Friday, June 21, the day of the Fête de la Musique, Matthew Caws, guitarist and leader of the band Nada Surf, lugged his guitar case backstage in a venue in the Bastille district of Paris. The zen fifty-something gave a solo acoustic concert broadcast live on Oüi FM radio. A little taste of Moon Mirrorthe ninth album and excellent vintage of the trio he has formed since 1994 with bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot, reinforced by keyboardist Louie Lino, who joined them during the 2000s.
Without seeming to, the band from Brooklyn, New York, is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the release of their first single, The Plan/Telescope. At its beginnings, Nada Surf could have been what we usually call a one hit wonderthe “one-hit band,” with the aptly named Populara nervous rock anthem of the “Nirvanesque” persuasion released in 1996, which revealed them to the general public. Signed at the time to the major Elektra Records, the American trio was somewhat hastily placed in the alternative rock category with big guitar riffs alongside Weezer and others.
Painful experience
However, their second album, The Proxymity Effect (1998), surprised by its more chiseled pop approach, under the aegis of REM, Teenage Fanclub and the Beatles. This direction did not correspond to the expectations of their record company – a two-year legal procedure followed so that the trio could recover the rights to the album. Despite this painful experience, the “ex-Popular » bounce back as independents and release masterful albums: Let Go (2002), The Weight Is a Gift (2005) et Lucky (2008).
Since then, the most Francophile of American rock groups (Matthew Caws, like Daniel Lorca, studied at the French high school in New York) has always been welcomed with open arms in France and its neighboring countries, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland, where they tour almost every year and fill venues like the Bataclan in Paris and the Coopérative de Mai in Clermont-Ferrand.
Read also the interview in 2002 | Article reserved for our subscribers Nada Surf, back on popular ground
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However, one cannot help but ask: what still motivates the 57-year-old singer to continue in a rock band? “Inventing songs, singing and playing, that’s what calms me the mostanswers Matthew Caws. It’s something almost meditative, which gives me comfort. And then I like to shoot, the stage has become a bit like our home. Over the last thirty years, I’ve had several romantic relationships, changed apartments, changed jobs, but the stage has always remained there.” Even if, over time, the family is leaning more in the balance, admits this father of two boys aged 20 and 7.
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