Why Nai Palm?
My name is Naomi. Nai is short for my name. I like using words that have a negative association … using that counter-actively. I used to be a fire dancer, so the flammable element of Nai Palm tied in with that.
What brought you to music?
I was born into an environment with an appreciation of the arts and music. It was distilled and nurtured in me from a young age. I’m really lucky that it’s my life. There was never really a moment where I thought, “I think I wanna be a musician”. There’s this statement from Fela Kuti, it’s like – music is not a toy, it’s something very spiritual and it’s not to be played with. Nowadays, it’s kind of (viewed as) a hobby. But I feel like it’s the focal point of a lot of people’s sanity and rehabilitation.
You continue to perform solo when you are part of an internationally acclaimed band, Hiatus Kaiyote. How come?
Hiatus Kaiyote is a voltron of all our contributions and we are all something solid individually. The project came together from my solo song writing but it’s evolved a lot since then to incorporate all of our song writing. [Performing solo] is so much more vulnerable, it’s a different thing. And I think it’s really challenging to be able to do both, and I wanna keep doing solo shows because there can be so much more sincerity when it’s just you. It’s a different kind of honesty.
Do you feel like you are helping to nurture the music scene in Australia? Do you feel creatively attached to Australia?
I feel like Australians are very receptive to art and culture. There’s a lot of quality art and music here and it wasn’t really until I toured that I realised how warm Australians are compared to a lot of places I’ve been to. It’s really rare. I feel like people are more in tune with nature here … maybe because Australia has such new cities.
There are references to spirituality, nature, science and mythology in your lyrics. Tell me about them.
There are so many layers to it … I spend a lot of time on my lyrics and I’m really proud of them. There is an underlying duality or synchronising to nature and science, I like finding a common thread in things and finding ways to layer in a way that seems like I’m talking entirely in metaphors but there will be scientific elements to it too. It’s really beautiful to have visual associations with my lyrics when I’m performing. Someone wrote to me recently and said that when I’m performing “Breathing Underwater” I have a glazed look, like I’m somewhere else, like the room is full of water or something. I like creating lyrics that trigger a visual memory for me and I love playing with that when I perform.
Is one of your motives for performing music to inspire people?
More so to be able to contribute to the therapy side of music. It’s really beautiful to be able to give companionship … creating a sonic sanctuary for people. A lot of people might not classify themselves as an artist but how you receive or experience something involves your own creativity and set of associations and that is creative. The more levels that I can expand to the more powerful it is. Basically my greatest joy is to enhance people’s emotional experiences and imagination. I want to contribute to how vivid people’s lives are.
I heard Hiatus Kaiyote are recording again, this time in a new home studio. How is it going?
We are working on our album at the moment … It’s coming along really well. The guys built the studio from scratch and they live there. We are working with different producers and we record inside and outside the studio. We are real blessed with out record deal that we have 100 per cent creative control. Recording at home worked with the last record … a lot of people feel like to make it big you have to work with hot-shot producers but I think there’s something really unique in your sound if you make it yourself.
For a chance to win an LP copy of Hiatus Kaiyote’s first album, Tawk Tomahawk, simply answer the following (email music@ssh.com.au): Who did Nai Palm recently collaborate with on a track called “The Antidote”?
