{"id":36436,"date":"2023-02-06T14:59:58","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T19:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=36436"},"modified":"2023-02-06T14:59:58","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T19:59:58","slug":"interview-nathaniel-banks-of-arlie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2023\/02\/06\/interview-nathaniel-banks-of-arlie\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW: NATHANIEL BANKS OF ARLIE"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Ashley Duong<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2022, Nathaniel Banks, lead singer of alternative\/indie band Arlie, experienced long overdue musical achievements straight out of an indie musician\u2019s dream. Arlie released their debut album, <\/span>BREAK THE CURSE<\/span><\/i>, had a successful headlining tour, then accompanied The Wrecks and Flipturn, gaining more popularity with every show they played. Yet Banks is musically insatiable, proven by the fact that he and his touring band recently packed into a van yet again and are hitting venues all over the U.S.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Arlie\u2019s (and subsequently Bank\u2019s) growing success is of no shock. With every new song he writes, each show he plays, and all his in-studio recording and producing sessions, one string of similarity ties each experience together: He envisioned this life from the start. Throughout all of the hardships and confusions, Nathaniel Banks\u2019s life turned out exactly how he expected to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This mindset was ingrained early on in his life. \u201cIt was definitely a life-long childhood dream,\u201d said Banks. \u201cI couldn\u2019t picture myself doing anything else.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While his motivations for a rockstar lifestyle began early in his childhood, it wasn\u2019t until college that his desire to pursue this career was solidified. Upon arrival, Banks met new people every day, people who challenged his preconceived notions that his dreams of being a musician were only dreams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got to Nashville, it was this whole spectrum of hobbyists all the way to legendary,\u201d said Banks. \u201cYou see all the things that make it possible to go from one side of the spectrum to another and that\u2019s just what sort of opened it up for me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Through learning from these extraordinary musicians that doubled as his classmates, about their music journey and how tangible it was, Bank\u2019s familiar childhood dream resurfaced. He began to compose with them, fulfilling a childhood dream to write songs, and inadvertently starting a new beginning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Banks\u2019s college music courses aided his journey as a songwriter \u2014 and eventually, a professional musician. His songwriting class forced him to eventually finish the song snippets he worked on, which led to him showing people his completed work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt proved to me that I could do it,\u201d Banks said. \u201cBefore that, it was always just like, I had hundreds and hundreds of unfinished things. It just took a little bit of a concentrated push to actually start finishing things and get some feedback.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While his music classes taught him the technicalities and nuances of music creation, his other classes were just as important: serving as inspiration for his music. His experience in history, philosophy, and literature classes were endlessly impactful on his lyricism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt would always feed into my songwriting in ways\u2026 just to be putting what I\u2019m doing into the context of the bigger picture, of humanity at large,\u201d said Banks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After finding his concentrated push and his lyrical inspiration, everything started setting into place. He put together a band, played live performances around campus, and, in 2018, released <\/span>Wait<\/span><\/i>, Arlie\u2019s first EP. After this EP\u2019s release, Arlie\u2019s return to the music scene seemed to be halted: a necessary break for Bank\u2019s mental well-being.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2019, Banks experienced a mental health crisis, one that threw a wrench in his long overdue childhood dreams. He realized that he needed help, pausing his songwriting to see different therapists and receive the needed support. Throughout his time, he luckily had an incredible support system, including his record label.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cA lot of people might get dropped from their label when they have a mental health crisis\u2026 and my label was really supportive of me,\u201d said Banks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As he climbed out of his depressive episode, he returned to a path that was lined with a newfound uncertainty, as his timing coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet this was a blessing for him, since it alleviated the pressure of returning to society before he was ready. He took this blessing and began working on what we now know as Arlie\u2019s debut album, <\/span>BREAK THE CURSE<\/span><\/i>. He had 30 songs in various stages of completion, rotating between them with different producers and collaborators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI often get to a point where I\u2019m just chasing the inspiration as long as I can and then I\u2019ll set it aside, so I don\u2019t get too lost in the details when I don\u2019t have the perspective,\u201d said Banks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This production process was filled with trial and error, all during a raw healing period \u2014 an unfavorable combination for creating music. With choosing between one vulnerable song lyric to another, or between different production styles, his mental health crisis was hindering his decision making process.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s hard to trust yourself creatively if you don\u2019t trust yourself in general, in life,\u201d said Banks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Luckily, his friends Adam and Ryan, who played with his band in the past, helped bring his vision to life. Working through COVID quarantine protocols, it was a process of \u201cproblem solving our way to the finish line,\u201d said Banks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With an unorthodox approach of having no deadline, they worked on the album for the next eight months. \u201cWe went super, super, super detailed in a way that maybe will never happen again,\u201d said Banks.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The album\u2019s release, and Arlie\u2019s subsequent headlining tour, were huge milestones for not only the present Nathanial Banks, but the version of him making demos and writing songs in his college dorm room.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While the childhood Nathaniel who dreamed of singing, writing songs, and being a composer couldn\u2019t definitively articulate how his life would turn out, the future version of himself confidently proclaimed that he was always meant to live this life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I did think that my life would look like this. I did not think that the path would look like how [it] looked to get to where I am,\u201d said Banks. \u201cWhere I am now, it\u2019s like, \u2018yeah this kind of makes sense to me.\u2019 But how I got here, I\u2019m like, \u2018what in the world\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can stream Arlie\u2019s first album, <\/span>BREAK THE CURSE<\/span><\/i> on all streaming platforms. See Arlie on tour and purchase tickets <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>, and follow them on <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Ashley Duong   In 2022, Nathaniel Banks, lead singer of alternative\/indie band Arlie, experienced long overdue musical achievements straight out of an indie musician\u2019s dream. Arlie released their debut album, BREAK THE CURSE, had a successful headlining tour, then accompanied The Wrecks and Flipturn, gaining more popularity with every show they played. Yet Banks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20911,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,1523,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20911"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36438,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36436\/revisions\/36438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}