Nixie are a breathtakingly beautiful ambient/shoegaze unit based in Massachusetts who recently released an impressive two song demo.
I caught up with band members, Anthony (guitar) Devin (guitar, vox) James (bass) Luna (synth/samples, vox) and Zach (drums) to talk about their early musical experiences, how the band got together and the writing and recording process of the demo.
CMM: What was the first music that really made an impact on you all as kids and what artists or bands did you enjoy the most?”
a: I found Deftones and Pantera through the Dragon Ball Z movies as a kid, but I never really explored outside of those two bands until after high school. That was when I really “discovered music”
d: I grew up kind of listening to whatever, i remember someone I was with putting on Starshine by LSD and the Search for God and I was really into it and that really kickstarted my interest in playing guitar
j: Psycho Killer by Talking Heads/Talking Heads in general, just really catchy and kooky music that magine feel like I could make music
l: Latin rock and grunge influenced me a lot, Soda Stereo and Chris Cornell being two of my favorites growing up
z: I grew up listening to my dad’s taste in music, lots of Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. in high school I started developing my own taste and got really into Smashing Pumpkins but also started trying to explore other genres, eventually landing on bands like Narrow Head and Title Fight and stuff like that
CMM: How did Nixie form and start developing its sound?”
d: Anthony James and I have known each other for a while, we started playing music together a few years ago and it’s always been our goal to make music that makes you feel like you’re floating. Anthony and I were at a concert when we met Zach and we just kind of hit it off and randomly started talking about music and how it would be fun to get together and jam sometime, we didn’t have a drummer at the time so everything really clicked into place when he joined. I had a lot of the vocals and lyrics done but we met Luna and she really just brought the songs to life. She was looking to play in a band so we had her over for a practice and everything’s blossomed from there.
j: We just felt everything out and tried to find the vibe, if we liked something we kept it and would work on it later on the road to shape it to how we wanted it to sound.
CMM: You all recently released an impressive two song demo. What was the writing and recording process for those tracks like? Any particular gear or instruments you used during the recording sessions that helped inspire you?”
d: All of the recording except for Luna’s vocals and the drums for ode to concubine were all recorded in my bed room. I was really into recording over the summer and I came up with the idea of a rough outline for ode to concubine and atomz and I brought them to a band practice and we all agreed that we wanted this to be something. Both songs have definitely changed, with everyone adding something since the first little demo I recorded, and will continue to change until we release it outside of the demo phase. We recorded the drums in James’s grandparents basement, using an old 1960’s Roger’s jazz kit and 3 microphones (sm57, st51, e602)
j: We did pretty much all the recording in Devin’s room and my grandparents basement, it was very difficult at certain points because of the certain limitations but it was really fun looking back at it. Writing everything was really fun and interesting, it was sorta like we each had an idea for how the song should go for each part, and we would kinda just visualize it by showing each other riffs or using our voice to make up something it was weird but fun!
l: I recorded my vocals on Ableton and stacked about 3 to 4 nearly identical tracks, then added effects like reverb and a telephone tone. After I did a rough mix of the audio, I sent the merged stem over to Devin.
CMM: If the band could score any film director’s movie who would it be and what would the film be about?”
a: I would’ve loved to score anything for Akira Kurosawa. His art still holds up nearly 70 years later and it’s a shame that we can’t see what he’d be capable of with today’s technology.
d: Definitely Danny Boyl, I’d love to score some kind of dramatic thriller. His work in 28 Days Later and Trainspotting make my skin crawl in the best way possible
j: I would love to make ambient music for a David Lynch film
l: I agree with James, David Lynch for sure
z: Guillermo Del Toro for sure, we need another Pacific Rim movie
CMM: What do you all have coming up next?
Nixie: new recordings will be out on the bandcamp and youtube soon we haven’t scheduled our first show yet but it will also be sometime soon keep an eye out for nixie in the near future:))
