A brief overview of Nate Ruess’ career
I first discovered Nate Ruess when I was fourteen years old. Way back in 2014, I was beginning to create my own music taste. The previous year had seen me listening to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories at a friend’s recommendation, and that album kind of opened my mind to the fact that there was good, engaging music beyond just the bands that my parents listened to. I still remember how I started listening to fun.: I was watching a comparison video by Todd in the Shadows (A fantastic YouTuber, go give him a watch) between Gotye’s “Somebody that I used to know” and fun.’s “We Are Young”. In the video, he compared Ruess to Freddie Mercury, and posted a clip of the music video for “Some Nights intro”. The little snippet of Ruess’ vocal range got me really interested, and the next thing I knew, I’d listened to all of his albums. His music trajectory is one that obviously interests me, and it’s what I’ll delve into here.
Nate Ruess got started in music when he was in high school, participating in a couple of punk bands called Nevergonnascore and This Past Year. Their music is more interesting than it is good per se, with Nevergonnascore sounding like a dollar-store blink-182 and This Past Year being basically a very early, rough version of what would eventually be Nate’s next band: The Format. All three of these projects were made as collaborations between Ruess and his best friend Sam Means.
The Format was an indie rock/emo outfit that released its first EP, aptly labeled “EP”, on September 30, 2003. It had five tracks, with the main single being called “The First Single”. The band was based out of Phoenix, Arizona, and became somewhat popular locally, enough to get The Format to sign a deal with Elektra Records. Under this label, they released their first album “Interventions + Lullabies”.
This album helped increase the band’s popularity, as its brand of reflective, melancholic rock helped secure the band’s popularity locally. The internet was a key factor in their increasing popularity, and the album sold more than a hundred thousand copies in the US. The Format’s second album, “Dog Problems”, was released on May 19th, 2006, after discovering that the album had been leaked online and opting to release it early.
“Dog Problems” is one of my favorite albums of all time. It represents Ruess and Means at their very best as musicians and songwriters. The album’s second song, “I’m Actual”, opens with what is seemingly the mission statement for “Dog Problems”, with Ruess singing “can we please take this hour to talk about me”. This kind of statement not only represents how personal this album was to Ruess but will also go on to represent Nate’s outlook towards music, for better or worse, years later. “Dog Problems” represents The Format’s maturing into one of the best power-pop outfits of the time, and it helps to identify the trends in Ruess’ style: Incredibly upbeat music contrasted with depressing, bleak lyricism. I don’t intend to downplay Means’ influence at all, but I bring up Ruess because later on, once he stops collaborating with Sam Means, that style will continue.
In February 2008, The Format announced they were going on hiatus. The band only really returned early this year, to announce a series of March and April concerts that would later be delayed to July due to the ongoing pandemic. I’d expect the concerts to be delayed yet again.
Nearly immediately after putting The Format on hiatus, Nate contacted Andrew Dost of Anathallo and Jack Antonoff of Steel Train to form a new band. They both knew Ruess due to touring with The Format, and they accepted. Their new band was named fun., and they released their first album called “Aim and Ignite” on August 25th, 2009. What’s notable about this album is that, in many ways, it’s the third The Format album. The project is essentially leftovers from Ruess’ songwriting work with Sam Means, to the point that he has a songwriting credit in all of the songs in the album. “Aim and Ignite” is one of those albums that its hard for me to stay objective about. It is an album that to me is essentially perfect. Songs like “Be Calm” showcase Ruess’ abilities as a singer and Dost and Antonoff work incredibly well with Ruess’ voice.
fun. continued to produce music, releasing their second album “Some Nights” on February 21st 2012. This album no longer has any songwriting credits for Sam Means.Of course, their big breakout moment was when their single “We Are Young” hit the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. They went on to win the Song of the Year award for We Are Young and the Best New Artist award at the 55th Grammy Awards. All the pieces were in place for fun. to become one of the definitive rock bands of the 2010s. But they did not.
In 2014 the band announced that they were working on material for an unnamed third album, with no set time frame. That year, they performed a new song called “Harsh Light” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. But half a year later, on February 2015, they announced that the band would enter a hiatus. And thus ended the “fun.” period of Nate Ruess’ career.
Ruess said in a Rolling Stones interview: “You get a little selfish about the songs that you write, and it’s really hard to do that in a group setting, where there are two other people, and you have to think about everybody else’s feelings. I’m writing and singing these songs about myself. When you work with producers versus bandmates, that line becomes a lot less blurry.” It’s not hard to see what happened with fun. when you take that into account. Looking at his discography, Nate Ruess’ music has always been extremely personal for him. So it was feasible that he really did think that he had to break away from Dost and Antonoff and do something difficult. And then, on June 16th of 2015, Ruess released “Grand Romantic”, his solo album.
“Grand Romantic” is, essentially, a fun. album. “Harsh Light”, a song that entered the world as a fun. track eventually found its release in this album. The songs are not a departure from fun.’s style, if a bit more grandiose and theatrical. “Grand Romantic”. Looking back at the opening statement for “Dog Problems”, I think it's fair to say that Nate Rues is still only interested in talking about himself. For a rockstar, this is not a negative trait necessarily. I’ll grant that being self-indulgent in music has lead to some of the best albums ever. However, I think its fairly clear that for better or worse, Nate Ruess produced the third album without his two bandmates, as unfair as that might be. The end result was significantly messier than the previous two fun. albums, and it also represented Nate Ruess’ final proper release.
Since “Grand Romantic”, Ruess has had sporadic appearances in the world of music. He features in the Hamilton Mixtape track “My Shot”, and he collaborated with Pink in “Walk Me Home”. Most recently Ruess had writing credits on “Manic” by Halsey and “High Road” by Kesha. But Ruess has more than stated that he really doesn’t have a huge interest in making his own music anymore. The last thing he’s been working on is a musical based on the Dr. Seuss story “If I Ran The Circus”, which will ideally be on Broadway.
Nate Ruess is one of my favorite musicians. Despite all of my love for his art, I still can’t help but feel bad for the people who’ve collaborated the most with him through his career. He turned the next Format album into the first fun. album. He turned the third fun. album into his solo album. He’s done several features throughout his career, most notably the duet “Just Give Me A Reason” with P!nk, which charted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. But even then, his features always feel like they’re extensions of his own music and style. His portion on the Eminem track “Headlights” is even a scrapped fun. song called “Jumping the Shark”. I think it’s safe to say that Nate Ruess feels a sense of belonging towards the tracks he worked on, even if he was not the sole author of them. That selfishness is weird to criticize because its that very same feeling that has made his music so special in the past. That’s what makes Ruess such a fascinating musician: His biggest flaw is also his greatest advantage.
