{"id":38585,"date":"2026-08-11T13:17:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38585"},"modified":"2026-08-11T13:17:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:17:34","slug":"this-is-lorelei-was-only-meant-to-be-a-side-project-its-made-nate-amos-an-indie-darling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38585","title":{"rendered":"This Is Lorelei was only meant to be a side project. It\u2019s made Nate Amos an indie darling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">N<\/strong>ate Amos is really, really busy. <em>NME<\/em> is catching 40 minutes with him in a Manchester hotel lobby towards the end of a months-long odyssey with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/water-from-your-eyes\">Water From Your Eyes<\/a>, the experimental noise-pop duo he\u2019s one half of, supporting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/hayley-williams\">Hayley Williams<\/a>. But we\u2019re here to talk about a different project: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/this-is-lorelei\">This Is Lorelei<\/a>, his power-pop solo project, with which he\u2019s just kicking off a cycle for his second official album, \u2018The Singer In My Band\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>He released its predecessor, \u2018Box For Buddy, Box For Star\u2019, two years ago, after around a decade of quietly dropping music on Bandcamp. It became a slow-burning indie favourite, particularly after his friend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/mj-lenderman\">MJ Lenderman<\/a> covered the track \u2018Dancing In The Club\u2019. Since then there\u2019s been the new Water From Your Eyes album \u2018It\u2019s A Beautiful Place\u2019, the deluxe and super-deluxe versions of \u2018Box For Buddy\u2026\u2019, and the collection of re-recorded Lorelei deep cuts \u2018Holo Boy\u2019, all while balancing touring cycles for both projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like for it not to be quite so busy in the future,\u201d Amos admits with a self-effacing smile. \u201cBut the amount of attention that Lorelei has gotten has been very unexpected for me, so I\u2019m not surprised that it\u2019s been hectic. It feels like an unplanned child or something. It just happened and all of a sudden I was like, \u2018OK, this is gonna be crazy for a while.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right now, Amos looks like a man who\u2019s been on tour for a long time. His hair and beard have grown long; his demeanour is friendly but tired. It\u2019s punishingly hot today, and he\u2019s in a t-shirt, sweats, and Crocs, with a can of Monster and a pair of headphones set down on the table in front of him. He doesn\u2019t strike us as the kind of guy who\u2019d thrive on this busyness, we suggest. He laughs and agrees: \u201cI spend most of my time in quiet spaces if I can help it. I like to hang out in the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"This is Lorelei - &quot;Oh No Now My&quot; (Official Music Video)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bn7wmxAOTn8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">T<\/strong>his Is Lorelei\u2019s unexpected success is the kind that tends to come with gushing, rapturous praise. He\u2019s talked about like a well-kept secret waiting to break; <a href=\"https:\/\/uproxx.com\/indie\/this-is-lorelei-interview-nate-amos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the word \u2018generational\u2019 has been used<\/a>. With Lorelei, Amos is a songwriter\u2019s songwriter \u2013 his structures are simple, his melodies perfect, his voice sweet and his lyrics both profound and funny. On the covers album that came with the \u2018Box For Buddy\u2026\u2019 super-deluxe release, artists that are already legends, like Williams (with her new electronic duo Power Snatch) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/wilco\">Wilco<\/a>\u2019s Jeff Tweedy, and heroes of indie\u2019s current guard, like Lenderman, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/waxahatchee\">Waxahatchee<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/snail-mail\">Snail Mail<\/a>, take their turns covering Amos\u2019s songs. It acts as a stamp of approval from the grand council of American indie music.<\/p>\n<p>Amos, who\u2019s 35, grew up in sleepy small-town Vermont. He later ended up in Chicago, where he started Water From Your Eyes with his then-partner, Rachel Brown, before relocating to Brooklyn with them. His dad, Bob, is a bluegrass musician who now performs in a duo with Nate\u2019s sister Sarah. His first experiences of playing music were with his family. \u201cMy understanding of what music was, on a very basic level, came from that. And not just the music itself, but the community that tends to exist with folk music is a very different thing than pop music.\u201d Bob and Sarah show up across different songs on \u2018The Singer In My Band\u2019, playing banjo and singing respectively.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Singer In My Band\u2019 gets closer to roots music than Amos has before. There\u2019s none of the electronic experimentation that brushed \u2018Box For Buddy\u2026\u2019, instead being entirely guitar-based, while a lot of the time his harmonies and roaming arrangements feel as indebted to old country standards as to more conventional indie-rock heroes like Alex Chilton and Stephin Merritt. Amos struggles to write on the road, but most of the ideas started formulating in his head on long tour drives. It\u2019s never worked that way before \u2013 everything on \u2018Box For Buddy\u2026\u2019 was recorded and mixed within about four hours of its first conception. The difference in pace lent itself to a different, more deliberate kind of song.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things that defines \u2018Box For Buddy\u2026\u2019 is that it\u2019s very train-of-thought, and there\u2019s a lot of information being dumped in some of those songs. [I wanted] to follow it up with the limitation of way less words. Half as many words per song. And try to capture a similar emotional punch with less,\u201d he says. \u201cI was definitely chasing simplicity with this album. I wanted everything to be very exposed \u2013 no disguising my voice, no leaning on bells and whistles to make a less interesting song more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe amount of attention that Lorelei has gotten has been very unexpected for me\u2026 it feels like an unplanned child or something\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The lyrics on here, he says, are \u201creally personal\u201d. Many of them deal with complicated friendships. \u201cThey have to do with either keeping a safe distance, or giving yourself to this person totally as a support, and the sometimes complicated aftermath,\u201d Amos says. Yet most of the time he writes with a storyteller\u2019s eye for detail and economy of words; on the rootsy \u2018Watching Heaven Fall\u2019, a highlight, his lyrics are Dylanesque. \u2018The Kid With The Crown\u2019, which he describes as the \u201cuntied shoelace\u201d of the album, feels the least filtered. He takes turns admonishing and encouraging a friend: \u201c<em>Buddy, are you mean? Do you dream of un-dreaming your dreams? [\u2026] It\u2019s a curse, and it\u2019ll only get worse<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[In other bands], I\u2019ve always positioned myself as the man behind the curtain or whatever. That was honestly one of the big hurdles to get over with this album, was accepting Lorelei as something that I do publicly,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I\u2019d known that [\u2018Box For Buddy, Box For Star\u2019] was gonna be listened to by as many people as it has, that would have tripped me up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs someone whose life and thought processes have been very influenced by music that I\u2019ve consumed over my life, the idea of wielding that power freaks me out a little bit. [So] this album has been the process of accepting the job, and exposing myself as much as possible within the album to kind of like, get over the nervousness.\u201d He sees the album\u2019s opening track, \u2018I Will Eat My Heart In The Morning Light\u2019, as a kind of manifesto for presenting his art to so many listening ears while knowing he\u2019s an imperfect hero. \u201c<em>I know there must be better men, but I\u2019m not the kind to hide<\/em>\u201d, he sings.<\/p>\n<p>For a man who could have the weight of the indie rock world on his shoulders, Amos seems to carry it all with a slightly bewildered humility. \u201cI\u2019m not totally sure how this happened or why I\u2019ve been given this opportunity, \u2018cause I have known a lot of people throughout my life that I think are really brilliant people with a lot more to say than me. But I will try my best; that\u2019s a promise,\u201d he says. \u201cThis album is [saying], \u2018OK, I\u2019ll do this with you guys, and thank you for giving me the chance. I won\u2019t let you down\u2019\u201d \u2013 he chuckles nervously \u2013 \u201cI hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>This Is Lorelei\u2019s \u2018The Singer In My Band\u2019 is out on September 11 via Matador<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n  fbq('consent', 'revoke');\n  fbq('init', '370979561341328');\n  fbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nate Amos is really, really busy. NME is catching 40 minutes with him in a Manchester hotel lobby towards the end of a months-long odyssey with Water From Your Eyes, the experimental noise-pop duo he\u2019s one half of, supporting Hayley Williams. But we\u2019re here to talk about a different project: This Is Lorelei, his power-pop&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/this-is-lorelei-credit-gabe-long.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}