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Matthew Caws of Nada Surf Published on September 18th, 2012 Music lovers the world over will know Nada Surf for their incredible 90?s breakthrough hit 'Popular', but after nearly two decades in the game these legendary New York rockers have proven they're much more than one hit wonders. Now the trio -- along with rock vet Doug Gillard -- have finally returned to Australian shores to celebrate not only the recent release of their seventh full-length record 'The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy', but also their entire back catalogue for the first time ever, and luckily Moshcam will be filming their show at the Annandale Hotel this Thursday . We caught up with frontman Matthew Caws to find out more about the tour, their kick-ass new album and whether Aussie fans can expect to hear 'Popular' during their Down Under tour dates. How is the tour going? It's been good! We are just finishing a little break right now, there has been a lot of touring this year. Everyone [in the band] is spread around -- Daniel [Lorca] is in Spain, Ira [Elliot] is in New York and I'm in England. I've been spending time with my friends, making music and going to see it. It's part of relaxing, It's how I got into this business [laughs]. Nada Surf will be in Australia soon, is the band looking forward to it? Absolutely! It's been a very long time, eight or ten years since we were last there I think.. Yeah, what's with that? I don't know! I guess it's kind of pricey to go there. But I'm not too sure what the reason was, we're just psyched to be coming back! And the fans here are psyched to get to see you perform too. Yeah! There is a difference in playing to fans in places where you hardly ever visit, that would be Australia for us, and Ireland for some reason. So, we feel a different kind of excitement about those places, and maybe part of it is 'we better not mess up because we hardly ever go there' [laughs]. Nada Surf has been going for quite a while now, what do you think is the key to the band's longevity? Well...we're friends, Daniel and I were friends before we were in the band. Also, it comes down to audiences in a way because early on we had some typical record company up-and-down experiences. For one, we had a war of attrition to get our second record back so we could release it ourselves, coupled with having a first single that did really well but didn't really represent the band. But even though that stuff happened early on, it's been fun to play. Honestly. Even during those times it always felt really good and the audience has made it seem like nothing was ever really wrong! There have been a lot of changes in the music industry over the past few years, and a lot of it has to do with technology. Is it more daunting to put out a record nowadays? Well the potential for how it is going to sell has dropped enormously. On the other hand, it's more daunting in the sense that many more people put out records but it's much easier to let your fans know that something has been released. Before, if you didn't get your record into a store, the people following you would never know it had been released. That's certainly not the case anymore. You can be much closer to your audience. So I think for music, all this new technology is great, but when I think about what having all this information at our fingertips is doing to our brains...that's kind of made things a little scary. Watch the video for 'Popular' below How much pressure does the band feel to write another 'Popular'? Well, not really. There is always pressure to have a hit because it does such great things for you. Of course, there was, but that song was such a fluke. I made up most of the words on the spot; I was sort of inspired by a book I was reading from. It was such a weird set up -- I mean, it's a talking song! But I try to write a hit every single time I write a song; it's just not always based on reality [laughs] it's based on 'well, if I lived on another planet and radio was like this, id play this song'. Does the band ever get sick of playing it live? No we're not sick of it at all! We don't play it every night because there are some other songs that we are much more likely to play every night. But I still think it's hilarious and I'm quite proud of it! The new album is called 'The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy', where did the title come from? It's a saying my father used to say to his students to make a point about man's relative insignificance. I think it's an interesting point in these times, there are people trying to deny that climate change exists, and climate change is going to do what it's going to do. Those people don't believe that it's real are not going to be saved by their disbelief. I think we are largely out of touch with nature these days, unfortunately. Nature is clearly important to you, and there is a lot of outdoor imagery on the new album. Is that the reason behind it? Yeah, but there is also a close to home reason for writing about nature. I wanted to try to stop writing about myself as much. One after listening to 'The Weight Is A Gift' and then 'Lucky', a bunch of times I had this moment where I thought 'I only have two songs, I just keep writing them again and again!' [laughs]. So I made an effort this time to take that out of the picture if possible, so that's why nature in particular features heavily on it. But there is lyrics like "this new peace/ I can feel it now" so there is still your own personal touch on this album... Oh yeah! It's only a matter of degrees, its only changed about five per cent. It's what comes naturally. But I think I've opened the windows a little bit! In 'Looking Through' the lyrics read "one more year/ of someone trying to figure it all out".  Is that another personal message, is the band still trying to figure things out? It is personal, but it's more just myself. The band is quite healthy; if we sang about the band it would be the most boring thing ever! [Laughs] Watch the video for 'Waiting For Something' below You made most of your records outside of New York, what made you set up shop in Daniel Lorca's [bassist] loft for this one? We had been going out-of-town for years to avoid distractions, but we found that what we sounded like in band practice didn't sound like we did on or records, and part of it was getting the record ready in one city and going to another to record it kind of... costs you something. You lose some muscle memory. So this time we practiced in his place and then set a drum track to it in the nearest studio. We rolled our amplifiers literally three blocks down the street and tracked it. We didn't have to check in and relearn our arrangements, it came out naturally. We hear the place is referred to as 'The Sitcom'... Yeah! It's called that because I used to live there a while ago, then Ira used to live there with Daniel. And I guess they used to have some pretty legendary parties. Daniel is just a great host and cook, so it starts off with just ten people and then it becomes forty people... yeah he just likes entertaining [laughs]. So can fans in Australia expect a mix of old and new songs when you play here? Yeah, we will probably play slightly more new ones than old ones. But we will make an effort to go back enough to make fans happy. We are a quartet now because we have Doug Gillard now, we were a trio last time we were Down Under. It's a real kick because we sound so much fuller, the band feels so good right now. We're really stoked about getting back there. So will 'Popular' be on the set lists? Probably! We'll see! Nada Surf's brand new album The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy and back catalogue available now through Stop Start/EMI