
Season Two: Episode Nine
Ryan talks with Nick Wheeldon about his song selection “Dark End of the Street” performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers.
Photo by Marina Cerrudo
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Transcript
Nick: I’ve wrote a few songs last few years about working at La Pointe Lafayette because where we are, in Stalingrad, it’s kind of an area where there’s a lot of homeless people, a lot of drugs, and these people often come to the bar and I get to know them. Their stories are kind of really inspiring.
I’ve met people from Afghanistan who fought for England and America against their own people and then they get left behind. These people from all over the world who arrive here thinking they’re going to get looked after. And yeah, it’s hard, it’s really hard to see all that.
What I tried to do is just be there as a human, just listen to them. Sometimes they come just for a smile, for a hug, which is nice, but it’s a shame we can’t do more where we are because we’ve got such a tiny bar. I always wanted to kind of have a place to stock food for them and things like that, but we haven’t been able to arrange that.
But maybe one day with another organization, we’ll be able to do that.
Ryan: My introduction to Nick Wheeldon was in 2017. My Global Garage co-host, Paul, added a band called Os Noctàmbulos to the playlist of our second-ever show. Their blend of surfy garage rock was just the kind of thing we were looking to play and I’m pretty sure it’s what led me to actively dive into the scene in France.
If you remember a few episodes back when I talked with Alex Hunter, I mentioned that work trip to Paris when I ended up at the Born Bad Records shop. One detail that I didn’t mention then was that I was specifically seeking out something from Os Noctàmbulos. LPs were all sold out but there were some 7″ sitting on the counter on display. Mission accomplished. It was that same visit to Born Bad that Maxime, who was working the counter that day, recommended a compilation of French & Belgian garage psych that fueled my obsession with the sound coming out of that region.
A year later I met Nick and the rest of the band in a small Paris bar and interviewed them for Global Garage.
I’m not sure I can accurately count how many releases Nick and his various bands put out since we first met at that Paris bar. Not just his work with Os Noctàmbulos, but 39th & the Nortons, The Necessary Separations, Nick Drunken Broken Arms & his False Dylan Cobb, Nick Wheeldon’s Demon Hosts, Nick & Alizon, Sex Sux, Dômo Kômô, Nick Wheeldon & The Living Paintings, and I’m pretty sure I’m missing some. Dude is prolific as hell. Each and every one of his projects has a different feeling and sonic flavor.
Nick has a new record on the way, coming out November 22nd on Le Pop Club Records. It’s called Make Art, an ambitious double album of psychedelic-folk laced with traces of free jazz and soul adding to his impassioned vocals. You’ll hear what I’m talking about when I play a track from Make Art at the end of this episode.
Nick is currently based in Paris, but as we’ll talk about in this episode, he’s originally from England. Why is that relevant? Well because it’s season two and we’re talking about songs that remind us of home. Let’s make a mixtape.
Ryan: Nick, thank you so much for joining me on this season of Let’s Make a Mixtape.
We are of course talking about songs that remind us of home, and you selected “Dark End of the Street” by the Flying Burrito Brothers, or the treatment by the Flying Burrito Brothers, originally recorded by James Carr, written by Dan Penn and Chips Momin, but you chose The Flying Burrito Brothers version of that song.
Wonderful, wonderful treatment of that song. Why did you pick that song?
Nick: It’s a difficult question, already. What reminds you of home, “Dark End of the Street” is one of the songs that kind of changed my life. It got me into country music and I used to listen to it a lot with my first girlfriend.
We kind of had a relationship where kind of hiding our love, like in the song where we had no reason to be hiding, there were no other people involved or anything like that, but we were kind of very shy people. I remember when she drove me home, we always just listened to that song and I first heard it on a compilation from Uncut Magazine, I don’t know if you know that magazine, in England.
It was very much Americana and on hearing that song, it got me into Gram Parsons. It got me into loads of different country music where I always thought country music was like country and Western, not my kind of thing, very commercial.
And then hearing the song, it completely blew my mind. It’s very soulful as well. Kind of a soul song for me.
Ryan: Yeah. And it seems like, I mean, especially listening to some of your more recent output, it feels like both that country element and that soul element are really, occupying a lot of space in your creative mind. Is that fair?
Nick: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, I love the people who I play with the moment, we love a lot of soul music, Northern soul, American soul. And even we try, even when it’s like an acoustic song, just with voice and guitar. That it has a groove. It’s got a groove. All the time.
Even if it’s without drums and bass, still try and make it rhythmic. And, that’s the soul influence and the country influence is like folk. Just trying to write a song that’s good enough to be played just on guitar, guitar & voice. So when you take it to the band, the job’s kind of done already. It can only get better in a way. So, definitely country and soul are a big part of what I listen to now. Well, since the last 30 years, almost. Yeah.
Ryan: What do you define as home? How do you see home? Especially-you’re a British expat living in France now.
Nick: I mean, home is- it’s a weird thing because for years home was the countryside in England, where my parents lived.
And even five or six years into living in Paris, it was always home for me, was their place, was my parents house, and it still is. But I remember one time getting back from Christmas into Paris and getting to Gare du Nord, which is like crazy. So many people, the ambience is so different to where I was coming from, but it must have been in like 2017, I think
In getting off the train, it felt like home in Paris and I was shocked. I was shocked myself because yeah, it’s so crazy here.
Ryan: What about Paris made it feel like home? Is there anything in particular that you could point to?
Nick: At that time, I guess I was living with my friend Maylis in this crazy, crazy flat which is like under the roof. It was like half the flat, you couldn’t walk- it was too low to walk properly in the flat. But it was there where we could invite lots of friends. We could invite bands to stay over who played at Le Pont Fayette, where I put bands on. So, yeah, I guess it started to feel at home because we’d made a little life together as friends under that roof.
And we had a lot of other friends in different houses in Paris as well. There was a kind of community that we started to, to share things altogether all the time. So I guess, I guess it was that, thinking about it.
Ryan: And music, of course, was an integral part of that, those relationships of being very music-based.
Nick: Yeah, 90 percent of my friends make music or they’re involved in music, well being creative, I guess. So yeah, we were putting on gigs, we were playing gigs, we were all playing together, really exciting time. And, and I’ve realized recently that, my family and me, we’re such shy people. And I think I lost that shyness when I got to be around 30.
So it was like 11 years since I’ve not been shy and music was a big part of that, helping me meet people. Helping me discover myself, I guess, being able to scream and shout in front of people. It’s kind of very cathartic.
So, but I mean, yeah, still feel like my parents’ place in the countryside in England is really home, I guess, but now it’s been, it’s been three years I’ve been here. So this is going to still feel like home too, now. In Banyule, just outside of Paris. It’s a lot different to where I was living before in Paris. I’ve always been inside the East side of Paris, which is a lot more busy. And now I’m in Banyule Montreuil, which is another artist-dense area.
But it’s a lot more peaceful if you want it to be. So that’s, that’s kind of a nice thing that we’ll have now, a choice to have peace.
Ryan: And you’re, you’re still, you’re still booking, booking shows at La Pointe Lafayette.
Nick: Still booking shows. Yep.
Ryan: Wonderful.
Nick: Still booking shows. Sixth year.
Ryan: Wow.
Nick: Yeah.
Ryan: Going back to what you’re talking about writing, you start your songs on the guitar, they should stand on just, just guitar? Do you have any sort of vision of where it goes beyond that, if it goes beyond that, or do you leave that more in the hands of the musicians that you work with to help shape that?
Nick: I always, or nearly always, I can hear the other instruments and you can almost see it. You can almost see it as well as hear it. But, the way I work is when I ask people to play with me, that’s already the kind of- I already know what they can do. I’ve seen them play. So when I bring the song to people, I already have that confidence in them, that there doesn’t really need to be anything said. There’s rarely times when there’s something I don’t like that we’re doing, but it’s very, very rare and I’ll say, “maybe not in that direction.”
But, most of the time between all the people I’ve worked with from all those years, it doesn’t really need anything to be said for the music. We’ll work on something on an intro or something altogether. And we’ll talk about how we want to do it or whatever. But there’s a lot of unspoken chemistry, which is just an amazing feeling. I’m very well surrounded by amazing people and musicians at the moment, just a very lucky, lucky guy at the moment.
Ryan: I mean, you have no shortage of output. That is, that is for sure.
Nick: Yeah. Well, I mean, Paris as well, like to live here, it’s the most, it’s a really inspiring place.
I’ve wrote so many more songs here than I did in England. And I think it’s because you see the worst and you see the best and you see- everything is kind of, yeah, it’s nuts here.
Ryan: Tell me a little bit about that. What are some of the points of inspiration that you find? Any specifics?
Nick: I’ve wrote a few songs last few years about working at La Pointe Lafayette because where we are, in Stalingrad, it’s kind of an area where there’s a lot of homeless people, a lot of drugs, and these people often come to the bar and I get to know them. Their stories are kind of really inspiring.
I’ve met people from Afghanistan who fought for England and America against their own people and then they get left behind. These people from all over the world who arrive here thinking they’re going to get looked after. And yeah, it’s hard, it’s really hard to see all that.
What I tried to do is just be there as a human, just listen to them. Sometimes they come just for a smile, for a hug, which is nice, but it’s a shame we can’t do more where we are because we’ve got such a tiny bar. I always wanted to kind of have a place to stock food for them and things like that, but we haven’t been able to arrange that.
But maybe one day with another organization, we’ll be able to do that.
Ryan: I love when music is able to have- music is such a community thing. And I think it’s so important when- seeing music take that human human approach as a community, like we’re all human. We all face various challenges. We’re all in this together. And I love that the music can have- it doesn’t often put up walls and barriers that I think other forms of human life can.
I admire a lot of bands in the U.S. and they tour and have a lot of like mutual aid initiatives. There’s a big movement with musicians around here, providing free Narcan to venues that they tour to, to help with overdose prevention or resuscitation.
What is life in Paris like these days? I mean, I know there’s a huge, a huge election. I’m kind of watching from afar as an American, not really, not really know- I mean, I remember from way back in the day, Marie Le Pen was terrifying. But it seems like there was a somewhat move left. Is that-
Nick: There’s a, well, the left, they managed to win the election. Yeah, they managed to win, but it was kind of- it’s still scary because there’s half the country that go right wing, right?
Well, extreme, extreme right. So that’s the first time in a long time that they’ve got really, really close. And luckily the left, they had a coalition, just in the second part of the election, but I mean, they had one week to organize and do that. So it was, it was close.
Ryan: I mean, that’s incredible that they did that in such a short amount of time. I mean, we’re over here fumbling the ball time after time.
Nick: Well, luckily, luckily there was enough parties in the left in France that exist already. It could happen, but when you look in England, where Labour have just come back in. But I mean, they’re center, they’ve sacked all the left wing politicians or got rid of them. They’re independent now.
And if there was ever a time we needed to fight the extreme, extreme right like we need to do now, there wouldn’t be enough left to beat them. I mean, the Green Party I think they’ve got five seats. So Labour won, but I was listening to it on the radio and almost every city, the extreme right in England, they had the second amount of votes in the country. So terrifying.
Yeah, luckily Labour got in, but I mean, yeah, it’s really just the center now and they’re not really- On positions like in Palestine and things like that, they’re not not good enough on trans rights, they’re not good enough. And it’s scary to think that they’re not going to fight for those kind of, well, for those people who need the most help.
So yeah, in America, I have no idea. I have no idea about your left wing because there was Bernie Sanders, but I mean, yeah.
Ryan: They kind of, I mean, I feel like the Democratic Party is very much closer aligned with, with Labour currently in the sense of, I mean, they’re pretty much, pretty much center.
They’ve kind of cast Bernie out. There’s really not an opposition party here. So I was glad to see that France got some movement. That gave me a little bit of hope. I’m not super optimistic here, honestly. So if you have a spare flat…
Nick: Well, the good thing was- so on the internet was when France did get in with the kind of extreme left, I saw loads of politicians in other countries saying, right, now it’s the time for our left to all come together and make one party instead of being split. So maybe you’ll have good- my brain is so in between France and England all the time. I sound like those kind of football players that move to different countries and they have interviews. You’re like, “what is the accent? Why are they trying to speak? You speak in French.” But it’s, yeah, it’s just a brain gets torn in two.
Ryan: Do you dream in French?
Nick: I dreamt in French once when I couldn’t speak French at all, and I was amazing in my dream.
I was so good. Way better than- even after 12 years in France, my friends, mock me all the time, lovingly, but, um, yeah I’ve not dreamt in French for a long time.
[Transition Music]
Ryan: Going back to the Flying Burrito Brothers and that song, would you say it is like a life-changing song in a sense? That’s where that country sound really clicked with you. And did you, I guess, what were you listening to before that? And did, how did your listening change?
Nick: I was pretty close to that kind of style of music. I mean, I was listening to all the Britpop things in the nineties. It was music that I don’t really listen to now, but it was really important to me that moment. And there was one band The Charlatans, who I was listening to them. They were my favorite band and I had everything by them.
And it’s funny because just after I first heard Flying Burrito Brothers, they did an album called Wonderland, in L.A., and the influences were really like Flying Burrito Brothers, Curtis Mayfield. So that band- also, Sly and the Family Stone. So they were putting me onto these bands that I’d heard about kind of in the background.
But, because they were listening to them, I was checking them all out. And even live when they played, he had like the Flying Burrito Brothers shirt, Tim Burgess, which I’ve, I managed to find one as well. Which I was really happy about those days. But yeah, that kind of music, I was always kind of searching for that kind of something else.
I mean, in Britpop, there was all that 60s psychedelia and country and folk and The Byrds and things like that. It was around the same time I’d been listening to The Byrds since I was about 15, 16, but when I was around 21 or 22, I can’t remember, but I got the first album of Gene Clark, solo album.
And that just, I was like- He was putting soul, psychedelic and folk all together and with a beautiful voice. And I was like, okay, yeah, that’s the kind of thing that I want to do. Gram Parsons was more pure country. But Gene Clark, he was mixing it all up.
Ryan: Is that what made you want to start playing music in general, or were you already playing or-?
Nick: It was around the same time as when I got to university. Around 20, 21, I got my first guitar. So I started pretty late, all my friends had started when they were really young and I always thought I couldn’t do it.
I don’t know why I couldn’t play guitar, I didn’t have enough patience. And seeing as they were all into kind of metal, nu-metal, there was never a thought of starting a band together. So I just didn’t do it. I always wanted to work in a record store. That was kind of my dream. And everyone always said “no, you can’t do that.”
So I went off and I was playing a lot of football as well. Football was keeping me- yeah, I was in two teams, so I was playing and training four times a week. And so, I was listening to a hell of a lot of music, but I wasn’t playing an instrument. Later on, when I got to university, I had time cause I wasn’t going to the courses.
So I could sit and play and work out and start recording as well; like home recording. Fruity Loops and things like that. I started with- cause I had a mate who was doing hip-hop that I was living with and he was showing me how to sample things. So I was sampling the drum beats from the Warlocks, started with “Baby Blue” and things like that, where it’s just the drums.
I was taking those and looping them and I was a massive Brian Jonestown [Massacre] fan. So I was one of those guys who was doing Brian Jonestown music where you thought, as you were living in the countryside, miles away from anyone, that you were the only one doing that, and as soon as you got on MySpace, you saw that everyone in the world was doing the same kind of music and it was kind of amazing and sad at the same time because you got to meet so many people around the world and share. Even play on songs from people in America, or there’s a guy called Dream Weapon who we used to collaborate by sending tracks across the ocean. And so yeah, it was an amazing time of discovery of like, “Oh yeah, there’s all these people doing the same kind of music that I like.”
I guess I did that for about three or four years and then at one point I was like, well, this isn’t my music. This is Anton Newcombe’s music. I’ve got to stop doing that and find something else. Find what I want to do, who I am. And that takes a bit of a longer time to find out.
Ryan: And do you feel like you have?
Nick: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I mean, in, yeah, around 2012 when I was doing The Jesus Loves Heroin Band, which was my first proper band, I’d already kind of aligned that psychedelic country garage sound that I’m still kind of doing now. But that was the blueprint for everything that came after.
And we were good. We were really good live. We hardly ever played. We didn’t really do much. Did like one album together and maybe 20 shows. But I mean, it was so intense, ’cause we all loved each other and then we all hated each other. And now we love each other again. On stage it was intense because there was that kind of friction and intensity that made the shows really good. I think, hopefully, but for us, we felt pretty, pretty good. And so that style, that’s the kind of style of music, that mélange of all different kinds of styles.
Colleen, who played the bass in that band, she really loved soul music and Northern soul. And in Sheffield, you could go into most pubs, open the back door and there’d be some kind of Northern soul disco going on, and that kind of culture is amazing that I didn’t even know existed still. I thought that was in the seventies and the eighties. But no, there’s still that culture in England of Northern soul and dancing.
That’s the difference in France where people who have parties at their houses and things, they often put music on this kind of ironic, or funny or third degree. They’ll dance, but I’m not able to dance at these parties because the music doesn’t groove, it’s often funny. I was at a party the other night and it was a friend, Tara, who was there was putting the tunes on and she was putting really good music on. I say, right good music because I’m from Derbyshire.
And so I was dancing the first time at a French party. Well, not the first time, but since a long time, it was finally good tunes on. So that was nice.
Ryan: Do you feel like that is, that kind of mindset is reflected in French music broadly?
Nick: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.
I mean, it depends what kind of groups of people you’re with as well. But I mean, when we were with a lot of friends and musicians, I guess the parties were kind of, yeah, you’d have good music on but a lot of the times- Well, what makes me laugh in France is, yeah, the kind of music would be funny and the discussions would be like hardcore politics.
It’s like, sometimes you’ll find just groups of people arguing all nigh but I like that. People are trying to get their opinions across and people are a lot more opinionated in France as well. I think there’s a education that’s a lot better than in England. Whereas I remember when I first moved here, people could talk about anything and they’d have opinion on everything.
Whereas in England, we have our specialties, but we don’t have an opinion on everything ’cause we don’t know enough. We’re not taught enough. And here it seems to be much broader. They know everything about history, culture, film, everything. They’re impressive.
Impressive bunch, French people that way. And the politics as well. They’re really, really good.
Ryan: Yeah. I very much admire the French for sticking up for their rights and doing the strikes. I respect that a lot, wish it was more prominent here. Maybe we’d get more things done.
Nick: Yeah. I mean, the strikes, they’re constant. Every day there’ll be a strike for something, whereas in England, we don’t have that culture anymore. Well, when I was growing up, we didn’t have that culture. I guess the last big one that I remember was for the Iraq war and I was kind of too young. I didn’t really understand, why there was really, really lots and lots of hundreds of thousands of people.
I guess now the problem now is the media. They don’t show it as well. That’s the thing when it’s a left wing rally, ’cause I’m sure there’s plenty of people trying to stop the genocide in Palestine and but we just don’t.
You don’t get to see it. They don’t even report on it anymore in the BBC. It’s just, it’s nuts. So it’s more difficult to see now, which is crazy because there’s so much more outlets, media, we can make our own media. I mean, even on the social networks, the banning or the the left wing propaganda, I guess they see it as. So it’s difficult. It’s difficult.
Ryan: And it seems like- very much to me as well- It seems like the fight for Palestinian freedom means a lot to you. And I saw you gave several songs to some compilations which is awesome.
Nick: Yeah I gave one song to a compilation that gives aid to the people in Gaza.
And the other one was not specifically for Palestine, but against fascism in France. That was my friend Tara, who I was talking about, she put that compilation together. There’s a second one that’s coming out- came out last week as well and that’s reuniting loads of different musicians in all over the world against- fight against fascism, which is cool because I’m talking to here the other day, she said she had no negative responses.
Everyone she asked wanted to be on it.
Ryan: Fantastic.
Nick: Yeah, that’s really cool. And there’s about 140 bands on it in the two compilations. So that’s a good start. And where we live, in Banyule Montreuil, they voted 80% left in the elections last week. So it kind of makes us feel a bit safer and a bit, we’re okay between us, but for the country, it’s kind of- even Paris is, if you go into the center or the left, the West side of Paris, it’s not the same. It’s not the same kind of fight. The East has always been the communist side, Les Lilas, Bagnolet, Roman Villa and Montreuil. It’s always been where the- I don’t know enough about this, I should look more into it, but the commune, which was like one of the last almost revolutions in France was in Les Lilas, which is just up the road. So it’s always been kind of a left stronghold.
Ryan: Love it. That’s fantastic. Is there anything that you want to talk about that we haven’t touched on? Something that reminds you of home that we didn’t talk about or anything more about Flying Burrito Brothers or literally anything else that you want to- any of the roads you want to go down?
Nick: Trying to think, I mean, talking about home.
Immediately, there was football that came into my mind there because I was big supporter of Liverpool. I’m on a WhatsApp conversation with all my English friends and they’re all getting excited about the final tomorrow. Whereas I’m not a patriot at all. I like England. They can lose. I’m fine with that. They can really lose badly. But that makes me feel like I’m at home, hearing all their messages that they’re all getting excited, we’re all taking the piss out of each other and that makes me feel really at home, you know?
And a thought for my granddad as well, he’s not with us anymore. It’s like five years, but I was always at my grandparents’ house, every day after school, ’cause they lived really close to our school. We used to go there every night. And just before we got there, we just walk home with my friends and we’d all stop on the corner to talk about everything I’ve done. I don’t know. It’s strange. I’ve not thought about these things for years.
It’s more people I guess than objects or houses. I really miss the countryside as well, from where I live, which is dying as well. That’s another subject that’s really hard. Which is the same in many different countries because of climate change at the moment, but the trees are getting ill.
We’ve got loads of ash trees that are sick and they’re all dying, everything’s dying off and it’s infecting other trees. I saw in Tasmania, there’s a problem with their- I can’t remember what kind of trees they are. I forgot about them, but they’re kind of bleeding from the inside out, these trees. So they’ve got these amazing marks on them.
But yeah, so yeah, I don’t know why I’m talking about that. But the countryside, I miss it a lot. I miss it a lot. And pubs, pubs feel like home. Bars in France, they’re not like the pubs in England. The pubs in England, you’ve got a beer garden. You’ve got the newspaper. I don’t know. It’s more chilled out in France.
The bars are all tiny, filled with so many people, whereas in England, it’s a bit more relaxed.
[Transition music]
Nick: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me to, to catch up. Anything else that you wanted to chat about or promote or what have you?
Nick: No, got nothing to promote.
Ryan: Well, I very much look forward to the release of Make Art very, very excited, the singles that you’ve released are- I’m very excited for what’s in store with those 16 tracks.
Nick: Aw, cool. It’s a bit of a voyage. There’s all kinds of folk on there. But, like I was saying, we’re trying to, hopefully even the acoustic songs, they groove, because there’s a lot of them. And, yeah, I’m really happy with it. We just got the test pressing this week, so it’s first time- I’m a bit like a kid with this one. It’s a bit like my first vinyl because it’s a gatefold. That’s a dream. It’s like, I can’t believe I’m releasing a double album. And it was a bit stressful because it was like, is it going to be on 45?
How do you say that in England now? I don’t even know. I’d say it was like 45 tour. Say when you’ve got like a seven inch. How many times do we just say 45 tours? I don’t know how to say it anymore, but the speed is different.
Ryan: Oh, the RPMs?
Nick: Yeah, it’s a 12 inch, but it’s at 45 beats per minute, I guess.
So the sound is really good as well. And even Paul, who produced it, he’s really, really happy with it. He’s so happy. So, so yeah, we’re excited. Can’t wait to get it out now.
Ryan: Yeah. And I mean, you have so much more in the pipe too. Did I- is it true that there’s another Os Noctàmbulos coming?
Nick: Yep. Yep. Still working on just on the- it’s all recorded, just editing it now for when we send it to be mixed. It can be mixed on analogic. So yeah, just trying to get it all clean. Paul can do a good job, but yeah, that should be really- it’s a really interesting record as well, because it’s so much different to what I’m doing now.
It’s very, very angry. It’s one of the last angry records that I’ve done.
Ryan: That’s cool.
Nick: Yeah.
Ryan: I guess on that topic, is there another Nick Drunken Broken Arms?
Nick: There is, already recorded. It’s already mixed. We can’t find the track list for it. It’s such a weird album, we don’t know what order to put the songs in. It’s a very bizarre album.
Ryan: It’s the age-old struggle, right? The first season of this podcast was opening tracks and what’s the best opening track and a lot of the conversations went into talking about sequencing. Do you have a sequencing philosophy that you typically follow?
Nick: No, no, no. Just needs to make sense. I mean, I hate that nowadays, people are always like, “yeah, you’ve got to put the single on track three and then you’ve got to, you know, all the hits on the first side, because no on Spotify is going to listen to it.” It’s like, “fuck that.”
That’s why on my last album, I put a song where it’s just me screaming acapella for like the first minute, just to get rid of all those people who want to hear the hits.
No, it has to make sense as a journey as the album and that’s, it’s kind of the montage editing of the album in that sense is like, you can tell so many different stories.
So it’s got to decide what kind of story you want to tell because we could do it like the first one where it starts really angry or we could start it really soft as well. So we’ll see. But yeah, it’s a weird album. Yeah. It’s very strange.
This group, we’ve never played together. I mean, we’re all friends, but we’ve never played a show yet. And every album we record, it’s like I go down there with a few songs. So this one, we’ve all put songs into it, but I usually do the guitar and drums with Steph. And then, and then Chuck will put his bass on and then Jewel will put his guitar on afterwards.
So it’s like a building blocks. But every album we’ve kind of had really, really bad problems. Like the first one, a friend went into psychiatric hospital, the first day of recording. And this one, Steph who plays drums and recorded, he checked himself in as well because he wasn’t doing well.
So every album, we’re like, “Oh yeah, who’s going to go in hospital next time.” So this one was really- and we lost a few friends as well during the recording of the album. So it was really hard one to make and I think I can hear that it’s hard in the album. I think people who don’t know what happened, they won’t be able to hear it.
I don’t think, but I think, yeah, it was, it was a hard time recording that disc. So it’s a bit of a schizophrenic disc, but there’s some, yeah, there’s some really good songs and I’m sure it’ll come out next year when we can get around to making a track list that we all agree on because for the moment we don’t agree at all.
And hopefully we can play some shows as well, cause I’d love to play these songs live. I mean, I’m doing kind of folk music and playing acoustic with the band at the moment. The other day, I was invited to do two songs with a garage band, Les Soucoupes Violentes. We did a cover of Neil Young, “No Tears, Don’t Cry” from Zuma. And I got to play really loud guitar for the first time in a while and I was like, “oh yeah, I need to- I wanna do that again.”
And Colleen was here yesterday from Os Noctàmbulos and we were talking about doing shows again. So hopefully we’ll be able to get everyone together for that as well.
It’s very, very strange album as well. It goes into kind of jazzy- I say jazzy, but I mean, it’s really aggressive and reminds me of kind of Butthole Surfers kind of styles, but yeah, we’ll see when that comes out, but hopefully next year as well. And, I started a record in my house as well.
My, on my quarte-uh, four track, speaking in French the whole time. On my four track, which is going to be really folk as well. So I’ve got five songs. I’m hoping to finish that by the end of, end of the month.
Ryan: When you start writing a song, do you- I mean, you have a handful of different bands. Do, you know, almost instantly like which band it will work with? Do you start writing a song for, okay, “I’m writing this song for this project,” or do you write a song and, as it comes to life, are you like, “okay, this will fit best with this group of musicians?”
Nick: It’s not really for the band that I write for now.
Nowadays it’s kind of more for the album. I always have these lists of songs that fit well together. And when those lists are complete, that’s when I take them to the back, whichever band would work best for, which is why I’m excited about this record at mine because I don’t have the songs, I don’t have any, so I’m just seeing what comes out and I haven’t done that for years.
And as it’s on cassette, you can’t really do many overdubs and things, I love it, it’s just like you just have to record the performance. If the performance is good, it sounds good. There’s no magic with these kind of machines. That’s why I love them. I’ve got five songs and hopefully I’m trying to do cassette by cassette.
So that’s 15 minutes of music and starting the next one, the next few days. We’ll see what happens.
Ryan: Big thanks to Nick for taking the time to chat with me. You can hear Make Art in full when it’s out on November 22nd and you can here a single from the album right now. Here is the song “Comedy:”
Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to check out the show transcript for notes and links and such. Please rate and subscribe to this show wherever you get your podcasts to help feed the algorithm gods and help new people find it. All editing and recording was done by me, show music was written and recorded by Scotty Sandwich. Tune in next week for my chat with Max Rebel of the German rock band Planeride.