5 minutes with Nicole Atkins

Lollapalooza 2008, Day 3

By Amy Oprean
Published: August 8th, 2008 | 8:52am

When it comes to finding inspiration, you don't always need to go to the ends of the earth to create something otherworldly. Nicole Atkins, for example, just needed to come home. Her debut album with the Sea, Neptune City (Columbia) was written when she moved back to her hometown of Neptune City, New Jersey, and discovered a rekindled, albeit bittersweet fondness for the place she grew up.

The songs, a mix of nostalgia, David Lynch–inspired surrealism and country-style crooning earned the group a solid following, but it was a breakout performance on The Late Show with David Letterman in October 2007 that gave her U.S. tour with the Sea its current momentum and expanding fan base.

Before her Sunday afternoon set at Lollapalooza, Atkins talked to Venus Zine about her upcoming album with the Sea, why she loves festivals, and what the future holds.

How do you feel about playing here with so many other bands as opposed to your own private venue and do you like it better or worse?

I like it way better just 'cause we're a new band and I get to play in front of thousands more people than I usually do, so when you're playing in front of that many people there's so much more you can do onstage, 'cause it becomes more of a show. It's not so intimate that you get nervous.

How has life changed since then for your band since your performance on The Late Show with David Letterman last year?

Since the Letterman thing we're able to sell out club dates, which is good, and I also get free Italian food in my town now 'cause I was on Letterman. It was just really good to spread the awareness. It's funny too 'cause from that, I guess 'cause the song we did is kinda old school and classy, people come with their parents to our shows and they're like, "I like you, and so does my dad." It's cool.

You were making music for a long time before you met up with your band the Sea. How have they added to your sound and changed it?

I actually shaped the sound with my friend David Muller. He and I just sat and layered sound upon sound and then I brought in the Sea after I put it on MySpace. They MySpaced me and were like, [do you need a band?] 'Cause our band is breaking up … 'cause we're breaking up." It was perfect. And now it's just great because David moved back to Europe and so I just get to sing them all of my ideas and they play them, so they're like extensions of what I can't do.

I know that you enjoy David Lynch films and he's one of your inspirations. Has your music ever been featured in a movie and if not, what kind of movie do you think your music could go into?

It hasn't yet but if I got to pick the kind of movie I would love to do something like Pan's Labyrinth. Something kind of mystical and dramatic and dark.

You're also a visual artist. Do you make your album art?

I used to, but not this one, Neptune City, we were just so busy with making the record and touring that I came up with the concept and the story, has a black swan on the cover, I grew up in this neighborhood called Shark River, and one day this black swan just appeared on the river and the whole town was like, "Whoa! Where did this come from?" And so every day people would get their coffee and just sit on the bridge and watch it, it was beautiful. It stayed there three weeks and then they found it with its neck snapped, and so there were posters all over town like any information, cash reward, who did this, and nobody ever found out, but this rich couple that lived like three towns over was importing them and the day before its wings got clipped it flew to our river, 'cause it's a bird sanctuary. I mean a turtle might have even done it, who knows, but I just wanted him to draw it on the album cover with a ribbon around its neck to fix him again.