Song Exploder2 Aug 2023

Local Natives - Dark Days

It can be hard to be in a band, or really, in any kind of group where there’s creative collaboration, and you’re supposed to act like it's a democracy. Because what do you do with an idea that you love, if nobody else believes in it? That question is a big part of this episode with Local Natives.

Local Natives is a band from Southern California. Their first album came out in 2009, but the three vocalists and songwriters in the band, Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, and Ryan Hahn – they’ve been playing together since they were in high school. The lineup also includes Matthew Frazier on drums and Nik Ewing on bass. They’ve put out five albums, including their most recent, Time Will Wait For No One, which came out in July 2023.

But for this episode, I talked to Taylor, Kelcey, and Ryan about an older song of theirs: “Dark Days,” which came out in 2016. It’s their biggest song to date; it has over 100 million streams, and it's been certified gold. It’s a duet with Swedish singer Nina Persson, from The Cardigans. In 2020, they put out a new version of the song, featuring Amelia Meath from the band Sylvan Esso.

I talked to the guys here in the studio, and to Amelia Meath remotely. And together, they told me the seven-year story of how “Dark Days,” was first made and then eventually remade.

For more, visit songexploder.net/local-natives.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(374)

Charli XCX - Camera

Charli XCX is a Grammy-winning artist who has been making music since she was a teenager. In July 2026, she released her eighth album, Music, Fashion, Film. It debuted at number 1 on the UK charts—her...

19 Aug 23min

Mitski - Your Best American Girl

In 2016, Mitski did an episode of Song Exploder about her song “Your Best American Girl.” She had just released her second album, Puberty 2. Later, Pitchfork named “Your Best American Girl” one of the...

5 Aug 14min

Suki Waterhouse - Back in Love

Suki Waterhouse is a singer-songwriter, actress, and model from London. She released her first single in 2016, and her first album, I Can’t Let Go, in 2022, on Sub Pop. You might have seen her in the ...

22 Jul 23min

Key Change: Questlove on Prince

My guest today is Ahmir Thompson, aka Questlove, the drummer and founding member of The Roots, as well as an author, a DJ, and an Oscar-winning film director.A song that changed my life is “Double Tro...

15 Jul 25min

Metric - Victim of Luck

Metric is a band from Canada that was formed in 1998. They’ve won four Juno Awards, including Group of the Year. Rolling Stone included them in their list of the 50 Greatest Canadian Artists of All Ti...

8 Jul 22min

Hayley Kiyoko - Girls Like Girls

Hayley Kiyoko is a singer, songwriter, author, and director from Los Angeles. She was a child actor on Disney and Nickelodeon, and briefly in a girl group called The Stunners. But then, she started he...

24 Jun 26min

Key Change: Tatiana Maslany on "Faceshopping" by Sophie

My guest today is the actor Tatiana Maslany. One of the things I find so compelling about Tatiana and her career is that the roles that she plays often contain multitudes—literally. She played over 10...

17 Jun 19min

Paul McCartney - Ripples in a Pond

Paul McCartney is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer whose career spans more than six decades. As a member of The Beatles and later Wings and then with his own solo albums, he’s...

10 Jun 24min