Story and photos by Jonah Hinebaugh
Four years ago, a Van Helsing look-alike bartender had to break into Shanghai Nobby’s in St. Augustine so The Nude Party could perform for nobody.
Now they tour with Dr. Dog, perform to sold-out crowds and are set to embark on their first European tour in May.
“This is like the most lush tour we’ve ever done,” said percussionist Austin Brose, 25. “It’s a lot more comfortable and a lot less helter-skelter than the first few times we came to Florida.”
The March 1 show at The Orpheum in Tampa provided a sigh of relief from the “hellaciously cold” stops in the Midwest and northern regions, which almost wrecked their mental psyche, Brose said.
After they finish their five remaining shows with Dr. Dog, The Nude Party will leave for their tour in Europe.
The band’s ‘60s-drenched influence comes from artists like Gram Parsons and bands like The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground.
According to guitarist Shaun Couture, 26, they’re “grand-daddies” for the band who double as angels hovering over them.
In 2012, the original sextet formed at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, with the name stemming from performing nude in their early career.
“Honestly, we thought it’d be funny, for the shock value, to play naked,” Couture said. “It started because we would skinny-dip with our friends at (bassist) Alec Castillo’s lake house before we started the band. It was really natural for us as friends to be naked in front of each other.”
It gained them notoriety in the college town for obvious reasons.
As they began broadening their horizons, they met Oakley Munson of Black Lips while performing in Asheville, North Carolina.
When Munson lived in Nashville, Tennessee, he housed the band members when they performed there. Eventually, they all moved in together in Livingston Manor, New York.
The “landlord, roommate, good friend and spiritual guru,” as Brose described him, helped produce the band’s EP, “Hot Tub,” in 2016.
Munson also had a hand in the band’s self-titled debut album released in July 2018.
Couture said most songs were written while they were in college, but they spent two years polishing them while touring around the U.S. According to their biography on the New West Records website, the band stays busy, playing over 150 shows a year.
“Writing on the road was more of like cleaning a finished product,” Brose said. “It kind of solidified the ways that songs should be played or the way they sounded better by noticing the way crowds would react if we played certain things longer or shorter.”
Four days and three nights in Woodstock, New York, birthed the debut album with 12-hour recording sessions each day at Dreamland Recording Studio.
The studio was housed in what was once a church, which has been a host for acclaimed artists and bands like Beach House, Herbie Hancock and The B-52s.
“The general attitude toward our band is never (taking) anything very seriously,” Couture said.
Though their naked performances were only a small section of the band’s timeline, the carefree attitude that came with it has remained a staple in their music.
Shaun Couture (right) poses next to Austin Brose before The Nude Party’s performance at The Orpheum.
The Nude Party packs the stage at every show. Originally a sextet, pedal steel guitar player “Catfish” is performing his first long tour with the group.
The band performed a sold-out show at The Orpheum.
Most of the band also plays the role of backup vocalist for songs. Pictured is Shaun Couture.
Singer and guitarist Patton Magee serenades the crowd during their set.
