How To Win Fans And Alienate Record Companies

“We were in Holland,” he explains, “and I felt so primitive with my feet with all these advanced Dutch people riding around on bikes, so I went into a store thinking I might rent one, and there it was for €145 – a fold up kids’ bike big enough for me. So we put it in the bay of the bus and we’ve had it for the past two months of the tour. I get to actually see some of the cities we visit now, which is quite novel. It’s the greatest thing ever! I wasn’t stoned when I bought it, but maybe I was when I had the idea though,” he adds, with a wry grin. It might explain the logic.

Nada Surf made their presence known by way of their ’96 debut album High/Low – a collection of sparkling pop gems propelled up the charts by the success of teenage anthem, ‘Popular’. The band’s combination of Pixies-esque slacker pop, hook-laden rock and socially apt lyrics struck a chord with disaffected youths the world over, your correspondent included.

“‘Popular’ did really well, but was a complete accident,” says Caws. “I wrote it for fun. I’d been fooling around with some Sonic Youthy chords and reading this etiquette book that I’d bought for 25c.”

An etiquette book?
“Yeah, it was called Penny’s Guide To Teenage Charm And Popularity. It said Glamour Editorial Dept. on the inside – it was from 1962. A lot of the lines in that song are totally lifted. So yes, there are three important rules for breaking up. It’s absolutely true. It’s really in the book and so I wrote a chorus from the stand point of someone who saw things that simply, and then we would have friends get up on stage and read from the book, so the fact that that turned into a pop single was a surprise!”

However, the band’s much anticipated follow-up did not encounter the same reaction as its predecessor. Upon completion, The Proximity Effect was rejected by Elektra records on the grounds that they “didn’t hear a single”. Much label wrangling ensued, with the album receiving a belated Stateside release on the band’s own label. In response, Nada Surf’s critically acclaimed third album Let Go (released in 2002) offered something of a second coming for the band.

“What happened was that because things became so confused, Let Go was like making our first album over again. No one was expecting a record or looking for a record, and we didn’t go looking for any kind of a deal or anything because we didn’t want one until we were done with the album. Also, we were home, and since we weren’t very busy we were in a very peaceful place instead of being on tour all the time and reading the NME and being all kind of like ‘in the rock’. I was working in a record store and having a normal life which gave it that sort of innocent, first album, real life, real stories, real stuff, feeling… it’s something I’m very grateful for. It’s one hell of a way to go about it. Basically, we made a better first album.”