AN INTERVIEW WITH NAUTICS

Meet Nautics, an indie space-rock band from NYC made up of longtime friends Kenzo Repola, Van, Levitt Yaffe, and Amir Brivanlou. Their new single, “Thoughts on the Ceiling” is out now!  About “the anxieties of one lover waiting on another,” the song is catchy and dance-y, featuring an auto-tuned chorus and lots of guitars, while still retaining an air of longing. They have also just released an animated music video for their song “Bricks”! Read on for an interview with the members of the band.     

KENZO: My name is Kenzo. I'm the singer and guitar player, the front person.

LEVITT: I'm Levitt, and I'm the drummer, in the band Nautics. 

AMIR: I'm Amir and I play keys mostly, in the band Nautics as well.

MAGGIE: Oh, you're all from the same band.

AMIR: Yeah, I know, it's crazy. 

KENZO: Except for Van, he's actually in his own band. 

MAGGIE: Can you each list our favorite fruit please? And the rationale behind your favorite fruit?

AMIR: I know Levitt’s a fruit man.  

LEVITT:I have so many favorite fruits, this isn't-- 

KENZO: Levitt loves fruit. 

LEVITT: Oh my gosh. When I was a kid, I used to only eat fruit. Fun fact. I dieted on just fruit. I’ll go first then. My favorite fruit, um… I can’t even rank them. But blood oranges, blood oranges are very good. A nice watermelon, but you know you got to tap the watermelon first to see if it's hollow, to see if it will taste sweet and good.  

AMIR: Expert. 

MAGGIE: What is it supposed to sound like?

LEVITT: Okay, well, one kind sounds mushy and gross, gushy and stuff. You don't want that one.  And then the one that's the most hollow is the juiciest and sweetest one. And I learned that after dropping a watermelon exiting out of my grandfather's car. 

AMIR: I like pomegranates. During quarantine, my mom left a lot of pomegranate juice in the fridge. I drank a lot of it. I actually don't know if I've ever had it as a fruit. But in juice form, it's pretty good.

KENZO: Van? I'm still trying to think... 

VAN: One of our friends, Jack, took me to World of Fruit in LA, an exhibition on fruit. And we went through and I discovered a lot of new fruits. You try fruits that you take pictures with fruits and stuff like that. It's really fun. But if I had to pick a favorite fruit-- clementines,

the really small clementines. It's a good flavor and you could eat a bag of them in a sitting.

KENZO: You love clementines. I know that for a fact. I've seen you down some. 

VAN: Yeah sometimes I forget them in my bag for weeks. 

KENZO: And they're still good.

VAN: They last a good five, six days. 

KENZO: Oh, avocado. Is that a cop out? It's not a classic fruit but it is a common fruit.

MAGGIE: It can be at your artistic discretion.

KENZO: Yeah so avocado because I feel like I have that on a lot of things. Good protein.

MAGGIE: Yeah, good fats, good healthy fats. Can you guys talk about your origin myth-- How did Nautics get started? 

KENZO: Well, we were all birds in a volcano. And then we-- no, no, no. We started in 2015. And all of us kind of knew each other through different things. Levitt, Van, and Amir did a program together, though band thing, sort of an after school activities thing. And I knew Van through high school. And I mean my own entering the world of wanting to be in a band— well, first, I had no interest at all. I knew Van did music and these guys were in a band, but I was really inspired when I got to see my friend perform at Webster Hall. And I was just blown away because he was this really shy, timid kid that was super nerdy, and he just sort of became a new creature on stage and just commanded this presence and immediately I was like “I want.” Because I was pretty anxious and I had performed before but not to that extent and immediately, I think it was maybe the next day, I talked to Van and was like "Hey, I know you got a band going on."

MAGGIE: That's so cool. So now I'd like to talk about how you guys approach songwriting and music in general. How does this song get formed? What's it's different life stages?

KENZO: God I wish I knew. It's usually pretty organic. Generally one of us brings an idea to the group. For example, the last one with "Thoughts on the Ceiling" was a lot of Van and Amir. And the rest of us kind of just added on top of it and kept adding. It's a lot of discussion-based stuff and just trying different things out. We have a rule that we kind of started doing a little bit more with which is, at least try something, and then if it doesn't work, we can all agree that it doesn't work, as much as that's frustrating and time consuming. So yeah, so it's usually a process of bringing an idea, talking it out, arguing it out mostly, and then slowly adding piece by piece or layer by layer to a song. And lyrics and melody are usually the last thing on top of the music, the music's the most important or integral part, usually.

AMIR: At least recently, we've been writing kind of very quickly, so before quarantine, because we all go to different schools and we're on different schedules. So there'll be these brief moments where three out of the four of us or all of us can meet up or just two of us. And we'll go to Van's house instead of going to some studio and just write in a flash. And we've written a couple of demos and songs like that. We did one with Levitt and Van and I, at Van's house or just for like, eight hours. We were like working on this demo which is cool. It turned out okay, but it's funny that now-- well, it used to be like we'd have a song and we'd work on it for like, a month. And we'd keep adding to and keep building it, but now it's just anytime that we have, we just got to do it as fast as possible. And just because we know it's precious.

MAGGIE: Do you feel like that leads to a different songwriting result?

AMIR: Yeah, it's totally different. Also how we're recording is different now-- Van is producing a lot of our stuff and doing a lot of stuff in his bedroom instead of writing in a practice space. So I think there's a lot of stuff that goes along with the quick writing. But for sure, there's drawbacks, but also I think there's some good advantages to doing it like that. Instead of over-doing something and overthinking something, you can just kind of organically have an idea and bring it to the group. But it takes months to mix. Like for "Thoughts in the Ceiling," the mixing and the production afterwards took a long time, but I think like the initial idea is pretty quick. 

MAGGIE: So the initial ideas, do those come from autobiographical things, or are they inspired from outside of you guys?

KENZO: I think it's usually very subconscious. I'm sure it's autobiographical to some extent and I take influence with things that just happened in my life. But a lot of the times when we're writing, it's just us kind of saying words into a microphone or me just singing random things until something kind of catches all of our ears. And then you know, it is this very subconscious process of just letting things freeform until they make sense, kind of like our music, but I would say even less meticulous, weirdly enough.

MAGGIE: Okay, so going back to what you guys were talking before with writing music really quickly, how has COVID affected the band what’s it like to not play live shows?

VAN: I guess it kind of it kind of sucks, more for other people than us. For us, at least personally, we weren't at the show size, or we were just starting to be at the show size where we would play more frequent shows. Basically, we don't release much music. And I feel like that playing was our way to connect with people that like our music, you know, as opposed to social media posts and live streams and stuff, which some people are really good at, but I don't know if it's our specialty in creating music. Which, I mean, it's something that we should probably work on because it is a great way to share. But I think playing was a good way for us to meet people who like our music as opposed to just being stuck, making songs over and over that don't see the light of day because we aren't happy with them. Instead, we can just play a song live and everyone's like, "Oh, that was cool." There's no permanence to it, but we get to share it.

MAGGIE: Okay, so I also wanted to talk about your New York origins because I feel like you guys focus on that a lot, and how that you feel that's influenced your music career. 

KENZO: I think with the advent of the Internet, I think we're hopefully able to be inspired by people from all over the world. And I think we are and we try to. I don't think we've done anything to the point of culturally appropriating somewhere else. But generally, we just listen to everything from all over the world, we like to take influence from different types of indie from everywhere. I think growing up in New York, the sort of ability to play to an audience was the influence, more than anything. We got to play at small venues like 72 and other venues that are world renowned, but we just got the advantage because we happen to live here and it's easy for us to make those connections. So I don't know if we would have ever gotten to play places like Webster Hall or Bitter End or Mercury Lounge, venues that people come to and hear about and respect. I think that being born here and raised here and living here allowed us to make those connections and find that community in that scene. So I think musically, there's probably an influence, but there used to be more of a New York sound back in the day. But now it's just more open. The real benefit is the people that are here, which also goes into the COVID thing. And that's, I think, a shame that we're not able to play as much as we were to, like converse with the natives and the people that are coming in and out of the actual City.

VAN: New York is a crazy culture crossroads of music, and it's kind of cool to be at the middle of it, even if we're not making music that's necessarily a New York sound all the time. Because a lot of our demos don't sound like New York. But that's because we have to hear so much music from around the world. Like, I mean, it's corny, but it's a global city. So you feel like you're part of it. Yeah, across culture, the world, and the internet's obviously helped us a lot. But we have friends that play every genre of music. And I'm sure we want to, you know, not, not copy them, but be inspired by them. 

MAGGIE: The next question I have is specifically for Kenzo: you paint the albums. So can you talk about that process? How do you come up with the ideas and what is your relationship between visual art and music?

KENZO: I think they're pretty intertwined for me. I think I was always a visual artist and I do all of our artwork generally. So if you ever see graphic or anything that's basically me, I don't think there's an example that isn't me.

AMIR: Sometimes [I do it]--  

KENZO: Shut up Amir. Like a little doodle. But, yeah, I do all the art and I think that kind of growing up as a visual artist and I'm a painter generally, music was almost just another extension of that art. And even going into it, immediately, the performative aspect of it and the visual kind of presentation of the music was very important in who I was on stage and who we were and what we represented visually to the audience. In terms of the actual specific designs of like, the Spaceman and that aesthetic, that's just because I and the rest of the band are really into sci-fi and like old, kind of retro sci-fi. And it's just something we all kind of like. I tried it and we all agreed on it from the start. We all kind of were like, that's a cool aesthetic. Let's just run with it. And it hasn't really changed since then. And I think we enjoy keeping whatever visuals we do, I think we like keeping the Spaceman as our little mascot for now.

MAGGIE: Yeah, it's definitely cool, scrolling through Spotify, you know it's your album.

KENZO: That's great. I mean, that's exactly what I guess didn't intend but I'm very happy as a consequence.

MAGGIE: Okay, going off of that, what else do you guys do outside of music, together or apart?

KENZO: Eat burritos? ... No, I mean, we all do very different things and even are going to school for different things. But like I said, I do a lot of visual arts. I study writing, too. And I just try to keep myself busy with anything visually creative. 

AMIR: I personally am a bio major, I want to do research and be a scientist when I grow up, so that's kind of what I spent a lot of my time working and thinking about, when I'm not doing this stuff. But yeah, besides that, sometimes I go on walks with friends, otherwise I just kind of not do very much. 

LEVITT: So, well over quarantine, I picked up where I left off in writing a book and I finished that. So I was doing much of that fantasy creative writing. And then I do little side music projects on top of Nautics. I actually just wrote a theme song for my friend's little Marist College club. I go to Marist, I'm a Gen Con major. And I go on bike rides with my boy Van sometimes, that's a big one.

VAN: Well, apparently I go on bike rides.

KENZO: That's all he has to offer.

VAN: Bike rides. I like riding my bike.

KENZO: You also you do a ton of other stuff.

LEVITT: He makes beats. 

KENZO: You study communication, you're a producer... 

VAN: I ride my bike. 

KENZO: You do photography--

VAN: I dabble around but--

LEVITT: You know he's loving this. He's loving us saying what he does.

KENZO: He's a very humble, humble little boy.

AMIR: Van's a polymath. He's a philosopher.

MAGGIE: What do you guys going to do in the future? What do you want to do with it? What projects are you thinking about?

AMIR: Going to the top! Number one! 

KENZO: Gold, baby! 

AMIR: No, we'll still make music, send each other demos. I mean, the hope is that we can continue to make music that excites us and gets us excited to play shows. We played many last shows in this band, we played like two or three last shows. And after that we decided, let's just stop saying there's going to be the last show and play when we have time, when we're all together. And we've become very close over the past five years that we've been a band. So I think that we're gonna stay that way. And we'll try to make time to hang out always and we hang out by making music so it's a nice two birds with one stone, you know? So yes, by convenience, we'll continue this band.

KENZO: We also, I think we're gonna try to make a little bit more digital content. I'm currently working on some visual stuff. That should be coming. I know it's vague, but I also don't have an answer for what it is yet. 

MAGGIE: The suspense! 

KENZO: Call me Alfred Hitchcock.

MAGGIE: So your newest single, "Thoughts on the Ceiling": what do you hope people get out of it?

KENZO: A good time. Mostly. Van? 

VAN: Like a good time. Amir? 

AMIR: No, it depends because there's the lyrics and there's the music. I think that's always a little interesting because, it's a very dance-y song, it's a very poppy song and it's supposed to be good time, but also can get to talking about-- 

KENZO: Yeah, I mean, the crux of a song is that it's an argument that's taking place and the phrase "Thoughts on the Ceiling" is like-- “I'm waiting for your thoughts on the ceiling.” It's a sarcastic remark on someone who's clearly not listening to you, like, “Oh, I’m staring up at the ceiling, I'm waiting for your thoughts in the ceiling.” Very blunt in general, but I think I'd maybe like for people to identify with this. We try to do a thing musically where we take the lyrics and make them more about introspection and relationships and yourself and other people, but then the music is really dance-y and just like a good time. I have a goal with most of the art that I do, and I think it transcends to this, where I want to trick people into feeling. I want to make them enjoy themselves but then also, subconsciously try to get them to think more about who they are, their placement in things, and just what they identify with. So hopefully someone gets whatever they get out of it. I don't want to tell them what to think the story is.

MAGGIE: You're a real trickster. 

KENZO: Yeah! 

MAGGIE: My final question is: do you guys have any fun facts, quirky things about the band that you think you would surprise people? 

KENZO: I can't process gluten and I used to be afraid of bees but I'm not anymore.

AMIR: He's overcome that. 

MAGGIE: I think you should write a song about that. 

KENZO: Oh, boy. Oh boy. Don't you know we've tried. One day. I don't know. Do we have any fun facts?

LEVITT: Yes. I had one. I don't know if it's fun. It's more of a fact.

KENZO: Yeah.

LEVITT: I would say that during more of our summery shows, Van and I like to enjoy a nice cup of milk.

KENZO: No, no, it's not a cup of milk, you both bring a gosh darn jug of milk on stage. It is disgusting and I don't get it. It's for a bit and I don't enjoy the bit ever and yet they love it because I hate it.

MAGGIE: That was actually a pretty fun fact. Anything else you’d like to shout out to our readers?

LEVITT: Check us out on Instagram and wherever you listen to music! (here is their linktree)

KENZO: Keep donating to BLM and the many bail funds and whatever can help the people around you in your community and you know, love each other as much as possible. And I do mean as much as possible.

** Conversation was edited for clarity **