The Naked and Famous are an
indie electronic band from
Auckland, New Zealand. They formed in 2007 when Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith were working on what became the EPs
This Machine and
No Light that they recorded with engineer Aaron Short, a fellow student at Auckland's MAINZ music college. The band took their name from the English artist
Tricky's song "Tricky Kid", which is ambivalent about the notion of celebrity. In the song, Tricky quotes the line "everybody wants to be naked and famous", from
The Presidents of the United States of America's song "
Naked and Famous".