The Date Where Secret Nudist Friends Accidentally Hookup With a Ramone (Sort Of)
Secret Nudist Friends, photo by Shannon Sophy
By Emily Herbein
Secret Nudist Friends have been a pillar in Philadelphia’s DIY scene for years thanks to their record label, Good How Are You Records, and their venue space, The Tralfamadore. To know this band really is to love them. Consisting of Matty Klauser, Deb Gilmore, Brian Hulihen, and Missy Pidgeon, the South Philly foursome are inseparable not only as musicians but as friends. The respect and joy that they all feel for one another were incredibly clear even over a dodgy Zoom call, and I think this was one of the most feel-good interviews we’ve done in a long time. Nine times out of ten you’ll find at least one member of Secret Nudist Friends at a DIY show because if there’s one thing that they value above creativity, it’s supporting their fellow artists. Even though this interview is 95% nonsensical questions, that should be the takeaway. The local scene won’t thrive without mutual love and respect, and this is a band that honors that to their core. I’m thrilled to share this conversation and their music with you.
Can you give the elevator pitch of your band?
Deb: Non-toxic, safe for children.
Matty: Apply directly to the forehead, do not pass “Go,” do not collect $200.
Bre: That's chaotic and perfect.
Matty: We actually have this group on Facebook called “Friends of Secret Nudist Friends,” but it got hijacked by actual nudists looking for friends. They never ask about the band, they never post about music, the comments are literally just “when are we getting naked?” or “Why aren’t you nude?” And there’s no way they’re going to figure out we’re a band, so if we just get really off-topic with it, or say “apply directly to the forehead,” maybe they’ll finally get it.
Bre: That’s the best answer we’ve gotten so far.
Emily: Okay, then fill in the blank. Secret Nudist Friends is the best soundtrack for ____?
Matty: An anxiety attack - I’m kidding. Swimming in a round, above-ground pool.
Deb: * thumbs up *
What’s the most “Philly” thing that’s ever happened to you?
Brian: I used to go to Temple and I was waiting for the train one day, and I saw a dude riding an all-white horse, no saddle, up the wrong way on a one-way street in broad daylight.
Deb: Okay - I’m in South Philly around 17th street, and behind me, I hear a motorcycle revving. They’re getting closer to me and I’m like, “Oh, God.” I’m just going to let him pass because I don’t want to deal with this. So he passes, and it’s actually this tricycle sort of motorcycle and the guy on it is this big burly dude with a huge beard and a Viking helmet. He’s blasting music and he just cruises by me and yells, “WOOOOO!”
Matty: That’s it. That’s it.
Deb: I want to say his license plate had something to do with Gritty but I don’t remember.
Matty: It’s like this - the other day I said someone was really “Philly-looking” and Missy knew exactly what I meant in my mind. What did you say? I was like, “Oh, he looks like a Philly guy.”
Missy: Tall.
Matty: Yeah.
Missy: Burly.
Matty: Yeah.
Missy: Probably bald.
Matty: Yeah.
Missy: Beard.
Matty: Yeah.
Missy: Wears a flannel.
Matty: Is a bartender or a tattoo artist, wears cut-offs.
Emily: The Dawn Drapes told us there’s this dude in Fishtown, like a staple character, who just walks down the street and spits on people. I think they called him Rocket Man.
Deb: I’d much prefer if we’re talking about Philly celebs that we mention Philly Jesus. He hasn’t been around in a while. He used to go to every protest and event.
Matty: My Philly celebrity is Candy Kid, hands down. He’s this sweet, portly young man. He’s 14 now, and since he was about 7, he and his brothers have a hustle where they sell candy and they say it’s for a basketball team, but they’re actually just supporting their family which is a totally reasonable thing. Their main haunts are around Ninth Street. He’s so well-known at this point that he can just walk into a bar and everyone says hi to him. And I want to get a t-shirt of him holding a box of candy. I actually asked him for consent to take his photo and then said if I had an artist make a Candy Kid shirt and gave him the proceeds from sales, would he accept it? And he said yeah. So maybe 2021 Candy Kid shirts.
Missy: I can’t think of a Philly celeb but I did see the Gritty butter statue.
Emily: That is so gross.
Missy: I pictured it like, melting, or covered in hair or whatever. But he was protected! He was refrigerated.
If you had to be stuck on a desert island with two other Philly bands, who would you choose and why?
Missy: I’m choosing Patrick Bayer.
Matty: I’m going to second Patrick. He did the drums and helped us with a lot of the recording process on our record. He fixes everything, too. Amps, drums. He built a whole recording studio in his basement.
Missy: He’d build a water purifier out of coconuts.
Matty: I’m going to say Kelsey Cork and the Swigs. Those are people who would keep me entertained forever.
Deb: I love that. I second Kelsey Cork and the Swigs.
Brian: Third.
Deb: My other band that came to mind was Rosemeat, and that’s because Eric and Melina are grown-ups.
Matty: So Patrick Bayer is going to come along as the tech for Rosemeat and Kelsey Cork and the Swigs, so we kind of cheated, but we got it.
Emily: My go-to response has been Dominy because those guys have an infinite amount of knowledge about obscure stuff and also most of them are into camping and carpentry. You’d never be bored with them.
Matty: Also for their honky-tonk fashion.
Bre: If we’re stranded on an island with Secret Nudist Friends, what are you bringing to the table?
Matty: Fourteen pounds of coleslaw, goddammit. And a zest for life. And no refrigeration.
Brian: No refrigeration.
Matty: In all seriousness, Missy and I are badass cooks.
Missy: I bake bread now.
Matty: Brian will literally psychobabble into oblivion to make sure that reality never becomes too real so we can enjoy the island.
Brian: Or I would just gather firewood.
Matty: Literally - if you tell Brian to get firewood, he’ll come back with twice as much as you’d expect him to.
Brian: It’s how they built the pyramids.
Matty: With firewood. And Deb will lead you in song and prayer and spirituality. We’ve got this.
Deb: I’ll burn incense, I’ll do daily yoga and meditation. I’ll get us off the island but we won’t be off the island. I’ll allow you to manifest whatever reality you want in your mind.
Brian: I can see it now - “Paradise Found” or something.
Matty: And I do make a mean playlist.
Bre: How can we listen to a playlist without WiFi?
Missy: Sing it.
Matty: Sing it as I remember it.
What are some of your favorite “flex” stories?
Matty: About 10 years ago, I was invited to a rooftop Halloween party by this random girl who was working in classical music with me. But then the rooftop party was canceled, so we went to this bar instead called The Red Door or The Black Door or something in Midtown. People start filing in and they’re all dressed ostentatiously. I don’t know who anyone is. This woman, who’s probably in her 50s, starts flirting with me very hard and we end up making out in a bathroom. When we walk out of there, she says, “My ex-husband is going to be here soon.” And I ask who he is and she goes, “Richie Ramone.” The fucking Ramones are coming. “He’s a nice guy, I’ll introduce you,” she says. So he’s at the bar and we walk over and she goes, “This is Matthew, he’s a musician as well.” This was before I was going by Matty again. But I had just done some sex stuff with Richie Ramone’s ex-wife in the bathroom on Halloween. I was too drunk to truly process anything then and there, but a week later it all started to sink in.
Emily: I have nothing. I have nothing to even remotely compete with that.
Missy: When we were on our big tour last summer, we went camping out in Texas and I woke up early one morning for a job and a swim in this lazy river nearby. And I saw a 500-pound hog and I ran away.
Bre: You evaded death that day.
Deb: This isn’t necessarily a flex story but it’s something that’s been on my mind recently. Something really weird that I did once. Early in college, we all had to read a book -
Matty: Oh, that’s weird.
Deb: The professor brought the author of the book in to speak to the class, and it was Alan Cumming from “Spy Kids.” He’s also been on Broadway and was in “The L Word.” So I was selected as one of the people who could go to this small-group reading with him. We chatted and then stood for a picture, and I somehow find myself right next to him. And then, I don’t know why, but something just came over me and I felt like I had to do something in this moment. So I leaned over and Iicked him on the shoulder.
Matty: You licked the flesh or the cloth?
Deb: Oh, he had a shirt on.
What are your best and worst green room experiences?
Deb: A really good green room experience was when we played 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia. That was also probably the biggest venue we’ve played. I never felt so much like a rockstar, the door said “authorized personnel,” and there are rooms within the green room for each band. You could drink, you could smoke whatever, there were bathrooms, and there was even a hospitality person.
Matty: The way it should be... The only thing that trumps that, that isn’t Secret Nudist Friends-related, was when I played Firefly. That backstage is so luxurious. Like, golf carts and food tents and game rooms and open bars everywhere. But it might not qualify since it was a different band.
Brian: I think the worst green room would just be the absence of a green room.
What’s a weird crowd experience you’ve had at your show or someone else’s?
Missy: We got a lot of inquiries from nudists online.
Matty: A lot.
Missy: I was included in a prayer email chain for the Coronavirus that said “message this to eight people to pray, and if you can’t pray, let me know so I can forward it to someone else.” And then the next message was, “Let me know if you know any single female nudists.”
Matty: Just the chain of thoughts started to click for him I guess. I mean, why don’t we play nude?
Missy: There was also the time we saw Shannon and the Clams at The Met, and there was a moment in the show where she was asking the crowd how they were feeling, and someone was like, “Go Birds!”
Emily: I went to your show with Trash Boy at Everybody Hits last summer and as soon as your set ended and theirs started, my friend got punched in the nose. The pit opened up way too intense and way too fast and he just didn’t see it coming.
If someone asks what your favorite album is, what do you say to seem cool? What’s your actual favorite?
Missy: Matty just showed me this band called The Aquatics. They’re a soul-funk band and they have an album called Doin’ It and it’s just so good.
Matty: That was mine! Can I give you a brief history of The Aquatics? That album is so wild. There's a lot of drama and exploitation behind it. POC fighting with record labels over copyright infringement. It’s one of the most beautiful funk albums and it’s actually considered one of the best soul albums of all time.
Missy: If I had to impress someone, that would be my pick. It’s just pretentious enough. My actual favorite is Visions by Grimes. I’ve listened to that album like a billion times.
Matty: She’s a robot. What is the breakout Disclosure album? That’s my guilty pleasure. It’s definitely not my favorite album but I just keep coming back to it.
Deb: I don’t have a true favorite album, but I do have a song. “I Try” by Macy Gray. It’s not meant to impress anybody, but it’s just so good. It’s a perfect, feel-good song. It speaks to me.
Brian: An album to brag about is To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar. That album introduced me to his music, and I’m comfortable enough to even say it’s just one of my favorites. But I definitely have a guilty pleasure everyone can laugh at.
Missy: Brian’s really obsessed with that song “Down Under” by Men at Work.
Matty: Funnily enough, Missy got a cassette of that song and it’s the only one that I use to test the tape deck that we use before we send things out from Good How Are You Records. I reference that tape for volume mastering and stuff.
Can you describe the Philly music scene in ten words or less?
Matty: I have one. Stream of consciousness: Wow, what a delicious risotto we have here in Philly.
Emily: Perfect. Leave it there.
Brian: That’s like six or seven dollars, I don’t know -
Missy: At the door. But not if it’s in West Philly.
Matty: This all counts, right?
It all counts. I really can’t emphasize the sincerity behind the friendships that define Secret Nudist Friends. It has been a couple months since we had this Zoom meeting, and when I watched it back to transcribe over the last couple days, it made me truly happy to sit with this conversation again. Secret Nudist Friends released a stream of singles over the last couple weeks, and you can listen to them all here. Their LP is set for early 2021, date TBD.