Ian Devaney and Aidan Noell never had a honeymoon after their wedding. Instead, they started a band. In lieu of wedding gifts, the two asked for contributions to their debut album and, together with fellow bandmate Alex MacKay, the synth-pop group Nation Of Language have amassed a cult following and critical acclaim.
Following up on the success of 2021’s A Way Forward, the trio lean into experimentalism and dark wave sensibilities with Strange Disciple. “This is an album about love, first and foremost,” the band said in a statement, adding: “A meditation on how beautiful it is to feel anything at all, all the best and worst of it. We hope it can be there for you through it all.” To celebrate the release of Strange Disciple, the Brooklyn trio talks Death Grips, pizza, and The Deep State in our latest Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Alex: Riviscible. Sefronian. Wellspringing. Bociferous.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
Ian: I guess I’d just like it to be remembered as worthwhile in some way. There are some bands you listen to when you’re young and then later you look back and kind of cringe and I would really not like to be one of those bands for people. There was a time I would have told you that P.O.D. was the greatest band ever. Don’t get me wrong, they got hits but… y’know.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
Ian: Probably my dad, as he was pretty actively pushing interesting music on me my whole life as I was pushing back with P.O.D. I promise this whole thing is not going to be about them. But there was definitely a lot of very sick music just floating around me as a youth (of the nation). We found a ticket to a Radiohead show from 20 years ago that we went to as a family and at that point the only song I knew was “Idioteque.” Reading it back, that whole sentence is really bizarre.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?
Ian: I really like pizza, so this is going to be a tie between one of my favorite places near where I live in Brooklyn, Corner Pizza, and the homemade pizza that our sound engineer Skinny made in Alex’s backyard. While very different styles, both are incredible and bring me great joy.
Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.
Alex: First thing that comes to mind is Death Grips live at Primavera Barcelona this past June. It’s pretty poor form to do an encore at a festival when you’re eating into other acts’ time, and Maneskin was one stage over, ending their set but going overtime by quite a bit. The guitar solos just kept coming, and the crowd at Death Grips stage was getting more and more riled up. Death Grips waited a few minutes, came on and were just unbelievable. So hard, so brutal, so direct. I could feel the shared frustration turn into shared catharsis. They played backlit in front of a static red LED screen, unchanging for the full set. MC Ride has one of the most iconic silhouettes ever, in my mind. Watching him perform is like a drug to me.
What song never fails to make you emotional?
Nina Simone, “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel To Be Free)”, live at Montreux, 1976. By the last two minutes, I’m totally wrecked.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
Aidan: Photos of a young Börje Salming, a Swedish ice hockey player that Alex quoted during our show in Malmö a few days ago. He was a handsome man. RIP
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
Alex: We were crashing with some kids from the University of Virginia. It was a student squat-type situation. I spent the night on a couch on the front porch next to an intersection. Just inside of the front door, I remember when I went to plug in my charger into the power strip, a tongue of flame shot out of the outlet towards me.
Ian: When I was a (much) younger man I was supposed to secretly stay in a sorority house after a college show. Just as we were settling in there was a small kitchen fire or something and the fire department and school officials were on the way so we had to grab all our stuff and get out as everyone ran around yelling about getting caught with boys in the house. Ended up just driving several hours through the night back home.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?
Alex: There are too many favorites and I can’t pick one, but I can tell you the sweatiest show — Milan, Italy. We’re going to CDMX soon for Corona Capital, and we’d love to come back and play another city in Mexico like Tijuana or Juarez. And with any luck we may have our first show in South America before the year is out.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Ian: I think I would just leave him alone. There’s no replacement for experience.
What’s one of your hidden talents?
Aidan: I am actually really good at driving a jet ski. I think when I took Ian for a spin the first time he was a bit scared.
What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?
Ian: It’s easy for the mind to go into a doom spiral about this stuff — I try not to let myself. I’m sure there will be some useful applications for shaking oneself out of a writing rut, I’m sure there will be a lot of jobs replaced by computers. That’s the way of most industries, I’d imagine, and has long been the way in music. Imagine being a drummer when drum machines became readily accessible. I’ll either find a way to navigate the future or go back to making coffee and waiting tables, unless those jobs are already replaced by AI.
You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.
Ian: Yo La Tengo, Aldous Harding, Slowdive, Reggie Watts, Dari Bay, all in some asteroid crater somewhere. Chili’s would cater.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?
Aidan: Brian Jordan Alvarez…. Even before his breakthrough hit “Sitting,” his characters TJ Mack and the wife were highlights of my Instagram feed. If you want an insight into what I think is hilarious, this is a great place to start.
Alex: Yeah TJ Mack’s wife, in particular, is my favorite. I don’t know her name but I could listen to her talk for hours.
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
Aidan: My first tattoo is actually my least favorite tattoo — I got it when I turned 15 and it’s 5 quarter notes arranged in the shape of a star. I think I googled “music tattoos”
What is your pre-show ritual?
Aidan: We all shake hands and say “good show,” which is actually a pre-show ritual Ian stole from The Wombats. Love those guys.
Alex: I make sure to sample each element of the rider personally – the carrots, the hummus, the chips, etc.
Who was your first celebrity crush?
Aidan: Either Val Kilmer, specifically as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, or Davy Jones of The Monkees (a show I watched as an insomniac child on the little TV in my bedroom).
You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?
Ian: Aidan and I still haven’t gone on a honeymoon after 5 years of marriage so this is something I actually spend a lot of time thinking about. Probably traveling around the Adriatic, seeing a bunch of beautiful countries.
What is your biggest fear?
Aidan: The impending future climate catastrophe.
Alex: Getting a real job and The Deep State.
Strange Disciple is out now via Play It Again Sam. Get it here.
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