The Tao of Thao Issue #41

From the Hotel Café to the little screen, Thao Nguyen knows how to get down

By Emily Becker
Published: August 1st, 2009 | 12:00am

Just before heading out to volunteer at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon, Thao Nguyen took a moment to speak with Venus Zine. The meaning of this opportunity was not lost on the young artist, who says she started to tear up as she filled out her camp application. “It was really funny to get emotional on an application,” she says. “Music wasn’t really that important to my family, but it was imperative to me. It kept me alive in a lot of ways.” A fan of the oldies station from a young age, Nguyen says it was in the fourth grade, when she first heard Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” that sealed her fate.

It was just last year that Nguyen released her first record (on Kill Rock Stars) with the Get Down Stay Down, We Brave Bee Stings and All, which earned them a spot opening for Rilo Kiley and Xiu Xiu. One exceptionally catchy song, “Bag of Hammers,” even found its way into a commercial for Clorox wipes. Of the commercial Nguyen says, “I have mixed feelings about licensing, but I think it’s proving to be sort of this necessary evil to make a living playing music. I had one caveat, which was that they did not use my vocals. I didn’t think anyone would recognize it.” She was grateful that no fans have asked her to sign a container of wipes — at least not yet.

Since the release of We Brave, Nguyen’s calendar has been booked. In addition to a lengthy tour with the Get Down Stay Down, in the fall of 2008 she also toured solo on the Hotel Café Tour in the company of other rising female stars such as Alice Russell and Emily Wells. In June, Nguyen collaborated with the Portland Cello Project to arrange four of her previously released songs on The Thao and Justin Powers Sessions.

In the midst of this flurry of activity, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down — now a lean trio with Willis Thompson on drums and Adam Thompson on bass — carved out the time to write and record a new album. Nguyen took on all of the guitar and banjo duties instead of sharing them, as she had on We Brave, with departed guitarist Frank Stewart and banjo virtuoso Danny Barnes. Of the new record, Know Better, Learn Faster, she says, “This past recording process was a lot about me stepping more into my own as a guitar player and trying to mature as a songwriter. As a band we were going for more musicality.” Though Nguyen also has a not-so-secret talent as a human beatbox, she jokes that there would be none on the new record because “it’s hard to just slip that in places. We did try our hands at a legitimate, non-ironic dance song. Maybe I could beatbox on that.”

When asked how Know Better compares to We Brave she replies, “Over the last year we’ve been on tour pretty much non-stop and I think that we’ve developed, kind of solidified, what our band sounds like. We have a more energetic live show than this last album conveyed, so I think this new album will be more energetic.” But Nguyen is quick to add that there’s at least one song from We Brave that she is still excited to play. “I think “Beat” was my favorite song on our record because the energy in it alluded to our sound that was evolving. Live, it is my favorite to play. It still resonates the most with me, so there’s a lot of intensity when I play it. We’ve included breaks in it when everyone stops, but Willis keeps playing the drums and then I join him on the kit. There’s a little drum interlude. We get the crowd clapping.”

Nguyen was forthcoming about what inspires her songwriting. We Brave was drawn from events in her life, yet she referred to Know Better saying, “It’s funny, I didn’t think it could get more autobiographical. Fortunately or not for the new record, a lot of the writing took place at the tail end of a relationship. So a lot of it was about the end of things,” she muses before switching gears to cut the tension, joking: “It’s like I did it on purpose. To be really dark.”