Nate Amos Of This Is Lorelei Is A Generational Songwriting Talent

It really does work well as a cohesive album. It made me think about how Box For Buddy as the first “proper” This Is Lorelei record. In an interview around that time, you described the Bandcamp albums as “all the other bullshit” you made on the way to Box For Buddy. How do you think of those records now? Do they feel like rough drafts for something you were able to later refine?

Setting out to make a Bandcamp release and setting out to make a proper album, they’re two different pursuits. In the context of Box For Buddy, when I look back at the earlier releases, I think of them more as mixtapes. They’re not albums that were designed to function in any context larger than just a small Bandcamp following. It was more about documenting little periods of time than about trying to make an album. It’s just a less formal process. I feel like when you’re making an album that’s going to come out on a label and there’s going to be all the fucking hullabaloo around that, that creates a situation where you’re like, “Well, whatever I make right now is going to be one of the defining factors of my life for the next year or so.” So that’s a much more daunting thing than being like, “Whatever I make right now will go up on Bandcamp and then I’ll never think about it ever again.” It’s just lower pressure. It was just a lot chiller, I guess.

If those Bandcamp albums are “lower stakes” releases, like you say, I still think you have a pretty high batting average. Move Around, for instance, is totally legit as a strong, stand-alone This Is Lorelei record.

It’s all there for people to make whatever they want of it. I’m not particularly worried about what people think about the back catalog, but for the people who would be into it, I hope they enjoy it. I don’t really expect that stuff to be evaluated in the same context as Box For Buddy, because it is just a different thing.

It’s clear from listening to the original recordings that you haven’t changed the songs all that much. It’s not like you went to a fancy studio and really blew them out. Is that something you would ever be interested in?

That’s not super high on my list of things I want to do. Part of the reason I didn’t change them a lot was because I felt like the arrangement is part of the songwriting. Though I didn’t really go back and reference the original versions. I tried to do it very quickly. I didn’t really do a ton of takes. In order to glue these songs together when they’ve been written so far apart, I tried to re-record them all in the same moment as if it was a live album, though I was multi-tracking it piece by piece.

You’ve told this story before, but I’m fascinated by this inflection point in your career, where you became obsessed with “All The Small Things” by Blink-182 and it inspired you to move away from experimental music and toward writing pop songs, which is strange, but it also makes sense

You mentioned the Move Around EP; That was the thing that I made at that moment. The albums that I’d put out leading up to that were way odder and darker and more aggressively compositional. When I went through the weird “All The Small Things” thing, I just had a rewire moment where it’s like, “Everything should be short and fast and catchy.” It’s about every second pulling its weight and brute-forcing the engagement of the listener, rather than asking for patience from the listener.

Why did that appeal to you?

I realized that I needed to relax a little bit and have a little more fun with music again. Because I think I had gotten very serious to a point where I felt like in order to progress in the direction I was going, I had to drift further into the void. I wanted to do something that was just more relatable. And in order to break out of the more experimental vibe, I had to set very firm boundaries for myself. Once I had that done, I allowed myself to stretch a little bit more than in this new context. But I had to put myself through pop boot camp first.

The thing I keep coming back to you is your way with melody. There’s just a constant strain of hooks and songcraft in all your work. Where does that come from?

I feel like a lot of it comes from bluegrass, honestly.

That’s interesting. When I think about bluegrass, my mind immediately goes to the instrumental prowess required to play that music. I don’t necessarily think about melody.

To me, all of the catchiest melodies that I’ve heard are from bluegrass. The thing about bluegrass is it has a very particular framework. To clarify, because bluegrass means a bunch of different things now, I’m talking about traditional bluegrass before it wandered the “New Grass” thing. That’s different, and it has a wider breadth of what’s acceptable. But [in traditional bluegrass], you have a set group of chords you’re allowed to use. And the challenge becomes how do you use all these tools and make something that’s unique, while still adhering to those rules? I think it’s a lot more difficult to write a traditional song that stands on its own, than it is to make something that’s crazy, uses a bunch of different chords or experimental textures or whatever. You’re using the same couple of boxes as everyone else. And you have to figure out a way to make it stick out.

I think that has had a big influence on the way that I try to write more traditional songs, because for years and years — and even now with Water From Your Eyes — part of what makes it interesting is the production and the trickery and stuff. But you don’t get to do any of that with bluegrass. The same way you don’t get to do it in classic rock.

That makes me think about “Dancing In The Club,” where you’re taking this electro-pop template and combining it with Bruce Hornsby-like piano flourishes. And then, when MJ Lenderman covers it, you can also hear the folk song underneath it all.

I think that’s a good example. I feel like with the vast majority of songs from the Lorelei back catalog, that same thing could be argued, that it’s just a folk song dressed up in one way or another. I have come to realize that no matter how much it’s disguised, every song I write, it’s either a bluegrass song or a lullaby. There’s not really that much deviation in terms of the core emotions that are being chased.

There’s been a mini-trend in indie rock the past few years where prominent artists have simultaneous solo and group projects. There’s Cameron Winter and Geese, and Lenderman had a similar situation when he was still with Wednesday. But with you, the differences between Water From Your Eyes and This Is Lorelei seem even more pronounced.

It is two very different head spaces. Though I don’t think it’s always been that way necessarily. Honestly, earlier on in Water From Your Eyes, Lorelei was definitely the more experimental of the two projects. But the way things have shaken out, it isn’t anymore. It’s more of a traditional songcraft project. And Water From Your Eyes is more experimental. It creates a situation where I can have a project be a particular thing without ceasing to work in ways that I work that don’t necessarily fit in with that project.

Do you think there’s been any crossover? For lack of a better term, I feel like this year’s Water From Your Eyes record was more “song-y.”

The main thing with the new Water album is that it was written largely on guitar rather than on a computer, so it became a little poppier. And a fair amount of that stuff started off as Lorelei ideas. Like “Blood On The Dollar,” we changed some of the lyrics, but that started off as a Lorelei demo. A lot of the instrumental stuff started as Lorelei stuff. And the guitar riff on “Playing Classics” and the guitar riff on “Nights In Armor” were both lifted from Lorelei demos.

There’s another quote from an old interview I wanted to ask about, where you’re talking about process: “It’s studying classic songwriting but also making fun of it,” which I feel like it’s probably less true on the last record than it may be on these Bandcamp records.

That’s really funny because I would almost say it’s the opposite.

Oh, really?

Well, with Box For Buddy, a big part of that album was poking fun at different classic songwriting archetypes, whereas I feel like with the Lorelei back catalog, I wasn’t doing that in a way that was particularly self-aware. It definitely applies to both because I don’t know what’s the point in making music if you’re not having fun with it. I feel like a lot of musicians take music so completely seriously. And that’s totally fine, however you want to approach it. But at the end of the day, you’re writing and singing your little songs for people, which is inherently a funny thing. I saw this tweet a month ago that made me laugh really hard. It was like. “I was in the car with my coworker Bob, and we were listening to Megadeth and smoking weed. And Dave in the backseat said, ‘You know what? These guys aren’t scary, and I’ll tell you why: because they’re playing guitars.'”

Right, exactly.

So, it’s a funny thing, especially if you’re writing in a “traditional” way. All this stuff has been done before, so poking fun at it is a way to engage with the art form without being all pretentious about it.

I know you’re a Beatles fan, and what you just said made me think of “The White Album.” You can hear them making fun of different genres throughout that record, from country to doo-wop to Music Hall to The Beach Boys.

That album’s a great example of exactly what I’m talking about. And I think that’s why at the end of the day, that’s my favorite Beatles album. It’s self-aware of what it is, in a way that I think is unique to that album.

What’s on the horizon for you? Will there be another “proper” This Is Lorelei record soon?

I’ve been writing. I have the next album of new material finished already. I try to stay at least one or two releases ahead of the schedule all the time.

Holo Boy is out 12/12 via Double Double Whammy. Find more information here.