Nicholas: drum + voice + more
Nicholas: Taj Mahal | Spotify | Apple Music |
Nicholas is an artist whose roots lie in the heart of Texas, and his creative journey has taken him from the Lone Star State to the bustling streets of New York City and even across the country to the vibrant city of Los Angeles. He’s not just a musician; he’s a songwriter, producer, and a master of various musical instruments. His work delves deep into the realms of human emotions, exploring themes such as intimacy, self-concept, nostalgia, and compassion, all of which find a profound expression in his music.
The most recent addition to his discography, drum + voice, is a testament to his artistic path, though its title was a latecomer to the project. In this interview, we’ll peel back the layers of this album’s creation—a journey that spanned over two and a half years. We’ll uncover the circumstances that prompted its inception, the detours taken due to external factors, and the pivotal moments that ultimately shaped it into the work we hear today.
Before we dive into the intricacies of drum + voice, let’s trace back to the beginning of Nicholas’s musical voyage. He first encountered music through school programs in Texas, where he made a choice that would eventually shape his future career. Join us as we explore these formative experiences and influences that ignited Nicholas’s passion for music. This interview takes you on a humanized journey through the life and artistry of Nicholas, a musician whose latest album invites us to traverse the landscape of human emotions and self-discovery.
Okay, so first, can you just tell me a little bit about yourself?
Totally. So, my name is Nicholas. I’m from Texas, born and raised. This album though, is very New York based. That’s where I recorded it. I consider myself a songwriter first, but I do write, produce, kind of the whole value chain of music. I’m really interested in exploring topics of intimacy, self concept, self awareness, past, nostalgia, compassion. Those things I feel are very present in my music.
I play a lot of instruments. Actually, that’s kind of a strong word. I play some instruments. I play piano, I play guitar, I play a lot of random accessories, percussion, because coming up, that’s what I was trained in, percussion. But these days I produce a lot using synths, midi, all that stuff. My new album is called drum + voice. It’s available now.
Is that the inspiration behind the album title? Your involvement with percussion?
Yeah, the album title kind of came last. We had a different working title. I had one that I worked with for a long time because this album kind of came together over like two and a half years. So I had a title that I was working with, and then whenever I partnered up with my label, we had a different one.
And then when we got right to the end, it’s actually when we decided to use the term drum + voice because we felt like it was a little bit more descriptive of the actual sound of the music. So that wasn’t my idea going into the album. But then finishing it, that was more of a label that we attached to describe the whole project.
What was the process like for making Drum + Voice?
So I started writing the album around, I would say April 2020, maybe a little bit sooner, maybe March 2020. I had decided in January 2020 that I was going to make an album. And initially my plan was I’m going to make an album this year and then I’m going to release it at the end of the year. So have the whole album cycle kind of happen within twelve months. Then obviously the world came undone around March, so that didn’t work out. I had other things that I had to do. And so I moved from New York back to Texas where I’m originally from. And when I was there, I started to get really inspired just by nature and stillness and slowness. And so this album that I was writing would come to be drum + voice, which at the time was called Leo Rising.
Then I got inspired by something else. I ended up writing another more acoustic sounding EP called Eden. So I was writing that and I just kind of kept going. I guess maybe it started when I was in LA. That’s where I started writing “Greenpoint” when I was in LA. And that’s the first song that made it to this album. And then also “Song to Cry to”, I wrote that, like, in October.
But then I had to move again. I had other things that I was doing and I just kind of kind of got off track with it. Other projects sort of took precedence. But I think it was Summer 2022 that I was feeling very serious that it became something I wanted to finish. I felt like it was really important for my artistic catalog and career to have a more complete and full body of work. So I started really writing and I would say that I sort of came into clarity about what the project was going to be after I wrote “Taj Mahal”, because I wrote that when I was in Paris and I was in LA. I played it for Nick, who runs the label Big Ten that this album was released on. He was like: “I really like this, this is really cool. This feels like a very interesting sonic direction for you to go in. It would be interesting for you to try to finish your projects with this workflow and the style that you’re doing”. So then after that, I wrote “Garland”, I wrote “Jupiter”, I finished the production on “Greenpoint”, all this kind of stuff. Then by January of this year, the record was really done. We were just mixing, mastering and doing videos and all that stuff for the first part of the year. It was released at the end of June. So all in all, it was about like a two and a half year process.
It’s hard to keep track of, but it’s been several years that I’ve been working on it, and it’s had a few different lives. We were calling it Leo Rising, and then we were calling it Closer Than Ever, and then eventually we settled on drum + voice. And I feel like that was sort of the final step of understanding what the project was going to be.
How did you first get into music? And then a bonus question, what’s your first memory with music?
So I got into music as a kid at my school. I was always really into it. And then at my school, they offered orchestra and concert band. So when you’re in the fourth grade, you could choose an instrument and start playing. So then that’s just what I did because you could either go to orchestra class, you could go to basic music class, where you just sit around. So I was like: okay, this seems more fun. But I’ve always really liked music.
I think my first real memory had to be when I used to wake up super early to go to school in the morning and they would play music videos on VH1 and also on MTV, I think it was called Jumpstart. I really liked Jumpstart, and I really liked a show called The Top 20 Countdown, and I would watch that every weekend and they would count down the top music videos. And that’s when I thought: “oh, music is so cool. I like this.” So I started taking piano lessons, then I did orchestra, and then band.
Have you gotten into music videos yet? Do you have any out right now?
Yeah, we put out a music video for this album. It’s called “Small”. Here, I can actually send you the link. Give me 1 second.
I really like making music videos. I’ve directed all of my music videos.
How do you think growing up in Texas impacted your musical ability or your musical career?
I would say the main way is probably that I’m really into country music. Being from Texas, I always listen to a lot of country music, and I feel that even though I don’t write country music, a lot of my lyricism is very inspired by the country songwriting tradition of storytelling, literal dialogue inside of a song, things like that.
If you could describe your sound as its own genre, what would you call it?
That’s harder than it should be, but I would say it’s like “alternative pop songwriting”. I don’t know if that’s all encompassing, but I do feel like that would be correct, more correct than just Pop or RnB.
You said you produce too, right?
Yeah, every song on this album I either produced or co-produced.
What’s your production style like? Are you sample heavy? Do you start from scratch?
I’m not [sample heavy], I start from scratch on most songs. I do use samples sometimes. I don’t like to sample other beats or other songs, but I’ll use samples like drum loops or melodic clips. I went through a whole phase where I was super into using splice and mixing sound packs together and things like that.
And I love to incorporate ambient sounds. So on one of the songs on the album called the “Garland”, there’s the sound of rain. I wrote the song in California, and then I went to Vermont immediately
after. And so there’s the sound of rain falling in Vermont on the song. “Deeper” I wrote when I was riding a bike from Manhattan to Brooklyn. So a lot of the sounds that are inside of the song are meant to recreate that tunnel feeling of all the noise that you are hearing riding through the city, across bridges.
I think the way that I approach songwriting is different from how most people approach it. Some people approach production kind of like a math problem. So they’re stacking things together. They’re thinking of it kind of geometrically. I always approach it from a sonic point of view. So most of the time, before I start to try to make the “beat”, the “song” is already written. So the chords are written, the melodies are predefined, the harmonies are predefined. I normally approach a song from lyrics first and then I decide what key I want to write the song in. I write the song on piano, guitar, and then I go into the beat and think about are there aspects that I can’t create organically that need to be created electronically and kind of go from there.
What about your concert presence? Have you started doing any shows?
Yeah, I performed quite a bit. My last show was in May. I performed downtown in New York in the East Village. I love to perform. I think that it’s really the main thing that excites me about music. Growing up, like I said, I was in band, I was in orchestra. I also did theater a lot, so performance is a very important aspect of the music experience I think, because beyond people connecting to the lyrics of your song and feeling like it’s a story that they can identify with; when you perform, you sort of recreate the emotional vortex that people can actually experience, and it’s very cathartic for them. So I try to perform as often as I can.
What are some concert stops or cities you’d like to perform in?
Hmm, that’s a good question. I mean, I would love to play in LA. I love LA. I lived there for some time, and I’ve never done a show there, so that would be awesome. I also love Paris. It’s one of my favorite cities in the world. I’ve also spent a lot of time there, so I would like to perform there. Then Rio, I’ve spent some time in Brazil, and I find it to be a really healing and magical place. I would love to perform there.
Growing up, what kind of artists did you listen to?
The artists I listened to the most growing up were like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Sarah Bareilles, Frankie Beverly, and TLC. I was also really into kind of, like, alternative music. So, like, A Fine Frenzy was really big for me. Missy Higgins was really important for winter. Also Katy Perry, a lot of Katy Perry, and Lana Del Ray.
What have you been listening to the most recently?
Recently, I’ve been going to a lot of concerts, and I like to listen to the artists before I go. So recently I’ve been listening to TLC, Arctic Monkeys, Bebe Rexha, Rufus de Soul, Tash Sultana. I’m trying to think, who else? I guess also myself because I’m writing another record right now, so I’ve been listening to that a lot.
Last question about other artists: What would be, like, your dream collaboration?
Lana Del Ray, I have a song right now that I wrote with a sample using one of her songs called “Cherry Blossom”. So my dream collaboration would be for her to just record that part.
What’s a day in the studio like with you?
I don’t really like actually recording in studios just because I feel like it’s not always the best environment to be in for me. Honestly, I don’t think that it’s always the healthiest environment to be in, especially in that sort of unending: “Oh, we’re just going to go to the studio for the day”. I don’t like people coming in and out. I don’t like the transience, because for me, I feel like recording is a very private and personal thing to do. It’s very intimate and vulnerable. So normally on a day, if I know I need to record something, I’m working with someone else.
For example, on the album, there’s a song called “Water” that I recorded with my friend Evan, who plays in a band called Stolen Gin. That day I woke up, went to get a coffee, had a smoothie, rode my bike for a little while, and then I went to his apartment. I show up with my diary, kind of having ideas, and we just kind of go back and forth, riffing on them, working until we’re done. Then maybe after a while, we go have another coffee, go outside, smoke, come back, work some more, and then leave.
But mostly pretty much all of the songs that are on this album were recorded in my home, either in my home or in somebody else’s home.
Who do you write music for?
The different characters inside my life, my friends, my family, people I’m dating, people I’m not dating, people that I work with, just things that I see. I approach songwriting as a sort of anthropological exercise, and so sometimes it’s about taking a feeling inside of myself and making it real, but other times it’s about noticing things and trying to create a catalog or diary to make sure that they’re recorded somewhere. So the things that I see and feel or that I notice other people seeing and feeling will often end up in my music. That’s sort of the base of my songwriting practice.
Final thoughts?
Not really, I would just like for people to go find the record and listen to it. Wherever they stream music, it’s available everywhere. So I would definitely want that to be heavily emphasized.
Of course. Thanks again for everything.
Thank you!