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NOTHING: Confronting Decay And Chasing the Uncomfortable · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is Nikki from the band called.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Nothing Fantastic as short history of de Kay is described
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: as your most emotionally direct record. Was that clarity uncomfortable
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: at any point?
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it always is since the beginning days.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: And then it's the process getting too guilty of everything,
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: and it's always been kind of a trauma dump for me,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: kind of means a therapy. It kind of turned itself
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: into that wasn't really intentional at first, and I kind
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: of just found some solace in it, and you know,
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: guilty of everything picked up out of nowhere, and all
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, we were people are wanting to hear things,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: and you know, we kind of get shoveled into this
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: decade long, two and a half year album release, and
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: you know, the process changes.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: A little bit along that way.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: It'd of a little bit faster and more stream of
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: conscious and me trying to kind of speak on whatever
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: crisis I'm in. But you know, after Great dismill, had
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: a little time to.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Briefe for better or for worse, and.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I didn't really have any intention of doing anything else
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: until it felt right. But that time kind of brought
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: up some new things to me. A lot of it
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: being you know, just the pure fact that I didn't
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: have so many distractions and and I kind of started
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: to realize some of the things that I you know,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: diverting onto this obsessive project that I had kind of
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: left at home, whether it's like family relationships and things
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: like that. So a lot of self reflection, which is
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: kind of a cliche thing to say, but it was.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It was pretty it was pretty.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Real time for me, and you know, I kind of
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: had to start to look at myself in the mirror
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: a little bit more than I than I than I
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: had in the past, you know, ten plus years, and
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: just brought a lot of things up and kind of
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: made me see some of the history of myself, you know,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: a little bit clearer too.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: So I just started to write and yeah, here we are.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so definitely more of an introspective record as well, do.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: You think, Yeah, for sure.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to kind of return to that
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: that weight shedding moment, like the guilty kind of had
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: for myself and just yeah, be a little less vague
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: and put myself out there as a matter of how
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable or you know, embarrassing it was. It's just kind
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: of get back to the telling a story, and yeah,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: it felt like that's what I did. By the end
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: of this I think, yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, put and Toothless cal happens to be like
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: one of my absolute favorites at the moment, I have
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: it on loop daily. But that that song lend into
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: a bit of an industrial edge, was that what pushed
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the band into that direction sonically?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: First off, thank you, that's really nice, and I'm glad
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: that you're our main listener probably and probably made about
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: three three cents off you so far, so you're welcome. Yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: I mean it's strange, like step into this record, Like
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: you know, the recipe for so long was kind of
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: just like started with me in a pendant of pad
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: and and then maybe a vocal and a guitar bumbling
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: through some really bad voice memo demos. And then it's
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: always been like, how do we make this song fit
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: into this you know, this box that that is the
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: nothing song that we created.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And I, while I was in.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: This awkward shedding of my skin and and and you know,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: like trying to just like be as vulnerable as possible
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: in this record, I really wanted to shake that loose too,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: and not make the same record and kind of just
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: let the songs do their own talking and toothless call
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: for me, it was like that was like, okay, that's
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: that's let's give a nothing song, but like let's give
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: a twenty twenty six nothing song out And I got
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: the experiment a little bit with some of the stuff
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: that you know that I really was always into those,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: always like the heavier industrial stuff. And then also just
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: like being able to like make the guitar make some
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: sounds that no one's heard before, which is like goes
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: back to some of like my biggest influences, is like
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: is that a guitar?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Is that a sense? It's always a.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Guitar with us, right, So I wanted to touch on
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: a few things, but I also wanted to just have
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: like a catchy hook, like a nothing song. So like
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: it was cool making that track and I was happy
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: to get that out and the release, like after kind
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: of confusing people with Cannibal World and Purple Strings where
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: this record is heading, just kind of wanted to keep it.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Like to me, it was like a good way to
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: like it goes between those three tracks was a way
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: to explain the vast difference that it's going to be
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: step into it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of it, I guess.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, those three singles they do sound quite different
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: from each other. Was that intentional too, and like, well
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: the rest of the songs on the album kind of
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: all sound different.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's definitely, it's definitely it's the widest
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: range of sounds I've ever done. Nothing's always kind of
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: had an identity crisis, like as far as like whether
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: I wanted to lean into my heavy, aggressive side or
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: you know, make this the depressive.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Kind of sad tune.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's it's been awkward through the years
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: trying to get people to digest that, just like it
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: was awkward for Nothing to be a band in general
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: since the beginning, you know, not heavy enough for the heavy,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: not soft enough for the suck. But that that kind
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: of worked to our favor, and you know, I think
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: like after this record, like I think that people realize,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: like that that's that we're that's what we're kind of
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: that's what we are. You know, there's not really an
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: answer to what we're doing. It's just kind of very
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: natural to how these songs come out and they and
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: you know, I think I think anyway that it should
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: be a little bit more palatable for people at this point.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I know you're a huge reader. Well
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I know you were. I don't know if you still are.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: And I know you obviously must listen to a range
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: of music. Was there any book or any anything you
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: were listening to that really helped with the inspiration of
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: this album?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I mean my typical, my typical run of the mill
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: philosophy stuff. Obviously I borrowed the name from, you know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: I borrowed the name from Emil Syrian's book A Short
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: History of Decay, which was like.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: A pretty important book for me.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: I honestly almost named this book, I mean name this
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: record and several other records. We did The Trouble with
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Being Born, which is another one of his books, which
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: is one of the ones that really hit to me,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: and I always felt we were just ripping the title
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: and then like, yeah, like halfway through this recording process,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: O PN one one point Tricks never like released the
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: record or an EP called The Trouble with PM Bourn.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Now I could.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, if you could do it, I could
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: definitely have done it, you know, And that's kind of
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: when I like, let the foot off the Gas a
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: little bit with with with that.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But yeah, there there there was a book that.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Uh there was there there was a it's really a
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: quote from from I just want to make sure I
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: don't shop this quote up. You can give me a second.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the book I was reading was The Tunnel by
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: William H. Gas.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: It's uh, basically about this like professor and this unnamed
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: like university. Uh he's and he's writing about like World
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: War two and and like the guilt and inociense of
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Hitler in Germany.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: It's like pretty strange, and he's he's just writing this.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Thing and it slowly starts to kind of turn inward,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: and he starts to realize that he's writing about himself
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: and his marriage and kind of how bleak it feels,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: and it's so get so wrapped up into it that
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: he's like kind of realizes that he's like, if my
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: wife's seen this, like she would probably not be stoked,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: because it's like I'm like kind of unshdding all this stuff.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And he builds a.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Tunnel in his own house to hide all his writings
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: and stuff in there. And then really, this book came
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: out of me from the blue. My friend Mike sent
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: it to me and was like, I think you'd like this,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: and it just felt way too close to reality for me.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: It's just like, you know, write these songs sometimes where
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I'm like bearing so much that like yeah, and like
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: you know, the people around me, like if they knew
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: what I was saying with how would they feel?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And it's just really resonated with me. Also, there's just
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: like this gnarly quote in the beginning which I was saying,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: It's like it's the preface of the book and it's
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: from an Axagoras.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Like some Greek philosophy shit.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: It's just like an Axagoras said to a man who
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: was grieving because he laid that in a foreign land
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: in quotes the descent the hell is the same from
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: every place. And I just like when I read that
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: the waistline, I was just like, I'm all in on this.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: And I carried this book and its whole theme like
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: kind of with me through the record, just kind of
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: reminding myself to like not hold back anything and to like,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: no matter how shameful or embarrassing anything is like to
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: really just let myself go.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, that's amazing. That's an awesome quote. Now I
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: want to read that. I have heard of the books,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: but I.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Want to read I guess I won like a Pulletzerprise too,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: which I just think I'm.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Busy chasing chasing the dusty books for sure.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's wicked. Speaking a bit more about like how
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: vulnerable you are in your songs especially, has that gotten
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: easier over time to just kind of block out what
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: you think others around you might think about what you're
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: writing about.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I's it gets easier. I think
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: it just becomes a little bit more natural. You have
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: more of an urge to do so for whatever reason
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: is you get a little older, I think, And uh yeah,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, like I said, if I was stuck into
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: that cycle and didn't have that time off, who knows
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: if I would ever got here to this point. But yeah,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: you know that that time really did something.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: It's just I keep saying, it's like it's like very
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: reminiscent of being in like a speeding car that hits
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: a you know, an immovable object.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: It's just like everything everything moves to the front, you know,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: and that's kind of what happened, you know, like no
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: more distractions, no more things to hide, no no schedules
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: to hide behind. It's kind of just like, you know,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: have to sit and look at yourself, and you know
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: anytime you do that, you're bound to you're bound to
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: find something that you didn't know was there.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like really facing yourself.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah unfortunately, yeah.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: No, I feel you. Oh my god, I've got five
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: minutes left.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: The album confronts Aging an illness head on. Did writing
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: this record feel like Catharsis or more of like a confrontation? Confrontation?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: It's always confrontation.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Uh, that's that's It's kind of how I always deal
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: with things is kind of put my head through and
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: try to run through every pro problem there is.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, you know, the Catharsis is always there anyway.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that Catharsis comes naturally when you
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: when you're heading things.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Up the way that I do too. It's tiring, you know,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: it's tiring. The way the way that I that.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: I lived for twelve years on tour and and what
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: I've done and how.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I still do.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Honestly, it's I'm not getting any bet or honest still
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: going one hundred and twenty miles an hour at all times.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean it's it's tiring and stuff, but
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: you know, it seems to work seamlessly together all this
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: to get where I need to get out of.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: What I'm doing with nothing.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: It's just it's kind of like the perfect storm for the.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Records to get done.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Not so much for me living a peaceful life, I think,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: but you know, that's a part of the job, I guess.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to talk about that a bit
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: more too. My question was going to be what's still
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: excited about nothing and writing for nothing and bringing these
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: songs out?
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I love just testing ourselves. You know,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I've been saying it for years that I feel like,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: you know, it's kind of cliche, shay now people throw
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: around imposter syndrome.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Everybody's an imposter syndrome. It's like, you know, but I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: do feel like, uh, I truly do feel like.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to be where I'm at, and that
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: that that I'm like on borrowed time all the time,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: and I and I I kind of carry that with
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: me all through life, you know, kind of like kind
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: of like someone that comes from where I come from.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: You know, watch this, watch this, you know, like that's
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: that's kind of when I perform best is when I'm
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: when I'm doubted and things like that, So that that's
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: always exciting. I love pushing myself into places that I
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: don't feel like I'm supposed to be in that I
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: naturally wasn't supposed to be in.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: That's that's always exciting to me.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: But you know, uh, making you know, and that goes
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: as always like that, testing yourself personally, like trying to
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: pull from these places you don't want to be out there,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: but to that too, you know, testing yourself musically and
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: and and you know, and trying to push things to
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: a new limit. We you know, we've kind of mastered
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: this sound that we have at this point, and a
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: lot of people have picked it up and ran with it,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: some for better, some for worse. And that's that's super
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: cool to me. But I feel like I owe it
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: to always try to stay progressive in our sense too.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, we've been here fifteen years doing it. We
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: haven't really played ourselves out too much yet. We don't
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: really see Nothing as a band that anyone's going to
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: look back and be like, oh that was my Nothing days,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Flows effortless, effortlessly.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Through time, which is like kind of a rarity with music,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: and and you know, I think that really just boils
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: down to it just always being very honest, you know, yeah,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: you know, honesty doesn't rust. So yeah, I think that's
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: that's that's that's exciting to me as well. It's just
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: kind of come to that realization.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like you really have gotten comfortable, not comfortable, well,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: sitting in the uncomfortable.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Always Yeah, yeah.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And sorry, celebrating ten years of tired of tomorrow? Does
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: we're visiting that material feel nostalgic or like mating a
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: past version of yourselves?
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: A little bit of both. You know.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I I can look back with to every error of
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: nothing and and and I could get some bad and
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: good out of it, but I I respect every error.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I respect every time.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's it's it's all like a building
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: block to get where I'm at right now, for you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: whether it be a healthy or unhealthy way, it all,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: it's all the same at the end of the day.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's it was another forward to get to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: where I'm sitting today. So I, you know, We're looking
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: at that record being ten years old and then a
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: couple of years before that being you know, guilty. It's
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: like running that two and a half year cycle for
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: that ten years. This is crazy because I get to
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: relive these so fast. It's like I just finally digested
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: that Guilty was ten years old and now it's fired.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And it just goes to show you, like how how
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: vicious time can be too. And yeah, I'm surprised I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: still sitting here doing this for sure. So for me,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: that's like an accolade to be like, you know, ten
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: years ago you were doing this, and ten years ago
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: this you were not doing much and it was a
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: pretty bad time.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, has it time just gone so quickly? Sided? No,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I can't believe twenty twenty was already sixty crazy anyway, Yeah,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I'm getting off track. Finally, last question, do we think
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: we might get an Australian tour?
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Uh?
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: You know, I've been trying. I've had a couple of
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: run ins and things didn't.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Work out right, But uh, yeah, I would say.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: That, Uh, there's a there's a real good chance you'll
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: see us this year.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, speculations possibly at a festival.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: There's some things in the works. We just got to
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: you just got to get the paperwork right.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, that's so exciting, Nikky. Thank you so
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: much for your time today. It's been an absolute fare.