Matthew: One of our career highs was having Joey Ramone join us on stage for six or seven songs that we’d learned ahead of time, because we played a record release party for this Iggy Pop tribute record that we were all on. It was suggested that we be his backup band, which we were. So we did “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “1970″ which was The Stooges song that he covered. And he apparently really enjoyed it and he said next time you have a show, learn your six or seven favourite Ramones songs and I’ll get up on stage and sing with you. And that was unbelievable!

Ira: Yeah, that was pretty mind-blowing.

Matthew: It was so surreal. I mean I still have the setlist and it makes no sense that we actually got to that and it was great.

Ira: There’s a video recording of it, that I saw. We sound pretty authentic. I have to say, we did a great job.

Matthew: As for career low? Hmm…oh, actually, opening up for INXS. That was SO lame. That was in Paris in 1997 or so. And clearly the whole audience was NOT having it. What were we even doing there? Ira is not Michael Hutchence, and neither am I, and neither is Daniel for that matter. And for anybody to be on stage who’s not Michael Hutchence is just…bring on the main course. So that was a lousy half hour

Your songs have been in a lot of TV shows – do you ever watch the shows?

Matthew: Well, the ones we’re in! I saw ten minutes of The O.C. But I don’t watch One Tree Hill. I do watch Six Feet Under when I can…and I like Heroes a lot!

I mentioned to a few people the song If You Leave and they said “yeah, by Nada Surf” – they didn’t know it was a cover!

Matthew: That’s hilarious! I find that disturbing.

Ira: Our version’s a lot different. We took out about sixteen of the key changes. The original one changes keys about every eight seconds. We took out about half of them.

Matthew: That song by King Missile called “Detachable Penis” was credited to us SO many times!

Ira: There’s talking in it, so people thought it was us.

Matthew: When I was first fooling around on Napster, I was searching to see if our own songs were there. And Detachable Penis kept popping up all over the place as being by us! At first I took it upon myself to actually write to these people one by one to say “that’s not our song. Please change the name of the artist!”

How often do people still talk to you about Popular in interviews?

Matthew: Pretty often, and it’s always like “score one for me!” We’re fine with it.

Ira: They always start with an apology – “now I don’t really want to dwell on this, but…”

Matthew: That was an albatross around our neck for about two years…and since then it’s kinda fun.

Ira: …but now it’s just a little canary in a cage.

What are your favourite chocolate bars?

Ira: Fallback for me is always a Twix bar. You’ve got the crunchy, and the chocolate…I’ve always liked those.

Matthew: Oh, I like Bounty. I think it’s pretty tasty. I think it’s more interesting than Almond Joy. I don’t really think you need that almond in there. I just wanna go right for the coconut.

Ira: Some people are really against nuts in chocolate. Raisins…

Matthew: I really like the Fruit & Nut bar, kind of kooky. I really like super dark chocolate and seeking out the 77%.

Ira: Dark chocolate M&Ms. Mm.

Matthew: I know this is a con, because it’s white chocolate, but I love white chocolate covered pretzels. The salt and the crunch, and the white….ooh.

Ira: Ben & Jerry’s made an ice cream that was peanut butter, chocolate, and then white chocolate pretzels IN the ice cream. They weren’t kidding around man – that was a stoner treat.

Matthew: Oof. Wow. I saw someone with chocolate Altoids – that was a LITTLE weird.

Saved By The Bell or 90210?

Matthew: 90210!

Ira: See I have to agree, because I’ve been compared to Screech enough times that I can’t even go there…and it was just once.

Pretty In Pink or Sixteen Candles?

Matthew: I’d probably say Pretty In Pink for plot, but Sixteen Candles because I was in a pilot that somebody put together for VH1 and it didn’t make it in the end. But it was a theatre rock thing and then it would cut to the band. I sang the Thompson Twins song “If You Were Here”.

Hillary or Obama?

Matthew: I feel like Hillary is probably better qualified and might in the nuts and bolts of it do a better job, but Obama will do more globally in terms of having a new ‘face’ on the country. And having other countries that we’ve lost as friends being more likely to imagine that we can redeem ourselves by having a fresh direction.

Ira: I have to agree. I’ve been vasillating between the two, because I think they’re both really good candidates but that does bother me – the Bush/Clinton thing. She’s very divisive that way – people still equate her with Bill. And Bill’s gonna be sitting there saying “You know, I don’t think you oughtta do that, honey.” I would probably lean toward Obama!

Posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 2:05 pm by Soja and is filed under MuchMusic.com Interviews.