“I wrote this song fairly quickly—I had the idea in mind and a melody, and just started strumming it out on the guitar,” says Nikki Speake. “I knew I wanted it to have an ’80s-type feel to it.”
Mission accomplished. In the span of about three and half minutes, Nikki & The Phantom Callers’ latest single embodies everything sexy and cool about the rise of female-fronted bands in the Greed Decade: acts like Joan Jett, the Go-Go’s, Divinyls and Katrina And The Waves.
“We had so much fun recording the song,” says Speake, who was raised in Alabama and is now based in Atlanta. “The bridge is especially my favorite.”
The track is one of four on the new When I Die (You Better Say Nice Things About Me) (Numbers Station). Recorded by Dan Dixon (Butch Walker, Curtis Harding) at his RCRD Studios, the EP also features Speake’s longtime bandmate Anna Kramer on guitar and Atlanta scene veteran Shannon Mulvaney (Magnapop) on bass. After more than 20 years of ups and downs, Speake now surrounds herself with a tight crew that’s the polar opposite of the soul-sucking nitwits who inspired “Nobody Told You.”
“It’s about navigating life around false friends and opportunists, and the disillusionment that occurs when you see people sail through life by exploiting relationships and goodwill,” says Speake. “Everyone has a choice between using others as a means to an end or giving and receiving mutually because we value human connection.”
For the video, Speake channeled Ingmar Bergman. “I love the visual mood and the black-and-white minimalism of Persona, and I felt the themes of the movie and the song were very similar,” she says. “I’d seen a video that Emilia Brock directed for the band Rose Hotel and loved it, so I reached out to her. The video was very much DIY. We rented a yurt in Stone Mountain, Ga., and filmed almost everything in a day. Then played a show that night.”
We’re proud to premiere the video for Nikki & The Phantom Callers’ “Nobody Told You.” When I Die (You Better Say Nice Things About Me) is out now.
—Hobart Rowland
See Nikki & The Phantom Callers live.
