Q&A Today: NDX
They have been and will continue to be our guests because what this band delivers is simply phenomenal. Their music is pure energy and oozes fantastic retro vibes. We’ve already reviewed their album “The Release”, the single “Soul”, and their latest masterpiece “Trance”, and they’ve consistently maintained top-notch quality. Every time we hear one of their songs, we’re excited and inspired to write about. Once again, we managed to snag them for a brief Q&A, and you can find out what they had to say in the following short interview. The best way to enjoy it is to turn up NDX and read the Q&A at your leisure. Once you reach the end, you can keep listening to NDX for the rest of the day or week; because it’s always worth it.
Summer is here and NDX are back. With ‘Trance,’ you continue what you started, delivering songs with a perfect soulful rock-retro groove. What was your inspiration, and what is ‘Trance’ about?
NDX (Ian ‘Lightning’ Whiteling, singer and songwriter): The inspiration behind our retro psychedelic rock’n’soul sound is our love for Sixties and Seventies music. But rather than simply choosing one genre, such as pop or rock or soul or funk, we’ve fused them together to create our sound. So, imagine the Rolling Stones colliding with Stevie Wonder, or The Doors crossing paths with Curtis Mayfield or James Brown. Throw Bowie, T-Rex and Roxy Music into the mix, and you can see the origins of our sound.
Moving on to ‘Trance’, like many of my songs, it happened quite spontaneously. It began life as a single abstract lyric in my head: “I’m walking in a trance, I’ve gotta find someone to dance with.” This came to me quite late at night. I thought it had a kind of Iggy Pop feel, so imagined a ‘Passenger’-like groove, and quickly sang it into the voice recorder on my iPhone. The next day I picked up my acoustic guitar and started strumming the A minor chord in a choppy, funky way, singing the melody over the top, changing the chords accordingly, and that formed the verse.
Then for some reason I thought it would be a great idea for the chorus to start with a Robert Plant style “Ooooooooo!”, while also imagining what kind of lyrics he might sing. “Oooooo, when you walk across the floor, I wanna hug you, I wanna kiss you a little bit more.” Ridiculous! I gave the chorus impact by plunging down to the open E major chord, essentially driving the verse off a cliff! Et voila, ’Trance' the song was born.
As to what it’s about – who knows what was going on in my subconscious when it popped into my head. I love the song’s lost, mysterious, yearning, passionate, hypnotic, beguiled vibe, but I’ll leave it up to the listener to draw their own meaning from the lyrics.
The energy released is again enormous, and the saxophone sounds great. How hard is it for you to find the right balance of the individual instruments?
It’s obviously pretty tricky, particularly with saxophone as Jack (‘Mr Cool’ Dawkins, NDX sax player) often lays down several versions, which I then mix together. Vocally too, I usually record several tracks, including harmonies and double tracking, so this complicates things even more. But it’s simply a case of playing around with the individual instrument and vocal levels, then exporting the song to MP3 and WAV formats so you can listen to them through various sources – from literally your mobile phone with and without headphones to smart speaker or boom box, car stereo, etc (as many as you can) – so I can make sure the balance works across them all. If not, it’s time for more tweaks, and repeating the process until I’m happy.
Then I run my ‘final’ mix past Amar (‘The Groovemeister’ Grover, NDX bass player), to get his opinion, and again adjust the balance depending on his feedback. I bounce the mix off Amar, because the two of us are the core NDX members.
Unfortunately, I’ve never had the opportunity to see you live, but every time I hear an NDX song, I think to myself that the songs develop even more momentum live and that great live versions emerge from them. Am I right?
We do love playing live! It’s really what music’s all about for us. And we’ve established a reputation for emotive, powerful performances. We just put everything into it. As a singer, I like to pack in as much soul and emotion in as I can.
We used to play purely as a four piece – vocals/guitar, guitar, bass, drums. But the departure of two band members last year, leaving me and Amar, meant we had to get more creative. So, as we were building the band back up, we played as a duo, plus with sampled drum tracks, and have now added a live drummer, plus saxophone and a keyboard player. Our line up now depends on what the gig demands and who’s available. But whatever the formation, we always give it everything!
How many takes does it usually take until an NDX song is finished?
That’s a very interesting question for us right now, because although our recordings sound like we’ve laid them down in the studio as a full band, they are actually made remotely. That’s because Joshua Van Ness, who has drummed on our last two singles, is based in New York and is able to record a complete set of mixed drum tracks to each song, then send them over to me. All he needs from me is the tempo, plus an acoustic guitar and vocal backing track played to this exact tempo. Yes, I know it’s incredible, isn’t it? I then drop the drum tracks into my music production software, and everything else is added individually in my loft studio in London.
How did this rather unusual situation come about? Well just after we had the band split last year, one of the band’s Josh plays in was touring London. Josh had seen us on Instagram, liked our music, so invited us to support the gigs, and Amar and I did it playing to backing beats. We got on really well, Joshed loved our sound and we kept in touch. Then in November last year he messaged to say he really liked our new material (which I frequently trail on Instagram) and would like to help us record it by laying down the drum tracks remotely. And so that’s what we’re doing!
We have three more songs near completion featuring Josh. So stay tuned! It’s really accelerating our recording process as the most time-consuming part of recording is laying down the drums. Also, Josh is an excellent drummer and really gets our sound.
For me, NDX songs are timeless, which means that even if I listen to them 10 years later, they still have the same energy. What are your favorites from music history that have never lost their appeal?
Woah, where do I start? I love the retro vibe of bands like Love, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Animals, The Byrds and Led Zeppelin right through to Burt Bacharach-era Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick, but they do have a distinct sound that reflects the period they were recorded. For me the truly timeless artists include The Doors, Bowie, Curtis Mayfield and Roxy Music, which are also huge influences on the NDX sound.
You are known as a live band. Where will you be playing live on stage soon?
Hell yeah! Amar and I love playing. Often we’ll just turn up as a duo and open mic nights across London. One of our favourites is London Unplugged at The George IV pub in Chiswick. Our next ‘proper’ gig in London is way out west in a place called Isleworth at The Red Lion pub on Friday 11 October. Keep an eye on our social channels and website for all our gig news…
And last but not least, as always, what can we look forward to from you in the coming weeks/months?
We’re in a real groove in terms of recording right now, with Josh sending in the drum tracks from New York and Jack dropping by to play his saxophone, and I’m loving where this is taking our sound. We have three more new songs already recorded with Josh’s drums and Jack’s sax that are near completion, so we’ll be rolling them out during the coming autumn and winter. Plus, we have plenty more to work on so I’m hoping we can release our third album in the spring if not before.
As for gigs, we need to properly nail down a live drummer in London, but we’ll be gigging when we can over the next few months. Next year I’m aiming to get over to New York and play some live gigs with Josh in his home town – that would be really special!
NenesButler - Indie Music Blog
