F: I'm sitting here with Dominic Palermo. Some know him as Nicky, some know him as Mr. Nothing. I just have a couple of questions for you. Beginning with, where are we? What are we doing tonight? Can you just give me some background? 

N: Yeah, we're in Dallas, Texas. About to play our sixth show of the tour. About to hang with a lot of homies. Probably gonna drink a little bit too much tonight, and want to kill myself as we go into Austin. 

F: Yeah, that’s a common feeling for most people who have to go to Austin. 

N: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

F:  I want to know a little about your musical background. What was the first band you played in, your introduction to music, and your biggest influences, then and now? 

N: The first band I played in was a punk rock band when I was 13 called The Scum. Really embarrassing stuff. It was a couple of young kids and me who were friends from Philly. Then a couple of us moved on, and we were in a band called Victory Strike, which was a little bit better, but it was still kind of embarrassing, looking back. It was kind of One Life Crew worship, but without the politics, obviously, but that type of music, you know, like old youth crew type hardcore. And then from that, spawned Horror Show, which isn't so embarrassing, I don't think. And I did that for a little while, and then went to prison, and I didn’t want to play music anymore. A couple years later, I was kind of at the end of my rope, and I decided that maybe I needed to play music again, but I wanted to try coming at it from a different angle, more of the stuff that I naturally listened to, more depressive, soundscaping music, and I started Nothing, and I’ve just kind of been learning what to do along the way.

F: Speaking of Nothing, was Nothing the original band name, or did you have any other iterations? Do you remember your original band names? 

N: Yeah, for Nothing, it was originally gonna be called Nausea, after a Jean Paul Sartre book that I read when I was locked up, but, obviously, there's a punk band with that name already. Anyways, I thought Nothing would be a funny name, because it was kind of, like, an anti-music project. I didn't really have any intentions of doing anything with it besides it being a bedroom thing. I made a demo, the demo was received pretty well, and I kind of got talked into doing a record with this Japanese label called Big Love Records. The intention was essentially to release an LP at one point and then just be done with it. 

The name was kind of an attempt at, like, a microaggression and just kind of making it hard to Google and that kind of thing. Obviously, it's now become a pain in the ass for things like that. It works a lot better now than it did when I was like “Oh, maybe we'll start doing this for real, and then it was like, okay, this is a pain in the ass, all the URLs are taken. But now I think it's kind of evened out; you can find it pretty easily now. I guess that's from 15 years of doing this. 

F: So, you were in punk and hardcore bands originally, and your latest album has some very Beatles-esque/alt-rock influence on it. The rain don't care, especially, almost sounds like Beck to me.

N: Yeah, I definitely hear the Beatles on that song.

F:  Yeah, the chord change on the bridge is super Beatles. But it overall sounds like Morning Phase to me.

N:  I love that record.

F: Me too, I saw Beck do most of it at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil. 

N: Incredible, sounds like a tough show. 

F: It was life-changing. But anyway, how do you think your music and influences in making music have changed, and why do you think they've changed?

N: We started with an identity crisis when we first started. Not heavy enough for the hardcore shows that I was used to, and a little too aggressive for the indie rock shows. There was always this balance in Nothing, whether I wanted to make loud, aggressive music or make a sad, depressing song, I tried to mix them up as much as I could. I always like to have a couple of slow, clean songs on the record. 

Our name was kind of torture for the longest time, trying to identify ourselves in a sense, but it eventually clicked, and people just kind of understood what we were doing, and it became okay to play whatever we wanted, wherever we wanted. With this latest record, I feel like we really honed in on that. You can just see that there’s a level of comfort in doing what we do. 

Whenever we write a song, the inspiration for what I'm doing is really always based on life first. People ask what the musical inspirations are, you know, films, TV, whatever. It's a mixed bag of that, but those are just accents; it’s usually just what's going on with me, and typically it starts with pen and paper, just writing down thoughts and stuff like that, and then, if I feel like it's compelling enough, I move on to music. With this last record, the plan was to move out of the “What does Nothing sound like?” We usually take the acoustic voice memo demos I record, and sit down and figure out like, “Okay, how do we make this a Nothing song?” We didn't really do that on this record. I wanted to just let the songs kind of feel more natural. I wanted to bring the spirit of the demos to the record. 

I kind of got stuck in a cycle after Guilty of Everything for two and a half years, writing, recording, touring, writing, recording, touring, three or four albums of that. Guilty was kind of a built-up kind of aggression, and this is all new to me at that point. I never really did any of this, and we had pressure from labels and stuff, trying to get a record out, so it was a little less purposeful in a lot of those records, even though it was still very meaningful. All of those records are meaningful, but it was more stream of consciousness; I didn't have that time to let the shit that was bothering me fester. That's kind of the difference between Guilty of Everything and a short history of decay, and then the middle records. Those few years between albums kind of did something to me, and I had to learn how to deal with certain things

F: You said earlier that Nothing started as a bedroom project, and you weren't really thinking of going anywhere with it. Can you kind of talk me through the process of taking the project from a creative outlet in your room to a band that's playing shows and touring?

N:  Yeah, it kind of just happens, honestly. The intention was never there; it was kind of more of a therapeutic thing for me. As I said, I was at the end of my rope, kind of, and I didn't really know where I was going. I was pretty unhappy with everything, and as a last-ditch effort to channel some of the weight that I've been carrying for a couple of decades into music. The goal was to make Guilty of Everything and then just be done with it, but I started to see a different side of life around it, you know, people wanted to hear it. I kind of got sucked into it, to be honest. The freedom to be able to go and play and do all these things that I always wanted to do before I got locked up, that I kind of gave up on, just started to happen again for me.

 This band gave me so many opportunities to do things and go places. Where I came from in Philadelphia, not a lot of us get out, you know? And I kind of felt like I was gifted this opportunity to do things that nobody in my family has ever done. I'm from this poor little white trash family that's like, “Oh, you're in Italy? You’re in Europe? You're in Japan?” It's mind-boggling for them still, to this day, so I always feel like I'm not supposed to be here. I have imposter syndrome for sure, but that kind of gave me a boost to push through and keep doing it. It wasn't until recently, after The Great Dismal, that I realized that I kind of shifted so far over one way that I left a lot of stuff behind, and I think that's a part of the process for this record; that’s why it's so important to me. I was kind of forced to deal with myself in these decisions that I made to put myself in this place, and look at myself in a mirror and be comfortable with myself a little bit. So it was an interesting process, getting from that point to where I am now. It kind of feels like a 360 moment, in a sense. I think I answered the question, but I don't even know. I think so. 

F: In terms of how the band actually physically formed, how did you find people who were down to play with you and record with you? And since then, how has the lineup changed? 

N: It's kind of always worked the same way. I've just gotten better at doing it and, like, a little bit more responsible with how I pick people to play with. But it's always been the same, I've never gone for players, you know what I mean? I have to have somebody around me that I know that I could be in a van with for fucking 60 days, you know what I mean? Tour always feels like war to me, so I have to have people that I fuck with around me, but that's not always the answer, though. We've gone through 30 different members, but I don't really look at it like that. Nothing's always been a collaborative effort. Even if there are people who played in Nothing that I don't fuck with anymore, that’s really rare. I keep in contact with almost everybody. But,  everyone, no matter if I do or don't, like them has left an imprint on Nothing, I carry a little piece of everybody that's played with me along the way. I've learned a lot from other people, and I've experienced a lot, and that's kind of what turned me into who I am now, for better or for worse. I've refined it to a point now, and that's how I'm lucky enough to end up with the lineup that we have now. Everybody's pro, everybody's good at their instrument, and it's fucking gang, you know what I mean? Like, it's family. And when we're touring, it's not like anybody else. If you're around this, you just feel a different vibe. It kind of just feels like we’re hanging out, you know what I mean? And that's kind of how I always needed it to be. The second, I have to hire some dickhead that's good as shit at drums, but he sucks to be around. I just won't do it, you know what I mean?

F: We’ve talked around this a lot, but can you tell me a little about a short history of decay? Why did you write this album? What's your favorite song on the album? And what do you want us to get from the album? 

N: It's hard to say favorite song, because a lot of it's heavy shit that I'm dealing with, I will say, I get more feeling out of some than others, just because of the content. But when we write a record, it's very purposeful as far as it being a front-to-back kind of thing. It's always been like that for Nothing. I don't get hung up on songs as much as I do, as how they're all gonna lay out together in a grand scheme of a full album. The biggest inspiration for this album was how we were moving at a certain pace for like 10 years, then COVID happened. We tried to get out after COVID and do some shows, but it was definitely weird and different. It's similar to driving a car at 120 miles an hour and then running directly into a brick wall. Here I am at home, everything's stopped, I'm forced to deal with my home life, and all of these relationships that I've been reluctant to deal with, and a lot of the things I just put on the shelf because I had all these distractions. It was a pretty eye-opening way of showing me how meaningful this has been for me for the last 12 years or whatever it was at that point. But what did I lose along the way? That’s what I started looking at, you know? Time with family, a lot of friends lost, I missed an immeasurable amount of things that I should have been home to experience because of touring, and now I'm sitting there in my house trying to figure out what to do with myself. 

That was kind of the, that was the main drive behind this record. It’s me at my most vulnerable, trying to be as honest as I can with whoever's gonna listen to this record. I think that was my biggest intention, to try to shed some more weight, you know? Like that initial Guilty of Everything weight, but be as honest as I can, no matter how painful it is and how embarrassing it is. I wanted to just put it out there because, you know, that's what connects people with this band, and with me, it was always that honesty.

F: So as we both know, Nothing is a band from Philadelphia. Historically, there's been a bunch of great bands from Philly, but recently, there's been a crazy, shoegaze JWar adjacent explosion from Philly. There’s a bunch of these bands coming from Philly, and a lot of them have a similar sound and influence, like Sun Organ, TAGABOW, and Full Body. Where do you think that comes from? Is there a DNA in the city that just makes people write this sad ass music?

N:  If you're listening, Philadelphia is always trying to tell you a story for sure. For me, it was easy. I grew up there. I'm one of the few people that was born and raised there. I’m from Kensington and Frankfurt. I lived there my whole life. I was born in a hospital under the L train. Not everyone has that, fortunately for them. But you don't have to be there too long until the city inspires you, and there's a lot of pain in the city. There's a lot of, there's a lot of life in the city as well,  and I think, I think if you allow Philadelphia to envelop you in what it is, you can get something out of it. That's kind of what I learned to do, I have a deep, love-hate relationship with the city, but it's where I'm from. It's what shaped me to be whatever I am at this point, you know? 

I'm not sure where everybody's from, but if you spend time there, you can get something out of it. And what Doug is doing with JWar is super inspiring. It's sick to see, because I didn't have that when we were kind of bumbling around in like 2012-23. It was really difficult to get people to understand, and I think we inspired a lot of shit. Some is good, some of it's really bad, but I do feel responsible for both ends of the spectrum. But these kinds of bands and what's happening in Philly, with Knifeplay, Full Body II, TAGABOW, I don't put myself in the same conversation with what they're doing. They're all really elevating the sound; they're doing something really unique and cool. They give me old heads status for sure, and they're always super cool with me, and we connect whenever we can and shit, but it's just sick to see it happening in my city, you know what I mean? I love to see it. That's why I brought Full Body II out. I'm a fan first.

F: No one can really ever tell if music is feeding someone, but I'm assuming you're not working at a copy center or whatever in Philadelphia. What did you do to support yourself before Nothing took off?

N: I haven't worked in a long time, per se. I don't have a day job or anything like that. But I do side hustles all the time, I'm on the grind constantly. My partner moved me out to New York, like, 10 years ago, which smokes every dollar that I have, just being there, but she's a stylist, she has to be there, so I have to be there. We're in Philly all the time, though. I do Slide Away on the side, which isn’t really about money, but if I can use what I do to get by, I absolutely will. 

Right after COVID, I was moving large amounts of mushrooms for six months to get on my feet. It started out, I had a half pound, and I was selling eighths around Brooklyn. I had a really good connect out in the Bay—shout out ******, you gotta censor her name out when this comes out, though—next thing I know, I was like, “Yo, I need a pound.” A couple of weeks later, I was like, “I need five pounds.” Next thing you know, I was getting 25 pounds in the mail once every two weeks, and I was moving them all throughout Philly and New York, and I did that for about six months. I probably moved about 300 to 400 pounds of mushrooms for a little while.

F:  Have the statute of limitations expired on that? 

N: I mean, they're not gonna come for me. You can't really prove it. I could be lying. You just do what you can do, right? When I was younger, I used to do the same thing, and I didn't know when to stop, so at least I have enough sense that, once the COVID lockdown ended, I just got back on tour. 

F: Besides your time as the Flatbush mushroom kingpin, what was the worst and best job you ever held?

N: Roofing is the worst job in the world. Have you ever done it? 

F: No, thank God.

N: It’s awful. Don't do it. I only did it for a summer, and it was all Philly guys, all Kenzos, everybody was taking percs and doing heroin, everyone was high on the job. And these were big jacked motherfuckers, you wouldn’t see these guys and assume they were heroin addicts, a heroin addict would look, these guys were, like, 300-plus-pound buff motherfuckers who go to the gym on heroin. Philly's different,  I try to tell people all the time, you really don't know what it’s like. These are all, Kenzo Irish Catholics and Muslims, Philly is a total anomaly. That’s easily the worst job I ever had, picture climbing up a two-story row house with a ladder, bringing 45-50-pound tar slabs. It's hot as fuck, like 100 degrees outside, and 125 on the roof. All of your bosses are all perced up and fucked up, it’s just the biggest nightmare ever. 

F: So, what was the best job? 

N: That's the easiest question you’ve asked. This is the best job I’ve ever had; I don't even consider it a job. I'm busy as fuck, though. I’m hands-on with everything I do. You know what I mean? Obviously, songwriting, performing, shit like that, you know, but merch designs, physical media designs, album art, tour scheduling, routing, expenses, and facilitating the show and crew. I'm busy as fuck when it comes to Nothing, and I like it, because when I have too much time on my hands, it becomes a problem. So it's good for me to stay busy. I did work in the service industry for a long time. I bartended for, like, 10 years in Philly, and that was always fun. But it wears you down just like anything does. 

F: On the subject of touring, what’s the best/your favorite show you've ever played? And what's your favorite story from your 15 years of touring? And don't say Europe, 2022. 

N: Yeah, definitely not Europe 2022. I will say, though, some of my favorite parts about these tours are the worst parts, because I’m able to come out of it the other end unscathed to an extent, you know? You mentioned Europe 2022. We were in the ER 4 times, and lightning struck our fucking van on that tour. It was just one of those tours where everything that could go wrong did. 

F: You should read my Cam Smith interview if you want the whole story. 

N: Yeah, Cam will tell it like it is. He was kind of fly on the wall for that tour, so he has a good perspective. I separated my chest plate from my ribcage, and I had pneumonia the whole tour; it was a nightmare. The cool thing about those kinds of tours, though, is that you come home, and you're like, fuck, I didn't think I was gonna make it home. I was sending texts to people at home, like, “I love you, like, I don't know if I’m gonna make it home.” I was googling how to get your body back to the States if you die in Europe. I really thought I was gonna fucking die. I thought I was having heart problems, but it was because I separated my chest plate. I went blind in one eye on that tour, too. I thought it was all related, but it was really because I got cracked on the head in 2015, and I had a traumatic cataract. It’s basically like when a pebble hits your car’s windshield, it starts as a little crack, but then it gets bigger and spider webs out. That's what was happening in my eye, so I had to get an artificial retina when I came home. When I went to the doctor, and they finally figured out that I separated my chest plate from my ribs, the doctor was like, “How the fuck is this even possible? What did you do?” But apparently, the pneumonia swelled up my organs so much that I made a wrong turn, and it just separated. We had 3 weeks of the tour, and I did the whole tour like that.

F:  Cam told me you did it by doing a cartwheel at a venue in Denmark. 

N: No, I re-aggravated it.  See, Cam don't know what the hell he’s talking about.

F: I might be misquoting him. 

N: Cam will always try to do that though, but he ain't shit. But, yeah, I re-aggravated it for sure, doing a cartwheel, but I also tore my hamstring super badly, to the point where my whole leg went black and blue. I was wasted, and the doctor gave me morphine pills, and I felt like I was unstoppable, and then I did that cartwheel and fucked everything up again. But, yeah, I went home, got everything fixed, and then a month later, we went on a tour with Boris, and the first night in Philly, I jumped off the stage and broke two ribs, and had to start the whole tour with two broken ribs, which I don't know if you've ever broken a rib, but, I'm pretty sure I might be the only person that ever thugged out a 30 day tour after breaking two ribs on the first night. 

F: Maybe so. 

N:  But anyway, as far as best show, I can barely remember half of the shit that we do. We play with so many cool bands. I loved the Slide Away shows, doing those comeback shows with Whirr, and the redemption side of things; that was really special to me. Also, the first tour we did with Whirr, when we didn't know what the fuck we were doing, we were just wild ass maniacs. I love those shows, you know? Those are some of my favorite shows. 100-cap rooms, like, 40 people in the room, and we had like, six amps on stage, trying to melt everybody's face off, not really giving a fuck about any press or anything like that. Just sucking the day's dick, you know what I mean? Just being wild boys. 

F: Pause. 

N: No, that's not a pause. You don't need to pause with me. Let it run. 

F: What are the Nothing tour necessities? What do you need to bring with you, and what's on your rider? 

N: You already know the answer to this. 

F: Well, yeah, but it's for the people at home, man. That's privileged information, you know?

N: Our rider is pretty simple. We drink a decent amount on tours. But it's a lot more controlled chaos than it used to be, for sure. I'm getting a little bit older. Alcohol’s probably the biggest necessity at this point. I don't know if we'll ever hit the sober Nothing tour. I don't know if I got it in me. I took a couple of years off when I was working in the bars, and it was miserable for me. I don't drink when I go home very often. Only occasionally, if I go out, which I don't really do anymore, I mostly just stay in the house, I’ve kind of developed a bit of an agoraphobic thing. You wouldn't even recognize me at home, it's way different. A big part of that is because I know how hard we go when we're on the road, and I also never want to have to stop, you know? I don't want to ever reach a point where I physically can't do this anymore. So, I keep that in my mind, but it's a pretty big necessity for us, I think, you know? It's more about, like, the freedom of being able to live the way that we need to live while we do this, because it's pretty treacherous doing this shit sometimes.

F: In that same line of questioning, what do you do so you don't go nuts on tour when you're on tour for weeks and months? How do you stay sane in the van? How do you make a tour not boring? 

N: Super easy, keep good people around you that legitimately care about you, you know? And just enjoy that freedom that you don't really have at home, which is the one luxury that you have here. There's a lot of stuff to do. You get your job done, and get the shows done, but this is a pretty easy lifestyle, if you can handle it the right way, you know? I know a lot of guys who tour, and they get to the venue, they do the sound check, they go to the hotel room, and sit there and stare at their phones for four hours, and then they go to the venue, play the show, and go right back to the hotel. and order Domino’s. It's just so depressing to me. I don't know why anybody would want to do that. I'd rather be in an office or a janitor at a high school or something. That's shit's fucking terrible. We mark out spots. When we have days off, we try to see if there's a lake in between a drive, just go swimming, or go see a museum, or let's go hit a fucking taco place. Whatever it takes to keep a little bit of a smile on your face otherwise, what are you really doing? You know what I mean? 

F: Outside of music, like, what are you into? What do you do when you're at home? Like, what are your hobbies? What do people know you as when you're not on stage? 

N: I used to be in the streets a lot more. I'm not really out there anymore. I'm kind of playing house way more often than I ever have. I watch a lot of films, TV, and play some video games. Cam got us on Fortnite, but Doyle and I kind of abandoned Cam and moved to Arc Raiders now. 

F: Y'all gotta get on a Uri’s stream.

N: Yeah, I see him there sometimes. We haven't linked in Speranza yet, but I see him out there. He's on it more than I am, for sure. See, I'm a good guy in Arc Raiders. I've only got about 120 hours in, which is nothing compared to these guys. But I only have 3 kills, and that feels nice to me. When I get on my server, I can just walk around and loot and collect things, which makes me happy. When I jump on with Doyle or the Whirr boys, they're just bloodthirsty, and I don't even have it in me, really. But yeah, I do a little bit of that, and I hang out with my dogs. I read a lot still. I've kind of come back around to reading a lot the past few years, which is nice, just to keep away from my phone and shit. But I'm really bored at this point; there's no mushrooms flying around, no suitcases filled with drugs anymore. 

F: You never know. 

N: After this tour, I might have to get back to it. That's true. 

F: Let's hope tonight goes well.

N: I’ll drop you a line. 

F: If you were in a situation where you could only consume three movies and three albums for the rest of your life, what would they be?

N: What the hell? That's a hard ass question, man. Come and See is probably my favorite film of all time, even though it's extremely dark. I love war movies. Goodfellas is just too good. I'll always keep that in there. What else? Anytime I see Terminator I on, I'm watching the full movie. I put it on in the green room at Saturn in Birmingham, because Bobb was watching music documentaries, and I fucking hate music documentaries. For albums, Loveless will always be one for me. I know that's the easy answer right there. I love Meat is Murder by The Smiths, that record has been a part of my life since I was a kid. Any Townes Van Zandt record, I'd say. I can always get down with Townes.

F: What's on your pedal board, and what's your rig? 

N: Right now, I have an 89 RAT. I always have a Hardwire R7 reverse reverb. I have Nick Bassett's Trinity Reverb pedal, which is basically a Hall of Fame, but we have a setting in there that we’ve both shared since the beginning. It's kind of more nostalgic than anything, I feel like, there's better reverbs now, but I'm just stuck on it. Also, if it works, it works. I have an old '80s Ball tremolo. I have a fuzz pedal, but I can't remember the fucking company's name, and they gave me the pedals for free. Jupiter Effects, sorry, Jupiter. I'm retarded. But yeah, it’s a signature Nothing one. They break all the time, though. I have a tuner.

F: Classic.

N: Yeah, definitely. I still use a little looper pedal for interludes and samples. I think I have an MXR phaser. I love those. I’ve always loved those. I’ve had the same one since the beginning, somehow. I have an Alexander delay pedal. I forgot what the name is, but I love Alexander Petals. They're great. That might be it. I keep it pretty simple nowadays. In the early days, we would try to get these big boards out and do all this extra shit. But I just became more refined.

F:  What about guitar and amp? 

N: Well, I torture everybody by bringing the six Tone Masters out. But it's a lot different nowadays; we used to do it for so long with Twin Reverbs. I have five twin reverbs at home, but we've kind of switched over to Tone Masters. They're solid state, so we get looks from the tone dorks and shit, but they work really nicely, and we borrowed some from A Place To Bury Strangers in Europe, and if those guys are using them, then you know you're good. They're the real tone masters. Shout out to Death by Audio, too. I've seen them do it, and if they can do it, we can do it. And now I've got everybody on them, and they raised the prices of them.

I have three Jazzmasters with me on this tour. I have a Mexican one, a Japanese one from 2002 or something that I bought off Reverb, and a new '66 reissue that Fender just sent me, which they had to steal back from Foster the People. So the main guitar I use is Foster The People’s personal guitar; they gave it to him as a loner. 

F: I used to be a huge Foster The People fan when I was, like, 11; that was my shit. 

N: I don't know if I know a song. 

F: You probably do. What about Pumped Up Kicks? 

N: Oh, that's them? I know that one is good. 

F: They’ve got one album that's actually pretty good, and then the rest of it's just dog shit, pop nonsense. 

N: I'll have to check it out.

F: I'm gonna put you on. It's not bad. 

N: Nah, shout out Foster The People. I’m sure they'll tune in. 

F: I'm not trying to be backhanded at all, but you're bringing out some lesser-known bands on this tour. It seems like you have your ear to the ground a little. Are there any bands coming out right now that you're a fan of and want to shout out? 

N: Not all of them are new, but doing the Slide Away stuff kind of forced my hand to reconnect with the streets a little bit. I really love War Machine. They're sick. Like, I was stoked to get them. Obviously, Full Body II and Cryogeyser as well, and VMO is the best live band in the world. I really believe it. When you see them tonight, you're gonna be like, what the fuck? I really like a lot of the Philly stuff, too. Knifeplay is one of my favorites. I really like Touch Girl Apple Blossom, from Austin. Nuclear Daisies are sick, too. Dottie's sick, Mo Dottie's sick. Just look at the slideaway bills, any of those bands are sick to me. I love that Manslaughter 777 record that Zach plays on, too. There's a lot of cool shit going on, which is nice. I feel like the state of the world always brings out good music, and it's nice to see everyone doing new things with the genre. It's an exciting time.

F: What does Nothing’s future look like, and what are your plans for Slide Away? 

N: As far as Nothing goes, just getting through the day is the number one priority for me. We take everything day by day. I don't really do shit until I feel inspired, and I’ve been doing this long enough that I kind of work at my own pace and everybody's cool with that. I think it's better for everybody that way. Everyone in Nothing has all these other projects, you know? Bobb, Cam, Doyle, Zach, they all do other shit, so I can't take up too much of their time always, which is fine by me, because I'm slowing down a little bit. Slide Away is a whole different thing, and I have to stay on this pace. Trying to juggle Nothing and Slide Away is tough sometimes, but I have a good team on both sides, and they get stuff done. For Slide Away this year, I have to do the Tired of Tomorrow set, which is kind of difficult, because I'm locked in with this band, playing a different setlist, and then for Slide Away, we're gonna have some guest members from the era playing with us.

F: So y’all are playing the full album? 

N: Yeah, front to back. Bassett and Kimball are gonna be playing with us on that tour, and probably Doyle and Cam. But we don't have a lot of time, so things are getting put together fast. Usually, during this time, we'd be upstairs with some guitars, running through stuff already.

F: If you have any wisdom from your learned age, any words for the young artists, shoegazers, young dope creatives, promoters, cameramen, and miscreants of the world under the age of 25, now is the time to pass it on. 

N: I’m probably the worst person to give anyone advice, but the best advice I could give is out of the traumatic experiences and crises I’ve been through. I think the most important thing is to always remember to try to be yourself, no matter what. Don't try to shape yourself to anything. Don't chase something. Just try to be you, because you're special in your own way. The second you stop doing that, you're fucking up, and try to smile as much as possible.