Name, age and bands you're in?
My name is Nick and I'm 27 years old. I live in Brookland and I play in Coke Bust (vocals), Sectarian Violence (vocals), Red Death (bass), Sem Hastro (drums) and Smartsam Utlosning (bass).
I assume Coke Bust is your first band? How did it come about? If not, what was?
Actually I played in a million bands when I was in middle/high school. I was first a drummer and played in a lot of horribly named groups: Poverty Box (named after the cafeteria vending machine), The Meat Eaters, and Ego Trip. When I was 15 I started my first hardcore band called GRIPTAPE. We were formed two days before our first show at the Rockville Mayor's son's birthday party at a pool house.
When I was a senior in high school, Griptape played our last show and I started Bail Out with some friends. This was the first band I ever toured with. Coke Bust was formed in 2006 from the ashes of Bail Out with two of the members, me and Parsons (bass), looking to do something faster and more aggressive with a straight edge message. Coke Bust was weird because we didn't have any ambitions with the band other than to have something to do in the summer of 2006. We recruited my old buddy Chris on drums (who also briefly drummed for Griptape), and tried out a few guitar players. The rest is history!
What band got you into hardcore? And how were you exposed to it?
My older sister got me into skateboarding, which slowly corrupted me and put me in touch with the kids who generally had more fun and got into more trouble than my previous friends. Skate videos exposed me to DRI, Black Flag, The Misfits, The Ramones, Minor Threat and other cool stuff. Still, I had no way of knowing more about these bands until that same sister explicitly showed me punk. She told me about a local DC band called Crispus Attucks and she described them as "skatecore." They were scheduled to play a free outdoor show at Fort Reno in Tenleytown and I was really pumped to check it out. Once I saw them, it was like the fucking lights went out. I didn't remember any of their riffs. I had no idea what they were playing. I didn't follow the music at all. The guitar player looked like a pirate and I was scared as hell. There were all kinds of freaks and hippies at the show passing out flyers for protests for things I had no idea about. It was wild. It was like someone unlocked a secret level of reality and I felt as one with the community. I knew after that show that I was onto some next-level shit.
I attribute all of this to my sister. I used to sneak into her room when she was out of the house and read all her MRR's, make tapes of her Minor Threat and 7 Seconds CD's, etc. I used to write down the bands names that I thought sounded cool. I figured out what an LP was and found an old turntable in my parents' basement. I would save my money and order records from the labels with the cheapest prices. The Havoc Records $3ppd 7"s led me to checking out a lot of sicker stuff like Civil Disobedience, Destroy, Tampere SS, etc. At this time I was still into the Fat Wreck / Epitaph / Hopeless stuff, too, but I'm not ashamed of that. Eventually I befriended some other punks and skaters at my school and we all fed off each other and checked out new stuff all the time. From that point on, my involvement and hardcore fan-dom exploded exponentially. We went to tons of shows, did our own bands, organized our own shows, and for a hot second Montgomery County Maryland even had a cool little insular punk scene with all the kids from Rockville, Twinbrook, Bethesda, Gaithersburg and Silver Spring. That's when I met Chris (Coke Bust drummer), James (Coke Bust guitar player), Trey from Hounds Of Hate, and the other Magrudergrind dudes. Those were exciting times.
You've toured all around the world, what is your favorite place? And is there a place that you want to go back to.
It's tough to pinpoint just one place and say it's my favorite. Sweden has had a profound effect on me and I've met some incredible people there. If I could legally move and work there, I would. I've been casually studying the language for the past couple of years, and it's a goal to eventually reach fluency. Sweden has also culturally placed a high value on the arts and because of this there seems to be a rich supply of awesome music, past and present.
I would say that touring in Brazil was a dream come true, but to be honest, it wasn't even a place that I ever would have seen on my radar. I'm forever grateful for that opportunity, and I know that I have to go back and see more. It was actually through this tour that introduced me to my current roommate Sao Paulo. Hanging out with him and talking everyday has vicariously taken me closer to the country, too. Hardcore is just cool like that.
Honorable mentions go out to: Iceland, Poland, San Francisco, Vermont and Finland.
Who's got the most groupies?
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Who is the biggest ball buster/prankster in the band? And have any of you gotten into any trouble because of it while on the road?
We are all pretty much on the same page with our senses of humor. We all enjoy playing jokes on each other. James and I probably go the hardest, though. I can't think of any instances where we've gotten ourselves into significant trouble on the road. Sometimes I think people can be off-put by our idiotic inside jokes (that only we think are funny). But this is more a product of us spending loads of time together.
Touring world wide means you've seen a lot. What is the strangest thing you've seen on the road?
We've seen a lot of weird stuff: enormous lawn gnomes for sale in the Polish countryside, a man we stayed with in Bulgaria once convinced me that he was stealing my identity. Some of us made a wrong turn in Brazil and stumbled into a park full of men pleasuring themselves together in the woods. We played a grindcore festival in the remote mountains of Eastern France a couple of years ago. That was an insane experience. European squats are always a trip. Watching a Greek man inject heroin into his balls. I could go on forever...
We saw Coke Bust play out about a year or so ago and you had some family members in the audience. What do they think of it? Are they into it? Do they think it's weird and crazy? In any case, we thought it was a cool sign of support.
Both my sisters are really into it and have been incredibly supportive. I can't count the number of times they've driven us to the airport or dropped me off at Chris' house before tours. My parents don't really enjoy hardcore punk at all. My dad used to like MC5 as a kid, but that's about it. I think my mom wishes I would stay in DC for longer periods of time and be a little more career-oriented. She's Polish, though, and gets very excited about me going back there.
Let's play Fuck, Marry, Kill: Kate Upton, Sofia Vergara and Katie Perry. Gotta fuck one, marry one and kill one. GO!
The only person I know out of that list is Katie Perry and I hate her music. So I'll answer the question like this: Workout to Merauder / Relax to Thin Lizzy / Drive to Project Pat / Wash my dishes to Assuck / Write to Jimmy Ruffin.
Come on Nick, you don't know these two beauties?
When you're not being a madman on stage, what do you do for fun?
When I'm not working/hustling or doing all this band/hardcore shit, I love reading about old heavy metal bands and checking new stuff out. I collect stamps. I'm working on writing a book about all my experiences. I'm not sure / don't care if it'll ever get published. I just want to have it. I enjoy working out, cooking food, hanging out with my roommates and hanging out with my family. I closely follow football and ice hockey. I meditate a lot. I also love traveling outside of the realm of punk and hardcore. I need to do that more.
Favorite front man and why?
Some of my favorites: Kurt Brecht of DRI (I've always loved how he managed to fit a million syllables on the faster earlier material), HR, Mike Muir (some of the rawest/realest lyrics ever.), John Brannon (absolute madman), Blaine Cook from the Accused (sickest voice).
Hail to the Redskins or change the name?
Hail to the Redskins until they change the name (and they should), and then Hail whatever that team name is.
What band should people be listening to that nobody really knows about yet?
Rats of Reality from Sweden, DisXease from Brazil, Arms Race from England, Modern Problems from Buffalo, Post Teens from Florida, Satan's Satyrs from DC (although a lot of people know about them now....whatever).
Will Coke Bust be putting out any other 9 minute LP's in the future? I say that in jest because of some criticism you all got after the record came out. I actually ranted about it on our little blog here.
I can only hope we will! HAHA
Are you a record collecting nerd? If so, what's your holy grail?
I wouldn't say that I'm a record collector or a nerd about it. I've never gone after colored vinyl and limited versions of records. I would like to own some early Dischord stuff, but I wouldn't drop hundreds of dollars on a record. Most really really really sick or rare records that I've acquired in the past have gotten sold over the years. Quitting jobs and touring extensively are the expensive hobbies that I have adopted over record collecting. No regrets. I can always go back and buy records. I can't travel in time and retroactively go on tour with my friends.
You're stranded on an island and you can jam out to Slayer or Metallica for the rest of your life. Who do you go with?
I am going with Metallica 10 out of 10 times. Slayer is awesome, of course, but I don't think that their best material holds a candle to Metallica's. I think Slayer stayed "good" or "listenable" a lot longer, But Metallica is sicker in my opinion. My favorite kind of metal is also NWOBHM, so it makes sense that I choose this. My favorite Metallica material is, not surprisingly, Kill Em' All.
Any last words or shout outs?
Anyone who discourages your passions in life is your enemy. Shout out to my man Seth F...I hope Montana is good.
Thanks for your time, Nick.
D.C.S.
