A Conversation with Luther & Cody of NMA (cont.)

PM: Is Polaris taking off the way that it should and might?

LD: Well, it comes out September 9th, but the buzz is big. It's an exciting thing.

CD: There's two ways I look at that. The positive way is that we've been around now for four years, five years, on the national market. And it's hard to get people--like when we released Shake Hands With Shorty, the media buzz was unbelievable, like, "Who are these kids?!"

PM: Grammy nominated right out of the gate.

CD: Right, right, because we were new and fresh. But this is our third record, and honestly, it's hard to get people talking again.

PM: Right.

CD: And I feel like that's what we've managed to do. We threw them a little curve ball. And even if they're saying, "What the hell is this," at least they're saying something. We didn't do the predictable--

LD: Some people are scratching their heads, but the majority of people that we've been in contact with dig it.

CD: The slightly negative side of that is that being nominated for Contemporary Blues Album of the Year twice, there's a certain pressure. And people would say, "Well, why wouldn't you make another blues record?"

LD: But this is our blues, man.

CD: Yeah, but that's the thing, yeah. It's like you listen to these songs, and it really is. Especially lyrically, there's a lot of blues in there.

PM: Yeah.

CD: There really is. It's just not what I think people are used to hearing.

PM: And I mean, how many people have tried to make the bridge from blues to pop?

CD: Not many, right?

PM: I mean, it's very difficult leap, man.

CD: Have a lot of people tried?

PM: No, I don't think so.

CD: Yeah.

PM: And the people I know that tried didn't really have enough pop sensibilities in their musicality to get there. You guys are really versed in a lot of forms, and the pop is so accessible, it's so catchy. I mean, "Otay"--

CD: Right.

PM: --is such an amazing song.

CD: Thank you, man.

PM: It's a great, great song.

CD: Well, for example, those lyrics--Duwayne Burnside is another addition to the group since our last record.

PM: Right. He must have really changed things up a lot.

CD: Yeah. And phrases like "cut me in or cut it out," or "sticks to me like a dirty shirt"--those are lines from "Otay"--those are things that I got from him, which a lot of it he got from his dad, R. L., and they're blues catch phrases in a pop environment.

PM: Right.

CD: Not like that's some brilliant idea or whatever, but it was still the backbone when I sat down to write these songs, you know.

LD: At first, on my account, way before I was into R. L. Burnside or Junior Kimbrough I grew up on the Replacements, and Big Star of course--and even Black Flag. I mean, early Black Flag, it's almost like Beach Boys songs.

PM: [laughs]

LD: It's that California structure.   continue

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