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Feb 23, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Clark Hodgin

North Carolina rock outfit The Nude Party broke through in 2018 with their self-titled full-length debut, and followed in 2020 with their sophomore record, Midnight Manor, cultivating a ramshackle style that drew comparisons to the heyday of The Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones. The band haven’t slowed down since. Unlike their first two albums, they decided to produce their latest effort on their own, decamping to a self-built studio space in upstate New York and recording at their own pace. The result is the band’s upcoming full-length record, Rides On, out March 10th via New West Records.

This year, the band have been teasing the album with a pair of singles, “Ride On” and “Hard Times (All Around),” and today they’re back with another two tracks, “Cherry Red Boots” and a cover of Dr. John’s “Somebody Tryin’ To Hoodoo Me,” premiering early with Under the Radar.

“Cherry Red Boots” once again leans on the band’s late ‘60s vibe, layering together upbeat wall-of-sound drums, jangling guitar lines, and catchy organ riffs. In contrast, “Somebody Tryin’ to Hoodoo Me” evokes an alluring smoky groove, shaded with loads of psych guitar and piano licks. “Cherry Red Boots” feels like it could’ve been a forgotten radio hit, while the band’s cover is more psychedelic and hazy. Yet, both tracks thoroughly inhabit the best of the era’s effortless style and swaggering cool, reviving the side of rock music that is muddy noisy, and fun.

Lead singer Patton Maggee explains of the tracks: “Cherry Red Boots,” started with a wavy organ riff that Don came up with, using his expression pedal to wah out a call-and-response melody on the Farfisa. Then we layered over an upbeat Coney Island rhythm to it. Don had written the main piece of the music and sent me a demo of it. I listened on repeat driving back and forth to New York City in my old Chevy, humming out the melody and lyrics.

At that time I was smitten with a girl I’d met in Brooklyn. She was dancing nights at a gentleman’s club in Manhattan. That world was entirely foreign to me. The closer we got, the more I learned about that side of nightlife. Some of it sounded liberating. Some of it sounded dark and heavy.

That’s my image of the song. A naive boy entranced with a pretty midwestern girl strutting alone down a darkened New York City street. A warm red neon glow on a cold night.

He continues, saying of the band’s cover, “I found this song on a collection of unreleased Dr. John recordings called the ‘Crazy Cajun Tapes.’ We translated the piano lines over to guitar mostly, then hardened up the whole thing and brought it more into psych-territory. Lyrically, I feel like he was talking about the dread of a love gone wrong. And how his ex-girlfriend (or wife, maybe), is putting a curse on him and trying to cause him harm.”

Check out the songs below. Rides On is out March 10th via New West Records. Preorder the record here.