Shine your light: Patton Magee of The Nude Party
The Nude Party will play Asheville Sept. 12. File photo
It’s a hot, early evening at FloydFest, the storied independently-run music festival held each July in the backwoods of rural Virginia. With live music radiating from stages positioned in seemingly every direction, indie-rockers The Nude Party finish its set to the deafening roar of the jubilant crowd begging for just one more tune before dispersing into the next melodic adventure.
Immediately following the raucous gig — amid the fading sunset, silhouettes of concertgoers joyously gyrating in the musical moment — the band exits the bright spotlight and strolls into the backstage area, plopping down on some couches and catching their breath, if only for a brief moment of solitude.
“If you don’t love it, you just don’t do it, because there’s too many unbearable compromises to do it if you don’t love it,” said singer/guitarist Patton Magee. “So, just the fact of doing it means you do [love to do it], unless you’re just the unhappiest person walking around all the time.”
With a slight chuckle, Magee leans back into his seat and gazes across the vast landscape of the sprawling forested gathering. Located on the outskirts of the tiny town of Floyd, Virginia, the festival itself isn’t too far from where The Nude Party formed, just over the state-line at Appalachian State University in Boone.
While students at ASU in 2012, Magee and Austin Brose (percussion/vocals) combined forces with childhood cronies Alexander Castillo (bass/vocals) and Connor Mikita (drums). Soon after, Shaun Couture (guitar/vocals) and Don Merrill (piano/vocals) came into the fold. Since then, Jon “Catfish” Delorme (pedal steel) was also added to the lineup as it stands today.
“Boone didn’t really have a thriving Greek [fraternity and sorority] scene, so the frats didn’t run the social scene, and it was pretty far away from any major city,” Magee said. “It was very much self-made entertainment every weekend. The main things people were doing were just going to shows [at local bars and venues], having house parties and house shows.”
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By sparking its own flame of creative inspiration through the lens of irresponsible enlightenment in Boone and the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains cradling the ASU campus, The Nude Party became infamous and highly-sought after amongst the college students and local music freaks for their wild-n-out house concerts — these happenstance spaces and places of beautiful debauchery and melodic chaos where the band could hone its craft.
At its core, The Nude Party channels 1960s and 1970s rock. It’s this infectious blend of New York City art rock a la The Velvet Underground and British Invasion-era acts like The Animals, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, coupled with the Laurel Canyon ethos of Buffalo Springfield or The Byrds — all wrapped tightly in a melodic kaleidoscope of textures, from alt-country to punk, pop to surf rock, and beyond.
“[Starting a band], it’s that teenage obsession. You’re a teenager and you’re awkwardly-shaped, you haven’t grown into yourself, girls don’t like you, and you have no risk,” Magee said. “And you get really obsessed with the music. Then, it kind of grows, where you grow into it and there’s a teenage [attitude of rebellion and freedom] that has stuck to all this somehow.”
Word quickly spread throughout Western North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia about this real deal, nitty-gritty rock group emerging out of Boone, which was, and remains, a refreshing sonic tone and approached compared to the rich veins of bluegrass and Americana music at the heart of the historic mountain music scene.
“It was very do-it-yourself and very fun,” Magee said. “And I felt that, in that little microcosm [of Boone], we were pleasantly rewarded for putting on shows and having parties.”
In 2018, The Nude Party signed to famed Nashville, Tennessee, label New West Records and released its debut self-titled album to much national and international acclaim by critics and the curious alike.
“With the first record, we got a lot of good press because [our song] ‘Chevrolet Van’ was on it,” Magee reflects with a slight grin. “And [we] got to play big festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, tour with Jack White and Arctic Monkeys.”
But, when its second album “Midnight Manor” hit the streets in 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic and complete shutdown of the live music industry, The Nude Party found itself at a crossroads — where to from here, and in the “here and now” of uncertainty?
“Things cooled down a lot during Covid,” Magee said. “We’ve got a [fan] base, but it’s not as much us being media darlings like we were for a moment back there [with the first record]. So, now, we’re just doing our thing [coming out of the current third album touring cycle for ‘Ride On’].”
Recently parting ways with New West, The Nude Party are now “free agents” with a brand-new material ready for release in the coming months. According to Magee, there’s “a new live record and two new studio albums that we’re making.” Once again, the ensemble is in charge of its fate and fortune as it continues to properly-navigate the often-choppy waters of the music industry.
“It’s business. It’s a brand. But, it’s also something that’s not only evolved, it caught fire in a lot of ways,” Magee said. “What started with humble beginnings now feels more like a campfire. The coals are always burning. But, sometimes it’s hot and sometimes it’s not, you know?”
But, no matter for Magee & Co., for heads are held high, with more logs squarely placed onto the fire of intent within. And what remains is an incredibly talented rock band barreling headlong into the next, unwritten chapter of its whirlwind journey.
“The ‘roll’ part is the most essential part of rock-n-roll,” Magee said. “With us, we’re just doing our own thing, which is the only thing we really know how to do.”
Want to go?
Alt-country rockers The Nude Party will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, on the indoor stage at Salvage Station in Asheville.
Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 day of show. Ages 18 and over. Doors open at 7 p.m. Free parking.
For more information and/or to purchase tickets, go to salvagestation.com.
