The singer-songwriter and Water from Your Eyes guitarist was unstoppably prolific, despite a growing dependence on substances. Now sober, he reflects on his new album and the songs that helped him turn his life round
For most of his life, Nate Amos made music just to get through the day. There was plenty of it: dozens of self-produced albums and EPs uploaded – since his This Is Lorelei project launched in 2012 – to what was then a plucky, independent platform called Bandcamp. Now 35, he is perhaps the quintessential Bandcamp artist: part bedroom-pop whiz, part alt-country troubadour, part indie rock rascal with a big, heavy heart. His peers treat him like a lost folk hero from a bygone era.
Amos is sitting in the basement of a cafe in Camden Town, north London, cradling an iced matcha; coffee makes him “feel like shit”, he says, and he no longer indulges such foibles. The title of one of those Bandcamp albums, OK N8, is tattooed on his knuckles. A friend inked it a few years ago, soon after Amos got sober. “Exactly when you’re not supposed to be making decisions like getting a tattoo on your hand,” he jokes. His active blue eyes dance around behind a golden-brown fringe and an unruly, woodchip beard. In a tough spot he will swing back in his chair and search for answers that always seem to be hiding beneath the table. But each time he stumbles upon the truth, he looks up with a hungry smile.
