Track by Track: My Idea (Nate Amos and Lily Konigsberg)

Photography and artwork by Michael Wolever. Intro by Heather Hawke. 

My Idea is the new band from Nate Amos (Water From Your Eyes) and Lily Konigsberg (solo artist and member of Palberta). Their 13-minute Hardly Art debut EP That’s My Idea features their two-in-one official visual for singles “Stay Away Still” / “That’s My Idea” along with “I Can’t Dance.” Every choice that went into That’s My Idea (from the songwriting to the production and lyrics) feels like a, goldilocks, just-perfectly-aligned for the My Idea aesthetic without it ever becoming too potent.

While Lily Konigsberg is a Brooklyn lifer, Nate Amos family bounced around from Colorado to Pennsylvania and eventually Vermont. At some point, he also did a four-year stint in Chicago, where he created an immense volume of recording projects (roughly 250). He eventually ended up in New York and started the avant pop band Water From Your Eyes, and before too long, had crossed paths with Lily.

As Lily was beginning to carve out her solo career, after years performing with her experimental punk group Palberta, she thought Nate could be a potential producer. They set up a “trial session” for her debut album and shortly thereafter it became a songwriting competition, the two churned out dozens of tracks over the span of Fall of 2020. “Lily became the lyric supervisor and I became the music supervisor”, Nate recalls, “the roles emerged”. After the proof of the undeniable musical chemistry, it only made sense to form the aptly named My Idea.

My Idea web/socials: Website – Multi-DSP – Bandcamp – Soundcloud – Facebook – Instagram – Twitter 

Lily Konigsberg web/socials: Website – Bandcamp – Soundcloud – Facebook – Instagram – Twitter 

Nate Amos web/socials: Website – Bandcamp – Soundcloud – Facebook – Instagram – Twitter 

1. I Can’t Dance

“I Can’t Dance” was made one morning when Nate and Lily were in reaalllyy bad moods. Nate made a track as quickly as possible and Lily added vocals in the same manner. Then Nate paced around editing and mixing for a few hours and eventually added that legendary slide guitar and some other stuff. It was Lily’s good idea to have Rachel Brown from Water From Your Eyes replace the original ad-libs, making it more conversational. 

2. Birthday

Nate had a song to which Lily added duet vocals. They came so naturally it was as if she already knew them. Nate liked Lily’s vocals a lot more than his own, so he took his out! The result was the song “Birthday” that you are listening to now.

3. Keep Lying to Me

Nate wrote a song and showed it to Lily. She tweaked some of the lyrics to make them less self-deprecating and more relative to her own personal experiences. Then she smacked the vocals on the track and ta-da! 

4. Stay Away Still

One day Lily had an idea for a song. She went into the next room over and recorded a cell phone memo to send to Nate. Nate put the cell phone into his computer and made a rock and roll track around it. Thereafter Lily enhanced and replaced the vocals, once again calling upon Rachel to finesse the ad-libs of which there were aplenty. This song was made the night before “I Can’t Dance”.

5. That’s My Idea

Lily had an old cell phone recording of a song idea. She sent it to Nate who made a track and misheard the words “that’s my ideal” as “that’s my idea” (where the band name came from). The song then became about fighting for your ideas because they are yours. And that’s my idea.