THE NU SHOOZ STORY

It’s a story straight out of Hollywood. A hitchhiking trip to the Pacific Northwest results in a 40-year love affair, one of the top bands to come out of Portland, Oregon, and a song that became a smash hit in the 1980s: “I Can’t Wait.”

This is the Nu Shooz story.

It weaves through the lives of the husband-and-wife visionaries behind the group, Valerie Day and John Smith. One day in 1975, on a whim, John thumbed his way from San Pedro, California, to Olympia, Washington, to visit a girl who, as it turned out, wasn’t that glad to see him. No big deal. The next day, he turned around and headed for home. On a friend’s suggestion, he spent the night at a Hippie commune in nearby Portland, the First Cosmic Bank of Divine Economy (or ‘Cosmic Bank’ for short). There, he met Valerie Day. She was 15; he was 19. It was not love at first sight. That took another month. Within a few years, both were playing in the city’s amazing Latin Jazz scene. Then, a trip to New York City in the late ’70s inspired John to change musical directions.

Nu Shooz began in 1979 as a Soul band with Fusion overtones. They struggled as a four-piece for a year before adding a horn section. Almost immediately, their fortunes improved. The Shooz landed the coveted ‘Ladies Night’ spot at The Last Hurrah, one of the premier Portland nightclubs. Overnight, they became one of the top bands in the city. That incredible ride lasted for two years, then a month-long road trip into the hinterlands exploded the original lineup. Five of the nine members left en masse. In 1983, Nu Shooz slimmed down to seven and soldiered on. That winter, Smith sat down with a rented 4-track machine and started work on what would become ‘I Can’t Wait.’
In 1985, after numerous personnel changes, the band recorded the EP Tha’s Right. A local music writer named Attilio wrote that the music was good, but local radio stations would never play it. Gary Bryan at Portland’s #1 Top-40 station, KKRZ FM (Z-100), took up the challenge. “Nu Shooz, if you’re listening, come on down.” The band’s manager, Rick Waritz, was listening. He jumped on his Vespa and rushed a copy to the station. They played ‘I Can’t Wait.’ The phones lit up. Soon, the Shooz had a regional Top-10 hit on their hands. But the major labels weren’t interested. Producer/DJ Peter “Hithouse” Slaghuis discovered “I Can’t Wait” on a Hot Trax 12.” His remix on the Dutch label Injection Records became a hot-selling import in the United States. That remix was picked up by Atlantic Records, which signed the group in January 1986.

The success of the track was a ticket to a strange amusement park. They toured 70 cities in 73 days. They were nominated for a Grammy for ‘Best New Artist” and proved they were the real deal with two other chart-topping hits, “Point of No Return” and “Should I Say Yes.” They held on for the glorious ride, traveled the world, and had the opportunity to live out their funk fantasies; meeting Dick Clark on American Bandstand, recording at Prince’s Paisley Park studios, and working with one of John’s Soul heroes, James Brown’s star Alto saxman, Maceo Parker.

Nu Shooz made three albums for Atlantic, ‘Poolside,’ [certified RIAA Gold,] ‘Told U So,’ and the unreleased ‘Eat & Run.’ Atlantic dropped the band in 1992. By then, John and Valerie weren’t having fun anymore. It was time to move on.

John fell into a 20-year gig writing music for commercials and Indie films. Valerie was in demand as a session percussionist, taught voice, and sang in Jazz quartets and big bands. They raised a son. They never stopped playing music, but there was never any thought of reviving the group. “That was a particular time and place,” John says. “To go out with a bunch of hired guns and call it Nu Shooz would be disrespectful to what it was.”
Never say never.  

Valerie takes up the story here. “As time went by, and our son was getting ready to graduate high school, we kept getting these calls. It felt like it had been long enough. We had gotten to a place in our lives where we had a lot of gratitude for our history, and as Nu Shooz we felt we had more to say as artists.” 

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the release of “I Can’t Wait,” Valerie produced a stunning remake replete with horns, strings, vibes, and upright bass. They credited this to Nu Shooz Orchestra and, in 2010, released an album of chamber jazz, “Pandora’s Box.” Valerie dubbed this stylistic interlude ‘Jazz/Pop/Cinema. It was a showcase for John’s arranging and orchestration skills and a compilation of all the styles they loved: Spy Music, ’30s Jungle movies, and Acid Jazz.

Then, in 2012, they released an album of archival material called “Kung Pao Kitchen,” late-80s jams relegated to studio-shelf obscurity. “No one ever heard these songs that we worked on so hard back in the day.”
The calls to revive Nu Shooz kept coming in. The latest was the Alan Beck “Super Freestyle Explosion Tour,” which featured 1980s superstars like Lisa Lisa, Exposé, and Stacey Q, among others, playing to stadium-sized crowds. “The first few times we got the call, we turned it down,” recalls Valerie. “But the promoter urged us to try it because the audience was so fun. When we finally did, we had a blast! We played in stadiums in front of thousands of people—it was like riding a surfboard on top of a huge wave. I looked over at John and said ‘Can you believe this?’ The energy was amazing.”
Going out and playing their hits whet their appetite for more. In 2013, they put the live band back together, using all former members from various incarnations of the group. John says, “We wanted people who we knew could play this music, which sounds simple but isn’t.” The chemistry was immediate, and audiences were thrilled to see the live Nu Shooz back on stage for the first time since 1989. Those shows turned on a switch in John and Valerie. With the band back together and sounding tight, it was time to make another album.

John says, “I don’t believe in writer’s block. So I dove right in. The first thing I wrote was a pair of symphonic pieces, that maybe Nu Shooz Orchestra could have done. No, no, no. That’s not what we need. We want something that’s fun to play live!” As the mad scientist worked, lunch bags strewn around the studio began to envelop him.

“I realized there was an art installation happening in the background. Just for laughs we started making cardboard buildings and bag people; an entire bag city. That inspired the music. I started to hear the music that would play in this bag town.”
This imaginary world liberated John and Valerie to explore the music closest to their heart since the beginning—a mélange of Funk, R&B, Jazz, and Soul.

Bagtown was released in 2016, and they made a pair of videos for the singles “Real Thing,” and the title track “Bagtown.”
Valerie and John toured the U.S. and Canada for seven years on the ’80s revival circuit. They announced their retirement from performing in 2019.

Hollywood couldn’t conceive of a more beautifully strange plotline—two teenagers brought together by chance become soul mates and superstars. “I said to John yesterday, I have a deeper appreciation for all that we’ve gone through—I can’t believe how fortunate we’ve been—we couldn’t have imagined or planned this,” Valerie says. “I won the lottery. I met someone I really liked, and we managed to combine luck and hard work into a life we really love.”

To this day, "I Can't Wait" continues to stream through the cosmos, reaching every corner of the known universe with its timeless groove.

Enter the NU SHOOZ Time Machine...

FOR AN AUDIO HISTORY OF THE BAND LISTEN TO ONE OF OUR FAVORITE INTERVIEWS EVER — FROM CHOONS!

CHOONS is a podcast about "The Songs we vibe to," dedicated to the "History and longevity of underrated and much loved tunes."

Host Diego Martinez takes us back to the Mid-70s and the incredible series of events that led to "The Bassline Heard 'Round the World." It’s filled with fantastic audio examples of the music that influenced the Nu Shooz sound, plus all kinds of snippets of songs we didn’t even remember were in our repertoire! We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.