Golden Suits

Golden Suits

Golden Suits is the solo project of Fred Nicolaus, who is also a member of Department of Eagles. The project is based in the United States.

Background and style

The Golden Suits songs grow out of a difficult period in Nicolaus’s life that includes being forced out of an apartment by a rat infestation, a painful breakup, travel to Germany to learn about his grandfather’s death in World War II, financial hardship, and major weight loss. During that time, he becomes absorbed in a book of short stories by John Cheever and begins writing songs that mix personal experience with fragments from that book. The name Golden Suits refers to the final line of a Cheever story.

The material is a collection of ten songs that combines nostalgia, sentimentality, references to suburban marriage in the 1950s, personal confession, and abstract non sequiturs. It follows the same line as Department of Eagles’ pop-oriented songwriting, with influences in the vein of Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Paul Simon, and the solo work of Lennon and McCartney. Nicolaus describes his role in Department of Eagles as usually handling the simpler, poppier material, and Golden Suits gives him room to develop straightforward songs through more experimental production ideas.

Release

Golden Suits’ self-titled debut LP is released on Yep Roc Records.