Nylon Sky are here to grab your attention, or maybe your balls...
Clockwise from left: Stuart (drums), Tony (vocals), Nai-ik (bass) Tommy V (guitars)
"I had sex with Buddhist Palm!” Nylon Sky's charismatic vocalist, Tony, proclaims at the end of Buddhist Palm's recent catch-up with the band for Controvert, much to the amusement of the small crowd of onlookers. After a dynamic show in Guildford with support from Black Iris and Play Dead Sister, a warm-up for their much-anticipated appearance on 'The Big Cheese Cave' stage at Guilfest supporting Gallows, Nylon Sky are in high spirits and the banter is in full flow. It's not a true story (to state the blindingly obvious), but it carries a certain engaging blend of off-the-wall humour and outlandishness that reflects the band's presence on stage, and it's at moments like this that the full extent to which this band clamour for your attention becomes apparent.
It comes as no great surprise that when asked about his inspirations, Tony mentions that one of his biggest influences is possibly the most outspoken show on TV, South Park. Just like the show, he’s seemingly never afraid to be outrageous if he thinks it might be entertaining, and that’s not a bad quality to have in a front-man.
Other, more straightforwardly musical, influences on the band are wide-ranging, and they’re keen to stress that their music won’t just appeal to one narrow audience, with a sound inflected with “UK hip hop, heavy metal, Richie Sambora, John 5, Chad Smith, Jim Morrison, Chet Baker...” You can also add Limp Bizkit to that list, with Nylon Sky’s cover of ‘Break Stuff’ often proving to be a highlight of their sets.
When it comes to creating their own material, the song-writing process is organic. “Tommy V comes up with a lot of riffs a lot of the time” explains Nai-ik, “he’s always like ‘I’ve got this riff’, then he plays it and we’re like ‘cool’ and we write our own parts to it, end up jamming it, and it becomes a song within an hour. It’s a pretty quick process, we just connect and we just work on it.” This reflects the fact that they are, in essence, a live band (isn’t that how most good bands start?). Tony points out: “when I go to see a live show, I like to see a live show. If I’m going and it’s the same as listening to the CD there’s no point...when you come to see us live there’s no fucking around, you’re not just gonna hear what’s on the CD. There’ll be added solos, I’ll fucking get in your face, maybe touch your balls...”
In fact, assessing the length of their cables seems to be just as integral a part of their pre-show set up as checking the sound levels. Not only will both Tony and Nai-ik make every effort to liven up proceedings by getting in the thick of the crowd, during performances Tony is also prone to leap from the stage, off the speaker stacks, and pretty much anywhere else he can clamber. What’s more they demand crowd participation in their performances, employing every tactic in the book to involve everyone in the room in what the band themselves are undertaking on stage, and their audiences rise to the occasion. All of which goes to show that when these guys perform, they want you to know that they mean it. Tony sums it up: “At the end of the day we live and love our music, and kinda get lost in it”.
Although Nylon Sky come across as a band who are never more at home than when performing, they remain surprisingly humble when asked about their ambitions: “Just to play music forever, to still be with each other” Tony explains, adopting his most deadly serious tone of voice, “if I could play to 100 kids a night, that’d be fine...I just want to play music to people”.
Whether they achieve this remains to be seen of course, but their hopes for the band certainly end up rubbing off on you. Since the interview, they’ve agreed a record deal with Crash Club Records, so with their foot now firmly in the door and an ever-growing fan base, it’s becoming more and more of a real possibility. But if Nylon Sky doesn't yield some stars, somehow it just wouldn't seem right.
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