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Following up several singles and a totally authentic live album to help sustain the anticipation over the years, New York City rocker Nat Brower is back with his new full-length album Flour, a witty, self-fulfilling statement of the big city rock 'n' roll grind. While most of the songs are downbeat in theme, Brower cooks up some studio trickery and serves a platter of glam-glossed power pop with decade-turning skinny-tie rock 'n' roll that's reminiscent of Roy Wood, Mud, Marshall Crenshaw, and '70s Kinks and Beach Boys. To celebrate the new album, we got in touch with Brower who sends us a track-by-track guide to dig into the stories behind each snappy number.
Now It's Time (To Get Serious)
Nat Brower: '70s Beach Boys are deeply engrained in my brain. Sunflower, Surf's Up, Love You, the Carl and the Passions album… I definitely referenced their "I Can Hear Music" cover for ideas. But you know, my song is about existential dread. Not dissimilar from what Brian often conveys, musically at least. That is, I can hear his own existential dread in his music, knowing what we know about him, even though that’s not explicit lyrically.
Confrontation
I had the hook to it rattling around in my head for years! The hook being, I guess, "confrontation, doing things you don't wanna do." I just decided to make this into an actual song so that became my mission.
Hard Road
This is a perfect example of what I was talking about before, where I had part of it—the main riff—for a long time. I kept getting stuck not knowing where to go with it, so I stepped away from it. Then one day, all of a sudden, I just built the rest of the parts, abandoning all previous ideas. The song is about touring [laughs]. I kind of wanted to write like a "man-this-sucks" kind of song. I think the message can apply to "hard times" in general.
On The Corner
Again, something I had on the back-burner for a while! It was written to be a Tommy James rip-off song. It's actually about struggling to find inspiration—you search far and wide for looking for it, but it usually comes when you're not looking. The "her" in the song ("I gotta find her") is really "it." It's like a '60s bubblegum song about cosmic wisdom [laughs]. A lot of inspiration comes from my dreams, including song ideas.
Harmony Guitar
This is about my acoustic guitar, which is a Harmony H-162 that's been modified—with "x" bracing instead of the original ladder, new tuners, frets, nut, saddle all sorts of things—by this guy in Minnesota. I wrote the song when I received it in the mail. It's a cool guitar. It's the acoustic on the record, of course.
Speed Bike
Unlike the last song, this is not an ode to anything I own. Would be cool if I had one though!
Under The Table
Yeah this one actually just flew right out of me. Could have easily been a Nancy song! It's my Elton Motello rip-off. The guy who's dressed in English leather, with Czech lager in his German boot, is a has-been rock 'n' roller/drunkard who ruled in the old days. Was channeling Elton Motello's "He’s A Rebel" mixed with "Get the Guy."
(Ooh Baby!) I'm Tired
This is basically what I say every morning when I wake up. If this is my "depression" album, this is the exemplary "depression" song.
More Than A Year
Do you ever look back at something in your life and go, "wow, that was more than a year ago?" This is sort of a song about that feeling. In fact, I had that feeling while making this song. There were many versions that I scratched and reworked over the years.
Sunday
Wanted to make a sort of medley with the last song. I thought it would be cool to bridge the two with "do you remember," which is part of the hook to "Sunday" I had come up with a while before.
She Gets Me
Never really wrote a specific song with someone in mind, so I thought I'd try it. Well, look where that got me: we're divorced (if she's reading, I'm pretty sure she would think that that's funny).
Door
The last song I wrote out of the bunch here, so I felt it just made sense to have it as the closer. I wrote it very quickly. Some songs just appear like that, some don't! Channeling Crenshaw… for me I always try to have a "model." It helps get the ball rolling, and then it's okay when it diverges from the original idea.
Flour is out now on DIG! Records.