Nally says “people can expect the unexpected” with Foxy Shazam, and as such, they’ve earned a reputation for switching up styles. Whereas audiences might be polarized by changing things up with every album, it’s become expected from them. Still, the band’s hiatus from 2014 to 2020, following the release of Gonzo, was really unexpected.
During this time, Nally provided the soaring vocals in the chorus for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ hit “Downtown,” and stole the show both in the video for the song — riding in bare-chested on a chrome eagle chariot led by motorcycles — and at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards.
The band returned with a revamped lineup of Nally, pianist Sky White, trumpeter/backing vocalist Alex Nauth, bassist Existential Youth, guitarist Devin Williams, and drummer Teddy Aitkins. Foxy Shazam released three more albums on their own EEEOOHAH label (Burn, The Heart Behead You, and Dark Blue Night) before this year’s one-two punch of Animality Opera and Box of Magic.
Nally says the close proximity of releases was intended to show what Foxy Shazam is capable of, especially considering the impending attention within the DC Universe. And he wanted to separate the vibes of the spring and fall albums as a contrast.
“The more records we do, as different as they may be, the thing that’s similar is that they’re not similar,” he says. “But this was the first year I was like, let’s give people two examples of Foxy Shazam so they can see that they’re in contrast, and let them know we can do that. We can do this and everything in between.”
For example, Animality is a “raw, unfiltered burst of energy” recorded in Nally’s basement studio and without much money. Meanwhile, Magic was knocked out at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles, where the Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds. The album is “friendly, positive, and all about building good vibes” with the intention to appeal to a mass audience.
That range highlights the Cincinnati personality of Foxy Shazam. Also home to The Afghan Whigs, Nally says there’s a bizarreness, randomness, and modest, polite entertainment, or even “Midwest charm” of what he calls the overlooked underdog city. It allows him to embrace his own weirdness, but project that oddness out there. In a way, Nally unintentionally highlights the quirkiness of an extraterrestrial immigrant raised in the Midwest who is likewise polite and modest. After all, Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster hail from another Ohio city, Cleveland, also where Gunn filmed the movie.
