From Perth, Australia, 4-piece rock band NEIN is back and better than ever with their latest hit “The Fun One”. NEIN described their sound as Glunge, a mix of glam rock and grunge. Consisting of frontwoman Kristie Butler, Kal Englishby on guitar, Michael Williams on bass, and Daniel Schulze on drums. NEIN’s goal is to let their audience be free and dance alongside their music, with a legendary quote “They’re making a hell of a racket”. While their latest groundbreaking single “The Fun One” does this and more, with tightly-wound instrumentals that pierce through your speaker, NEIN has clearly grasped a new meaning to energy.
“The Fun One” opens with Kal Englishby’s riveting electric guitar, supported by Daniel Schulze’s pounding drum patterns. As Kristie Butler’s vocals shove their way to the forefront, her vocals turn heads and effortlessly capture your attention. She sings empowering lyrics of leaving someone who’s not worth your time and energy, while Kristie Butler channels those deep emotions and saves her energy for the stage. Not to mention the band’s secret weapon, Michael Williams’ throbbing bass lines that perfectly enhance “The Fun One”s upbeat and powerful vibe. We can say that NEIN has effectively surpassed their goal of letting their music speak to their audience and let them dance the night away. Especially through their last soaring single “The Fun One”, the track is definitely worth a stream.
Listen to "The Fun One" here.
Hey NEIN, welcome to BuzzMusic! We’re loving the independent and empowering vibes on your latest single “The Fun One”. Where did NEIN find inspiration to write and create the hard-hitting song?
It was the quickest written song on the record, just came together on the spot at practice, in a really satisfying natural way that just hit the mark. Dan, our drummer, wanted to write a fun dancing song, and Kristie, our vocalist, just started shouting about a friend of a friend that she was kind of angry with for not very good reasons. “The Fun One” was the working title, and it stuck because it’s so apt, and it’s such a gloriously immature punk-style song, we just revel in having fun with it. Your track “The Fun One” serves limitless and complex layers giving it a well-rounded and whole-rock sound. Could you share how NEIN went about their creative process for “The Fun One”? How did the four of you approach the recording process? The Fun One was from a jamming process in the early days of NEIN; we came up with it, start to finish in about 20 minutes. Some songs take longer; this one just floated down to us from the universe! We managed to capture the live energy of this song on the record in a way we are really happy with, and that comes with a big thank you to Simon Paxton who recorded and mixed the album for us, adding the sound effects to the Fun One just caps it off perfectly. Bucko also added a guitar part under the last chorus that he couldn’t play live (as he is but one man), that just sounds so glorious - he ended up playing it live anyway and leaving the other guitar bit out of that particular part - luckily the bass and drums are so fat he (and now Kal) could get away with it, no trouble.
We’ve heard that NEIN’s sound is said to be Glunge, a mix of glam rock and grunge. Are there any influences that the band had, or individually, that helped NEIN’s sound develop into what it is today?
That’s the beautiful thing about our band, we really couldn’t be more different in our music taste. Michael sort of formed the band with the idea of sticking a bunch of musicians from different backgrounds and tastes together in a room and seeing what comes out. The underlying theme is that we always rock, but we do really come from different spaces, even individually we pull from some really diverse influences. Dan, our drummer, worships at the feet of Blink 182 and 21 Pilots but also loves Taylor Swift. Michael is our resident metalhead and loves Kvelertak, Puscifer, Gojira, and being a bass player, he is into banging bass-heavy bands like Tool, Faith No More and Primus. Kal, our guitarist, is deriving her NEIN influences from people like Adam Jones, Johnny Marr, and Joey Santiago…mixed with a bit of David Bowie and Slipknot. And Kristie on vocals, loves Donna Summer, the Beastie Boys, the Supremes, Chastity Belt, the Front Bottoms, Sleater-Kinney and Kitten Forever. Confused? Don’t worry, it will make sense when you hear us.
From NEIN’s high energy performance to your rule of continuous dancing from your audience, you’ve clearly established the band’s exhilarating atmosphere. How does NEIN keep up this constant energy, and serve different and unique tracks that speak their own meaning?
Our songs have so much variety, even within each track, that we just really aren’t boring. It’s not hard to keep up the energy when you’re having a blast dancing and playing your ass off! Each member of the band has a different answer to this question, based not only on what they play but also who they are. Each song stands out for different reasons and gets its own different ball of energy thrown at it. Also - every time we play, there are new people watching us, and whether they’re dancing or just staring at us with their mouths open, those are people who get to experience NEIN for the first time, and we aren’t gonna half-arse it!
What can we expect to see from you throughout 2020?
Well until we are let out of our cage, it will be sanitizer and social distancing, however, we really hope to get back on-stage soon, as that’s where we do some of our best work. We are currently working on our online presence through and scheming up a video clip. We’re also halfway through writing Album #2, and are looking forward to debuting some of our new bops on-stage. So you’ll definitely be seeing us a lot more in the future.