"Punksexy" Dirty Children Get Down And Dirty And Shut Off The World

Popular L.A. Based Indie Band, Fronted by Wild and Untamed Lead Singer Nadia Fay, Defines Roaring New Eighties Rock Sound On Explosive Debut Shut Off The World

Club Scene Vets Place Three Songs From Disc In New Independent Films Described as “physical, nasty, punksexy rockers” by no less than legendary drummer Kenny Aronoff (Bon Jovi, Melissa Etheridge, Alanis Morissette), the raucous and joyfully frenetic trio of Nadia Fay (vocals), Jay Condiotti (guitar) and Kit Loose (bass)—collectively and mischievously known on the L.A. indie music scene as Dirty Children (dirtychildrenmusic.com) - want only one thing: to rock you senseless in a trippy, crazy, new '80s rock kind of way. They’ve done it over and over the past two years at every local club that books trendsetting, cutting edge acts (The Mint, The Roxy, Hard Rock Café, Knitting Factory, Cat Club, Anarchy Library), and have even played at clothes store openings on Melrose and high fashion shows.

Now, Dirty Children’s ever-growing fan base, which includes thousands of visitors worldwide on the tastemaking website garageband.com, are gearing up for the release of Shut Off The World, their explosive indie debut from NoizyNinja Productions. Produced by Condiotti (a native of the Bronx) and Fay (an Angeleno of British parentage), the disc features 11 originals that run the gamut from crunchy-punky, defiant and aggressive (“I Did It,” “Beautiful Freak”) to cool, melodic pop (“Insecurity”) to new wave ethereal (“Gravity”). Several of these songs are featured in new independent films, including “Before It Gets Good” (director Maria Petros’ Ascension) and “I Did It” (Gigglerz, which was scored by Loose, the newest Dirty Child). Dirty Children give a clever wink to Loose’s hometown of Minneapolis on the disc’s lone cover tune, a sizzling rave-up of Sheila E.’s “Glamorous Life.”

“The idea of calling the album Shut Off The World is that we want people to come with us, listen to the album, rock out, blast it in their cars, take the emotional journey and shut off everything outside,” says Fay. “It’s like an invitation. The title song is totally autobiographical about the mundane urban experience, sitting in traffic and losing touch with the things that really matter. Like creativity, which is stifled sometimes in the chaos of life and having to survive. It’s about wasting a lot of time when there’s so much I want to do and learn. Typical artist angst. I like the fact that some of our fans say my lyrics are universal and they can relate to them.”

That’s not all those fans are saying. Pull into garageband.com and you’ll see a lot of spontaneous reviews that defy typical music journalist clichés—“You’re like Nirvana fronted by Debbie Harry,” “Your dramatic and high energy live performances make me feel like I’m fourteen and my parents suck,” “This is Red Bull Rock!”

Although Shut Off The World is the band’s first official release, Fay and Condiotti—then calling themselves Neo, before they discovered there was another local group with that name--made an extended, untitled EP of some of their early compositions two years ago that proved popular with their fans. Condiotti likes to say that he “met Nadia’s voice before he met her” when a songwriter brought him a song she wanted him to re-demo in his studio. Condiotti was so taken with Fay’s vocals (“which were sexy, sultry, thick, not hesitant, aggressive and confident”) that he told his client that the other singer she wanted was unavailable. Fay came in to recut her tracks, and the two vibed immediately and were soon writing songs and booking gigs.

“I don't think the 80s vibe of the band was planned in any way," says Condiotti, "it just sort of came out naturally. The 80s were a fun time for music, and the songs were quirky and funny back then. There was this whole electronic movement, and you heard a lot of quirky rock guitar things. What other decade could have produced ‘The Safety Dance?’ I was into all the new wave, but I was also a big fan of Van Halen and Ratt". Nadia went to high school during the L.A. riots and there were racial fights in her school and people selling looted items. "That's when I discovered Hard Core Gangsta rappers, Ice Cube, Ice T, Paris, etc., whose urban anger and hard beats corresponded with the racial tension in my school. That's also when (Dr.) Dre's "The Chronic" came out which was HUGE then. There was so much tension and energy in that music. I ate it up.” Kit's got the ‘80s Minneapolis thing going, growing up with Husker Du and The Replacements. His first band had Prince's drummer Michael Bland. “We knew growing up in the eighties in Minneapolis with our skinny ties, pointy toes shoes and excessive eyeliner that we were part of a cultural revolution of fashion and music.”

Talking more specifically about Dirty Children’s evolution, Fay says, “The first album had a darker Alanis or Evanescence edge to it. But we decided after playing those songs for a long time that the next project was going to be more fun. I’d still go deep on the lyrics, but they wouldn’t be so melodramatic and we’d make it more of a party. Shut Off The World does have its darker songs like ‘Before It Gets Good’ and ‘God Got In The Way’ but we have all the lighter ones up front. The lyrics reflect a certain vulnerability masked with quirkiness and color. I think I’ve grown as a songwriter, and my lyrics here are more obscure and hidden than obvious. They’re more artistic and subtle, but the music’s still rockin’.”

That’s a great understatement for the musical dynamo, who is in nonstop, almost maniacal motion throughout Dirty Children’s live performances. Loose says his favorite part of being invited to the dance is “standing in the middle of the whirlwind that is Nadia, who’s like a hyperactive kitty up on stage. She dances, pushes my bald head around, gets on the floor, screams on her knees, wraps her legs around Jay. It’s like gymnastics, and the crowd picks up on the energy. It’s really the perfect antidote to the shoegazer bands who play drony stuff and whose albums are like taking lithium.”

Although Condiotti explains that the name Dirty Children began simply as a joke that stuck, “that kept getting a reaction, either a laugh or disgust,” Loose says the moniker perfectly defines what the trio does onstage: “At our last show at The Gig, I realized that we start off fast out of the gate and immediately draw the audience in, like children demanding attention. As if we’re screaming, look at me! Damn it, look at me!”

Another Dirty Children attention getter is the moody and mysterious blue, green and black artwork and cool font for the album and song titles. Loose, a graphics designer, designed the cover art, while Fay created the fonts by hand.

“The cover is very grass roots, very indie, like we are as a band,” she says. “We like it when fans say we bring them back to the 80s, but in a cool, modern way. That was a unique time of discovery, technology and curiosity, and our music is all about that. We like to think of ourselves as Dirty Children, always looking for new things and new ways to get into all sorts of mischief.”