You can watch all out interviews here on our YouTube Channel or listen to the audios anywhere you find podcasts

Hey everybody, this is Craig Garber. Welcome to Everyone Loves Guitar. And today’s really one of those cool days when I get to interview not only one of my favorite guitar players from one of my favorite bands, writes all the music. And he’s a super talented guy. We’re with Nick DeSalvo, who’s a founding member and lead guitar player from the band Elder. If you don’t know Elder, I really want to turn you on to them. Incredible band. I was telling Nick, this is no bullshit. They have. every one of their songs is five star in my record. There’s two songs on a live album. That’s only four star. But let me tell you, these guys are great. If you like psychedelic, blues bands, really well written songs, well crafted hooks, nothing repeats itself. The songs are long. Nick’s a super talented guy. Then check out Elder. So if you listen to guitar, you play guitar, just check out Elder. Check out any of their records if you want a place to start. Maybe start on Dead Roots Starring or the last album, Golden Silver Sessions are great. But we’ll get all into this. And Nick broke down his background chronologically. So I’m going to ask him some questions or talk, read some of his background and then ask him some questions. But first, Nick, thanks so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it, man. Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for that super kind intro. It’s true, man. It’s easy to speak the truth, dude. I was really happy that I was able to get it. You know, look, I have tons of people on the show, but when I’ve already connected musically with somebody, I’ve listened to especially Elderush. I mean, some of these songs I’ve listened to 25, 30 times. You know, that’s a 15 minute song. That means I’ve spent a lot of time with your music, man. That’s a lot. That’s cool. Yeah. I mean, having to play those songs live that many times with another digit added on the end, that’s a trial right there. So. Well, it’s great. I remember literally the first time I heard Dead Roots starring, I went out for a walk and I had just downloaded it. You know, this was back when they, before they had Apple, you know, I bought, bought the record, downloaded it on, on probably, I don’t know, Bandcamp maybe. Um, and I listened to it and I remember where I was cause it was so impactful. I was like, holy shit. I was walking around the corner from this where I knew where I used to live. And I was like, Oh my God, this is like. You know, you have music that you, most of us have music in our heads from when we’re kids. And that’s the music that, you know, connects deepest with us, certain versions of that. Right. And I was like, Oh my God, I’m in heaven. And I just like the rest of that walk, just blasted the whole album. So really weird how music impacts you. I mean, Hey, if a music can, you know, bind itself to a memory or to a snow or to some specific moment in time, that’s the sign that is impactful. So that’s always cool to hear. Yeah, man. And you’ve done a great job at it. Quick message or announcement. Don’t forget, you can watch these on YouTube now in addition to listening to the show on wherever you listen to your podcast. All right. So Nick DiSalvo born in Michigan in 1989, which means I have genes that are older than Nick moved to Portland, Oregon in 91 Seattle in 95. And then New Bedford, Massachusetts in 2000 across the country. Question you moved around quite a bit was that like a positive or negative experience for you? And and did it have any impact on you as an adult in how you look at things or decisions you might make? Because that’s a lot of yeah, definitely. I mean definitely it was I Think kind of ironically as a kid. I always had a lot of fun moving and we did it so much that at a certain point It just felt natural. You know, we’ve been here for a couple years. Oh, we’re gonna move where you know, where’s it was cuz my dad, you know, he was working in the rapidly developing tech industry and his job was just taking him, I guess, wherever there was work for him. And, you know, when we moved to a new school, I think kids would always ask, you know, like, Oh, like, what’s it like moving isn’t that hard for me was always kind of like, Nah, isn’t this what everyone doesn’t everyone move? It was only until I landed in New England, where there’s this really deep rooted culture of maybe not just New England, but especially New England, people do not move around a lot. you know, that’s where they’re from and they’re proud of being from there. And you know, they want to trace back to how many generations they’ve been there. Right. And for us, we were the new kids on the block, kind of like, you’re from where? The West coast. Well, that’s unusual, man. I grew up in, in New York. You never meet people from the West coast moving there ever. So I could see people being like, you’re from where? Yeah. I can see. Yeah. Maybe, maybe back of the day. Now I’ve. probably New York looks a lot different, right? Yes, very much so, very much so. But back then, yeah, nobody would move, you know, especially I grew up in the Bronx. It was not like no one’s moving there anyway. Yeah, totally. You’re escaping from there. No one’s moving into there. But even the city in general was not, you know, if you met somebody from Oregon or Seattle, it’d be like, wow, it was almost like from another planet. Like, you know, for me anyway, I’d be like, hey man, tell me what that’s like. Cause I always. like meeting people from other places and other countries too. Cause I think you could learn something different from someone that was raised in someplace different, you know? Oh, totally. I mean, it definitely, it made an impact on me from such a young age that I learned just because, you know, you’ve got a home or just because you’re spending a lot of time somewhere. It doesn’t mean that you’re not free to roam. And I think it instilled a sense of wanting to explore in me that I definitely carried, you know, through the rest of my life so far. Yeah. And we’ll talk about that. That’s very cool. Um, At 13, you started playing drums. Who got you into that? Um, I think my older brother, he’s only a year and a half older than me, but he’s always been, uh, as a child, he was sort of my idol and, you know, the guy looked up to, and he got into punk rock, you know, he was probably 15 years old, I guess, at that point, and he picked up the bass guitar. And so I was just kind of looking at him saying, well, oh, he’s, he’s doing this like music, this is pretty cool. You know, he’s one of the guys who got me into. you know, rock and roll in the first place. And I think the drums is just what appealed to me at that point. I said, I want to be a drummer. So the only way I could get into that was, you know, go into the school band and, you know, hitting the snare drum or something like that. But it wasn’t until years later, I was able to get a shitty old drum kit for Christmas. I think one year that I could really start playing as a, you know, rock musician or playing punk drums or something. Yeah. That’s cool, man. You know, I’ve spoken to a lot. I heard an interview actually many years ago with Warren Haynes from government Yule. And he said, the best thing a guitar player could do is learn how to play drums. And I’ve interviewed a lot of players, uh, that started on drums and some of them still play jumps like Jim Oblom plays drums with Palm Simon. Any place guitar, but, um, they really have enjoyed that. Have you felt the same thing like it added another dimension to your plan? Oh, I mean, absolutely. I would say just having a developed sense of rhythm in general helps any sort of instrument that you’re playing and vice versa, you know, understanding how to play a guitar or a string instrument will inform you as a drummer. I think you can just lock things in tighter, or at least I realize, especially, you know, now that I play the bass as well, writing drum parts and writing bass parts, you know, they all fit together because you understand how the instruments. intrinsically interact. Gotcha. That’s I didn’t realize you play bass as well. I mean, you know, play bass, I play it like a guitar, I play with a pick. I’m not like a guy. I get it. You know, forget our players a lot of times the basses, you know, a dumb down guitar to some extent. Don’t say that to a bass player. Of course, to a bass player. I understand. There you go. Then you got a four track get your first guitar at 15. started playing various local bands and founded Elder around 2007. Your early gigs were New Bedford and Providence, Rhode Island. And you recorded the first record in your parents basement when you were 18. First of all, congratulations. I think that took a lot of initiative and ambition. And I was curious what made you do like, what was behind that drive? And also who did you also master it and engineer it? I mean, I would say there’s nothing behind the drive other than we grew up in a pretty small community and there wasn’t a whole lot to do. And I wasn’t like an athletic dude. My friends and I just got into music and that was kind of all that we did. And we got into collecting records and CDs and just really worshiping the bands that we listened to. And the most fun thing for us to do was also, imagine what it would be like to record our own music or imagine what if you had a CD or even better a record in the store one day. So we were, me and my friends were making really horrible music on this four track recorder for ages until I finally got a computer and started buying some microphones and stuff. And around the time, I was always just recording whatever musical project that was in. I think at one time I was playing in something like six or seven bands, mostly just one or two person operations that I was calling by different names. There was something really fun to me recording as much as possible and just experimenting that way. By the time we had elder, that was kind of a serious band. And so we had the, the one guy in the local music scene who had some recording know how I think we bought him like a pizza or something for a couple of days and bring his microphones. And he just recorded this thing on my old desktop computer. And I think, I don’t, I think he mixed it, you know, to whatever extent it was mixed and we sent it to someone when when a label finally approached us about putting it out to master it. Cause we had no idea what any of that shit was. Sure. Okay. Mixing that might’ve made sense, but mastering, I don’t know. Wow. That’s really cool. That’s funny. Trivia question. What did our first record cost? You know, nine 95, you know, whatever the pizza. Then you moved to Hanover, Germany. Where’s Hanover? By the way, Hanover is basically in North Central Germany. Pretty much if you just like drop a pin right in the center of the country and move it up, you know, a little bit, that’s where Hanover is. Okay. So you moved there as an exchange student for a year of school. What made you pick that Hanover? Um, again, kind of going back to the moving around, uh, thing in high school, I got really interested in just travel. You know, it just felt really constricted by. having grown up in such a small town and our high school had some like foreign exchange club that I got involved with, you know, back in the school, you have the foreign exchange kids from wherever maybe just wandering around the hallways and always found that really fascinating to meet someone from so far away. And so I got involved with this and I really wanted to go be a foreign exchange student myself just kind of get out. But I could never convince my parents that that was a worthy of. money because those things do cost money. And eventually I just, I was a senior in high school. I found out about some scholarship funded exchange program. It was like a government grant, but it only was sponsored by the German Bundestag in American Congress. So it was just Germany. I had no idea what Germany was like. I had no idea what any other country was like, but I just applied for it because I was thinking, well, fuck it. I’m going to be. graduating from high school, I sure as hell don’t know what I want to do. If I can get a free ride to just go to Germany for a year and explore then great. And I got it. And that’s how I ended up there. It was just kind of a shot in the dark. Did you learn German in that one year? Yeah, I did. Oh, wow. That’s hard. That’s not like Spanish or any Latin language. It’s closer to. Yeah. Well, I mean, for me, ironically, you know, for me in retrospect, I think like the romance languages are harder for me, but yeah, it was. I ended up living in a pretty small community, a village outside of, or a small town outside of Hanover, which is a pretty big city. And there was, it was just kind of, you know, sink or swim. Either you learn German or you don’t communicate with anyone for a whole year or so. Because they didn’t speak English there. No, I mean, maybe you could find someone, but you know, back, what was that? Only that was only 12, 13 years ago, something like that in small towns in Germany. Not everyone’s really speaking English. As I understand it now in the bigger cities, people do speak English there. Definitely. Yeah. I think it was more of like, uh, dependent on what side of the, you know, what side of the wall you grew up on. Yeah. East or West. Yeah. For sure. East Germany, you know, they weren’t teaching English in classes as much as they were teaching Russian. So the older generation in the Eastern parts of the country, they probably won’t speak English, but the younger one of course does. Yeah. It’s funny, I’m getting connected with, do you know Zodiac? Uh, they’re, they’re a band over in Germany. They’re headquartered out of Germany, similar genre, you know, they, similar style music. And, uh, I’m, I’m meeting with their same, this is really weird. Nick von Delft, the guy’s name is Nick. He writes, sings and plays lead guitar. Well, that’s my thing. Yeah. I can’t in the same country. Could you imagine? Yeah, man. I was just curious if you knew them. That’s really, I don’t actually, I don’t know where in Germany he is. Um, and I can always hook you guys up if that makes sense. Um, okay. So you did that. How was that experience by the way? Uh, I say with no exaggeration, it was completely life-changing. Tell me how. I think just to have the experience that, I mean, given I was 18, I had actually finished high school so there was no one forcing me to go to class every day and do homework. Just that the possibility of exploring a completely foreign place, leaving everything and everyone you know behind and just kind of having to forge your own path, meet new people. I think it helps you develop an understanding of your own self or your own identity. Somehow I came out with more self-confidence to do new things. Not to mention something as daunting as learning a new language. You can do that at any time, at any age. And yeah, it made me not afraid to take the steps that I’ve taken in the rest of my life, whether it be pursuing music or moving back to Germany or just traveling or anything, I think it’s just huge self-confidence boost and the understanding that, you know, you come out just feeling that you know yourself a little better. Man, that is a very honest answer. Thank you. And I think it, um, I think a lot of times people don’t realize that they think, I think people sometimes think, well, I don’t have the confidence to do this, but they don’t realize that you get confidence by doing it. You know, nobody just with rare exception, nobody’s like, well, I’m fucking confident, man. I could do anything that generally doesn’t happen, but doing something that is intimidating. then you get the confidence and then you’re like, okay, now I can handle the next thing, you know, anything, whatever it is, you know, I give you credit. That’s a really very cool thing that you got to experience. Oh, absolutely. I feel very lucky. So back then there was no Skype, Zoom, nothing. How did, how often did you, and I’m sure calling up the phone to speak to your folks, that would have been 25 bucks. How often did you get to talk to them? Oh, I think I talked to my parents maybe once a month or something. Yeah. Um, which was, yeah, that was funny back then. I think there was some hack, you know, my, uh, my host father knew some number you could call to route you through somewhere where it would only cost you a couple cents a minute, not like a dollar. Oh, that’s cool. Um, but you know, I was 18. I was, I was happy to be outside of my own parents household if only to be in another parents house sold. But. I learned, you know, growing up as a teen in Germany, it’s nothing like being a teen in the States. Just the level of freedom you have is so much more. I don’t know what it was like in the Bronx, but you know, I grew up in a pretty small suburban town in Massachusetts for the most part. So I wasn’t really, you know, missing that contact too much. Yeah, I get it. My wife is, was actually from England and she’s always told me how growing up in… Europe, the kids tend to be a little, much more mature because they have more independence. The parents, at least back when she was younger, they weren’t like helicopter parents, like they are crazy in the States here today, like managing every fucking move these kids make. So I am aware of that, that it’s different. And I’ve met, even as a young person myself, I remember meeting… people that were from other countries. And one of the things I always admired about them was they always seem much older for the reasons you’re talking about. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I had the same impression too. And it makes sense on the backend. Once you spend some time over there too, you see kids, I don’t think it’s any fault of Americans per se, but just even everyday things relating to infrastructure. Again, maybe not so much like in New York city where a kid might have to ride the subway by himself, but in a place like Germany, yeah, the kid, you know, kids taking the regular city bus to school and he’s, you know, it’s riding his bike around town and 16 year olds are buying beer and getting shit faced in the streets. It’s just what kids do. And that’s, no one’s riding and no one’s burning down the city blocks or anything either. So, well, that’s what I don’t understand why. And it’s another conversation really, but that’s what I don’t understand. Like how is that able to happen? But, but they don’t. get out of control or burn down the block or whatever. That’s, and I think it’s expectations that are set at baseline as, as a, you know, from indi, from individually and as a community, you know, I see that with my friends here that live in the States that are from other places, you know, their kids just have different sets of expectations as well. So, yeah, man, I don’t know. Like I don’t have any good answer for that one either, but it’s definitely something you can observe. Yeah. Very, very noticeable. It’s funny. I remember when we went to England many years ago, my older son, who’s, like I said, he’s a year younger than you. Uh, I think he was at the time like 16 and we went into a, uh, a liquor store just to check it out. And then said, Oh, do you want to taste? I’m I’m like, yeah, sure. And then they asked my son, and I didn’t say anything cause he was, you know, we’re on vacation. He’s 15, 16, whatever. He’s feeling like a million bucks. I didn’t say anything. He’s only But then I asked my wife, I said, hey, they poured him a drink. You said you could drink at 16 here. Which I thought it was it. I wasn’t going to ruin his parade. You know, he felt like Superman that he’s getting a drink served him. So, I know coming from the States, it feels wild, but yeah, it is normal. Yeah. Okay. So then after that, you came back to Boston to start college. What was that all about? What made you, what prompted you to start college? Why was college the next thing you wanted to do? Oh, I just, you know, that was the expectation of my household. Yeah. Both my parents went to college. They’re pretty educated people. And it was, you know, at this age, I wasn’t thinking I’m gonna, you know, just pursue music. This is gonna be my life. So I bought myself a year of time by going to Germany. And I started going to an art school in Boston, realized really quickly that was not for me. I moved back home, started just taking some courses at the local college, working on a farm, doing all sorts of random shit. Just trying to find myself and find my path. I ended up transferring another time to another college out in Western Mass and finishing a course of study in German and Scandinavian studies, which was just something I could coast through because I already had the net language. Because you knew the material firsthand. I didn’t come out of college feeling like great academia has like showed me the light. Like I know exactly what it was. Something I kind of was had to do. It was good. I learned a little bit, but I, I came out on the other end, you know, it went basically directly into working in restaurants and cafes and bars and this kind of shit. So. I think it’s really cool what you did though. I think everybody should do that. Like take this, take that figure out, find yourself. There’s no rush. You know, it’s always. have such big expectations in this country. You know, you’re 18 out of high school. Okay, now start your studying to be an accountant or start your legal, and it’s like, fuck man, you’re 18 once, you should relax, have fun, and not take things too seriously at that point in time. You got a lifetime to do that. So I guess you did that, which was good. Yeah, there was a lot of pressure for everyone to figure things out immediately. And especially in the States, I know like, if you got the means, there’s no. there’s no taking a break and everything’s so competitive. You just got to get into the rat race as soon as you possibly can. And you have no chance to even figure out what it is you want to do. Yeah. I think that’s a mistake. Not that I was any closer to figuring out what I wanted to do, you know, by the end of my college education. But that’s okay. Like, where’s the, you know, where’s the freaking rule book here? You know, I mean, you know, that’s it. Exactly what I wanted to do the whole time. I just wanted to play music. You know, we kept the band going. We’re all, you know, doing our separate things and, but it’s never a thought in the back of your mind when you’re doing that, like, Oh, I can just, let’s just try music, let’s just see how that goes. Doesn’t seem like, doesn’t seem like a good idea if you want to end up with a roof over your head. Well, let’s talk about that. So after that, after that elder reunited, this is three guys at this point. Yep. Okay. So Elder Reunites, you guys write, are you the primary writer? Yeah, I’ve always been the primary songwriter. Okay. So you rewrite, you get together, you write Dead Roots Starring, which is a phenomenal, phenomenal record. Just that’s the record I had downloaded. And I just tell her, I remember the first time I heard an incredible record. You record this in 2010, presumably not in your mom’s basement. Nah, no, we finally went to a proper recording studio. And then surprise, surprise, you move back to Germany to finish school. So, uh, and then you move back, back to Boston with your bandmates to work in food service. So let me just ask you some questions there. After you recorded the record, did you guys say, Hey, like have any kind of tentative game plan like, okay. Well, first of all, did you know it was going to be such a good record? Well, I don’t remember what our expectations were at this point. This is all very basic sort of, you know, it’s just three friends playing music for the love of that with no real higher ambition just than to have a good time. Right. And I think we thought this like, yeah, the songs were good. They’re really coming along. We’re starting to find our own voice as musicians and as a band, but there was no, I think we felt like we made a really cool record when we finished, but I didn’t, didn’t really think anyone would be talking about it. You know, 10 years after it came out. 10 years later. Yeah, that must be a good feeling, I would imagine, right? You make a record 10 years ago and I’m sitting here like a 17-year-old goo goo gagaing over it, man. That’s got to be, not from an ego standpoint, but from a rewarding, like you put something good out there standpoint. No, totally. I mean, if something can even be interesting to someone a couple of years after it’s released, they’re already doing something good. Yeah. course there were still, we weren’t, you know, inventing, uh, the wheel new or anything at that point, you know, stoner rock and psychedelic Brock, these were all like very well traveled roads, but still it wasn’t the genre hadn’t blown up to the point it’s at now too. So it was a pretty, it was a lucky time to record a record that sounded like that because I think we were already kind of starting to do things that other bands around weren’t really doing. It was the foot in the door, so to speak. Yeah, and you guys should definitely have your own sound, your own vibe. The music is definitely stoner, psychedelic rock, but it’s a little more. I don’t want to use the word prog, but because it’s not prog at all. But I don’t know, man. I mean, yeah, it’s not, it’s not prog rock from like the, like seventies. So like, yes, gentle giant standpoint, but there’s maybe the song structures have a progressive element. Yes. They’re not nonconventional. Yeah. I would say so. Yeah. And it’s just really well done. Did you guys tour to support that record back then or? No, we weren’t doing anything like touring at that point. You know, we’re in college or working. I think we’re all in college at that point. didn’t have time and we weren’t, we could play local shows, but we weren’t a known band. You know, we had some, these records were put out on a very small label and like I said, it just kind of, it took a long time for the snowball to get rolling and pick up enough energy to actually attract anyone where there’s a point to going on tour. Sure. And even that didn’t happen until I think 2012, we finally booked our first tour that was longer than just like a week. Okay. How did you book, you booked it yourself or was it someone? Yeah, we were just, you know, doing, doing things the old ear to the ground way, writing other bands from other towns and seeing if they wanted to, you know, trade shows or hook us up with whoever the local promoter was. Just kind of cool. Writing emails and really hoping that someone would have an interest in putting on a show for you. Yeah, that’s great, man. Yeah. I mean, we had fun. Definitely played a ton of horrible shows over the years. But that makes you appreciate, you know, you know, it’s self, self recording and self producing and self promoting and self booking all these things. Like over the years, there’s a real sense of payoff when finally people care. Yeah. Huge, man. Okay. 2013 you did your first tour in Europe, including road burn, which is a huge festival. And it says, your life changes with the revelation of how good touring here can be. How’d you get on the road? Burn show because she hadn’t toured very much at that point. And what do you mean? What did you mean about how good touring I wrote turning touring could be in Europe? Yeah. I mean, at that point we had only done, like I said, some very self-booked sort of DIY style tours in the States. And I’d been writing, I think for a couple of years to the head of Roadburn, really nice dude named Walter who’s been putting this festival on for a long time. And he finally, you know, I think one year he replied and said, Oh yeah, I know the band like cool stuff, like let’s talk in the future. And then the next year I got, he finally said, Oh yeah, you know, like I want to invite you and I’ll put you in touch with a booking agent because you should probably try to do a tour if you want to come over here. And yeah. So the agent, he also picked this up. He booked a tour for us for the first time, you know, again, but we went over there and You know, we’re used to playing like, you know, maybe 50, 100 people or something in the States and these self-booked shows. And then all of a sudden we’re playing, you know, in Paris, proper venues or in, you know, Munich, we’re playing to like, you know, let’s say a hundred people, maybe 150 people, and they know the f*g music. And we’re getting, you know, the promoter or the booking agent asks us, you know, what’s, what’s your rider? And I’m like, what do you mean? Who’s our driver? You have to explain to me what a rider is because I don’t even know that you can ask, you know, like we’re just, we had no fucking idea. Yeah. Maybe it was ignorance or maybe because we didn’t really, I never read into like the rock star legends about like who had, you know, what kind of M&Ms on the rider. But you were like, as long as there’s a toilet paper in it, we’re happy at that point. Yeah. And that’s still important. But you know, and just, so there was that. Just being treated a little bit differently. All of a sudden you weren’t this nuisance that the bar staff at a venue or at some dive bar had to put up with for the night to get your $50 in gas money. You were actually being treated well by people who cared, getting food, getting a place to sleep every night. That just blew my mind. That was included in everything. That’s pretty much standard here. No one really, no books are shown unless the band’s got a place to sleep. That is amazing. And that’s not to say, I should always clarify that, now we’re at a point where like when we tour the States, we have amazing shows, we have great audience, we work with great promoters, and part of that is just having an agent who knows who to work with. But still, you don’t get food at a venue, you don’t get a place to sleep in the States. It’s just a different musical culture and a different level of approaching an artist. That’s interesting. And you know, I’ve interviewed so many guys that play over in Europe. Like I had, um, uh, Joe Hoare from orange goblin. I don’t know if you know those guys. Yeah, yeah, really well. Yeah. So Joe was on last week and we were talking and like the shit they had to go through to come here for four dates in four big cities and like in one of the drummer didn’t even get his freaking visa. I know. Yeah, that’s really That’s, I mean, the visa thing is like another, yeah, that’s another fucking. Now, do you get to skip that if you come back here because you’re from here? How does that like, is that like, do you have to? Yeah, I’m an American citizen, you know, as far as I’m concerned. The American government doesn’t even know I’m living over here. I just I don’t. There’s another thing I’ve done with my life. I just kind of moved over here and never looked at what I what paperwork you’re supposed to fill out, but I’d be the same. Yeah, as long as you’re. as long as you’re a citizen, you don’t have to deal with it. So luckily Americans coming into Europe also don’t get fucked with crazy visas or something like that. And other reason doing over here is, you know, more attractive than the other way around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. In fact, when, um, again, my wife, she, she’s British, but when she, many, many years ago, she let her, um, her UK citizenship lapse cause she’s like, you know, my family’s here, my kids are here. I’m not moving back. But What happens is when she goes in, she’s got to wait like two hours sometimes on the line. And so now she had to get her citizenship back because her mom’s like very old and God forbid something happens, she doesn’t want to be stuck there, you know, something’s happening to her mom. But it was like a six, eight month process. She had to send him a history of like photos of, I mean, she was born there, she had her birth certificate. She had to send a history of photos of, you know, how she changed the looks. It was just really Sounds like they’re as hard as the States. Yeah. I was shocked. It was really, you know, militant, you know, it was weird. Okay. So you, so Road Burn and I’m assuming that tour went great. Yeah. I mean, you know, in retrospect, like we just had the time of our lives. It wasn’t like we played to the biggest audiences we’ve ever played to, but for us, it felt like the biggest step that we had ever made. And for sure it introduced us into a whole nother level of, you know, professionalism. And the other two guys, where were they living at the time? they in the States? Yeah, everyone was living in Boston at that time. Actually, we had a house together and or we lived on the top floor of a house with you know, I think six other roommates or something like that. Nice. Had the practice space down the street. And that was a kind of funny time. I think. Yeah, me and the bassist were even working together. It was very, you know, to say the least. Yeah. Dude, it’s so funny when I interviewed Joe from Orange Goblin. All five of them live together. Excuse me, the four of them was a four or five of them. Four of them, I think, live together and they work together in the same place. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s funny. That makes sense. You know, we wanted to live together. We’ve got the practice space, you know, a five minute bike ride down the road. And it’s like, one of us got a job. Hey, you need a job. Like maybe get you an interview at this place. And that’s cool. That’s the stuff you do when you’re young in a band, man. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Then 2013, you get awarded a Fulbright award to teach at a high school in Recklinghausen, Germany. And you leave for another year and you’re writing the next album the whole time. What’s a Fulbright award? What does that mean? And how’d you get that? Uh, Fulbrights are like, it’s a category of a couple of different kinds of. government grants. I think they’re funded by like the State Department or some sort of ministry for culture and educational outreach. They’re basically just, there’s research grants, there’s teaching grants, which is what I got. Basically, if you can pitch a project to this organization, then and get accepted, then they’ll give you the money to go travel and realize your project for a year. That’s cool. What was your pitch, man? What’s that? What was your pitch? Oh, I think for the teaching grants, that’s why I went for that. Cause it was way easier. You didn’t have to pitch a research project or something like that. Although I think I did say I wanted to research the origins of Crout Rock while I was over here, but, um, The government gave you a grant for that. God bless them. Yeah. I don’t think in the end, I even got extra funding for that or anything. But yeah, the teaching stuff, you know, it’s, I think it’s, it’s probably intended for like, you know, you want to go to Africa and like help teach English or some shit like that. And I got one for Germany because, you know, again, I was just kind of, we had been doing some stuff with the band, but no one was making any money. It’s still kind of, you know, I was working at like a deli or some shit and just, I wasn’t really enjoying my life living in a, you know, top floor of a house with no heating in winter. So I just figured I’m going to get the fuck out of Dodge for a little while and see. I was always thinking too like, oh, I’ve got, you know, maybe I can become a teacher. Maybe this is something that’s going to be. future path for me. And I applied for this grant and ended up getting it. And I took off there for a year and I was working, working as a teaching assistant at this high school again in this village outside of the hecklinghausen. And was that near where you were before? Was that near? No, that’s, I mean, not super far away. That’s it. Like a little further towards the West. Okay. Uh, I was living in a city called Essen. Oh yeah. Yeah. And, um, You know, pretty post-industrial area, very big metropolitan area. There’s some shit going on like an hour away from the border with Netherlands and Belgium, good place to travel. But I hated teaching. I really hated it almost immediately to the end of the year. Really? What did you hate about it? It’s just like, you know, I couldn’t get like sitting in a teacher’s room. I didn’t like, couldn’t get on with any of the teachers. I just felt more like the. I’m chasing away some kids for smoking pot in front of the school and I’m feeling like I would rather be smoking pot with them. I just didn’t feel like it was my world. You’re calling. I didn’t feel like I had any sort of voice of authority nor that I want to be a voice of authority. You know, as another one of these, just the struggle I had for my, most of my like growing up just, I want to play music. I want to play music, but no, like I should. you know, think about a real job. I should think about a real future. And so I kept doing these forays into that, you know, college and this teaching grant. I just ended up, you know, yeah, I would put in my hours and then I’d go home and I’d pick up my guitar and I’d keep writing music. And that was really just what I wanted to do. But it was a funny time. We even managed to put together another European tour while I was over there. That’s cool. And so we kept shake going somehow. Did you, were your folks supportive of your music career? Um, I would say, yeah, I mean, they, I don’t come from a musical family and, uh, but you know, my, you know, my, my four track recorder and my, you know, my, my drum kit, they, they came from my parents, they encouraged it, you know, when it was clear that that was, I wanted what I wanted to do. Um, there were plenty of points where I felt like I wasn’t encouraged or I was, you know, told, ah, that’s nice that you, that’s nice that you do that, but you know, think about the real world. So, Yeah. Okay. Um, So that was wonderful people. Yeah. But you know, they come from the Midwest. They were the first in their families to go to college and get out of the small town that they were from. Do anything, you know, that sounds mean, but they were the first ones to make something for themselves. And I think they, you know, just wanted the same sort of thing for their kids. Sure. I’ve noticed like other parents as we were raised and our kids that, that’s pretty common where either if the parents did not go to school and they wish they could have, they really academic and, or if they did, they were the first generation. I was kind of weird. I’m like the first guy to go to school, but I always felt like, especially now, man, don’t go to school. Like go online, learn something for free for the most part. Like any, you know, it is almost anything or buy some self study course. or buy three or four of them over a two year period in different things and then go work at it and then go run your own business or something. It’s just like with rare exceptions, school is a waste of money. I hate to say it. I mean, for me, it was definitely a waste of money. Yeah, I get that. I, you know, on the other side of the fence, like, you know, your chance of making it playing rock and roll music is about as good as it is, probably becoming a, you know, a player in the NBA. So I get that you might wanna say, I, you know, think about a plan B. But on the other, I mean, I think unless you’re fully pursuing whatever it is you really believe in. you’re never even going to have a fighting chance. So you might as well just fucking go for it and export alternate channels. Yeah. Don’t go to school. Maybe, you know, travel, see where that leads you. Pick up a, you know, try a, try a, uh, try working with your hands. I don’t know. We need to stop demonizing, you know, blue collar work. And I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of problems with the sort of academic system, especially in the States. Oh, it’s awful, man. I don’t understand what, why. My younger son went back to college. He wants to be a physical therapist. Like that’s one of those things you’ve got to go to college for, right? So he’s becoming a physical therapist. And that’s his, you know, he was born with mild cerebral palsy. He went to physical therapy as a kid. He’s got an inherent appreciation for it. He’s got a really good ability to connect with others. So that’s his dream. So like, I’m like really happy he’s fulfilling his dream, but even the shit he’s got, he’s got to take algebra too. And I’m like, what the fuck are you ever going to do with that? I mean, seriously, and he’s like, I’m, I hate this stuff. I’m like, man, I can’t blame you. Like, you know, you’re never going to have to do the cosine of anything in any job you have unless you’re a teacher, you know? And yeah, I spent half a fucking year on a marine biology course, you know, like what the, I just, okay, I get the general education. Now I know something about manatees. Maybe that’s going to help me. And you think about how expensive education is, even if you go into like a state institution. I mean, it’s just the whole thing’s sick. It is nutty, man. I don’t get it, but whatever. So you get your Fulbright Award, you realize that you are not into teaching at all. And you basically come to, I’m assuming I’m making this assumption, correct me if I’m wrong. You basically realize I’ve got to go play music because that’s what makes me really feel complete. And that’s what I think. And that’s what my heart… desires. Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Bingo. Okay. And congratulations for doing that because that takes courage too, especially when your parents are like incurred. And I know you’re folks with good people, so it’s not, not saying anything about them, but I know, especially as a parent, you, you know, the biggest thing I learned from my three kids is do not have expectations. Shame on me because that’s not my, I have no right to have expected, I actually expect them to be good people, but that’s it, man. I have no right to expect that. Yeah. Cause there are individuals just like me. I mean, I was not, you know, I think also when you, hopefully when you’re younger, I’ve always, I’ve always been the kind of kid to, you know, if my parents wanted something, I wanted to do the exact opposite. Yeah, man. There’s a certain point you don’t really care about, you know, but I came back, you know, I was in a, I was in a relationship at that time, or my partner was also very, very unsupportive of my musical. I don’t want to call it a career, but you know, my musical dream. Yeah. Yeah. And there came a point where I just said, you know, like, fuck all of you, basically, uh, I just have to, you know, I’m going to do what I need to do. And you know, we all, I remember us meeting in our old house where we still had some friends living, you know, like, don’t remember what hour of the morning, just saying like, uh, I had just come back from this grant recently. I went to see the guys, you know, I had this new album at that time, lore mostly written kind of in the back pocket. Like guys, I got this album. I think it’s really like a big step forward for the band. Like, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be just all in. I don’t want to do anything else. I don’t want to, you know, work a job unless it’s going to get me to the next tour. Like, I don’t know about you, but this is where I’m at. And everyone just said, yeah, absolutely same page. No one had shit going for them. You know, like we’re all in the same boat, basically, you know, college, no jobs to look forward to in a shitty economic situation. And we’re all just dreaming of the same thing. So that’s really good. Yeah. And we just kind of went from there, started doing as many tours as we could hooked up with a U S booking agents. And, uh, Laura was the first step that got us a little bit more on the roadmap of like people outside, just the stone or rock circle. Great record, man. It’s five songs and four of them are over 10 minutes. You got 10 40, 10 30. And then the 16 minute song and the one that’s not 10 is 928. I mean, this is a great record, man. It’s just a really good record. Uh, did you ditch that other relationship? I’m assuming. Yeah. I ended up not, I don’t want to talk shit. You know, she was cool in her own way, but, uh, you can, I mean, you can I think it was something like, you know, it came to this one of these points, like, you know, you have to choose me or this band. It was like, Okay. Obviously the fucking band. I’m not getting, at that point I was like, I’m not getting married to any, anytime soon. You know, like I’m playing music with my brothers for life. Yeah. Good for you, man. And then, okay. So you move back to the States, um, recorded lore in September, 2014 and anybody listening, it’s lore L O R E in case I’m saying it like L U R E is lore L O R E. Great record. Absolutely incredible record. Um, that first song, compendium kicks ass. Um, and then you tour extensively throughout the U S Australia and Europe in 2015 playing over a hundred shows. You had it. Did the label turn you on to a booking agent or something? Or how’d you get all those shows? But it’s a lot of books, a lot of shows. Uh, yeah, we had, we started, I mean, we were working with this European agent ever since our road burn tour. Okay. We had a friend who we used to play with. He had a band from Vermont, I think. And he started, this dude started, uh, working for a booking agency. And he was like, Hey, you know, you’re my friends. I want to, I want to take you under my roster. So he picked us up in the States and eventually went on to found his own booking agency who we’re still with. Oh, that’s excellent. Yeah. And we’ve got an offer from Australia that I think he fielded. And we were just like, yeah, of course, you know, Like I said, anything we could do, we wanted to do, just get us on the road for as much as we could be on the road. That 2015, that I would imagine you guys really gelled that year. Uh, yeah. I mean, it was the most that we had ever played together live. Yeah. Um, I think we finally, we realized probably finally by then some of our boundaries, just about like. how to be on the road and how to play together. Something has been always like, oh, I can’t drink more than X beers before I play or else it’s gonna be really shitty. Yeah. And we also learned a whole lot about just how to put together a tour. You might get a rooting, but that doesn’t mean that you know. We did a two month tour in Europe where we didn’t have a single schedule. We didn’t have a single day sheet. We didn’t have a single. We didn’t know when we were supposed to be anywhere at any time. Basically we were flying for the, from the seat of our pants for an entire two months. How’s that possible? Very stupidly. I mean like, like, oh, you kept booking shows as you went along. No, like you get a book. I, in retrospect, very silly, but you know, like you’re playing normal. The way it goes, you get a rooting from a booking agent and depending on what your negotiation is, you might have some sort of an actual schedule to that in our case we just had like, oh, you’ve got these shows booked period. And we were just kind of at that point, still very, uh, inexperienced or had, you know, self-driven ourselves so long that we just never thought about it. And then all of a sudden doing a two month long tour with our buddies and Moss generator. Uh, Oh yeah. I know those guys. Yeah. And good van. Yeah. Awesome. We get over there and we’ve got, you know, we rented this like big camper van that we’re sleeping in and we’re going to be there for, playing like, you know, 50 shows or something over two months, just an insane amount of physical labor. And, and our driver is this guy from Czech Republic. And he’s like, okay, like, when do, when do we need to be at the show? And we’re like, I don’t know. And he’s like, okay, well, when do we need to leave the next day? Like, I don’t know. And it just went like this for two months. Oh, because nobody gave you any schedule that said leave here at this time to get here at this time. It’s this far away. Exactly. And you know, in this like, we had never done things that way in the States. Like I said, you know, European landscapes, a little more professional on most fronts than in the States was always like, okay, we got to show we’re not going to be on before 10. We show up there like, you know, seven, we’re going to do a quick like line check in the back, and then we’re going to play when we play, you know, over here, it’s like, we must have you at the venue at 3 p.m. or like earlier. And you know, you have to arrange your own fucking parking and like make sure that there’s such a rigorous schedule and that makes total sense. But at that point, we just weren’t used to it. So we were just kind of driving our driver absolutely fucking crazy. We had a lot of fights and a lot of meltdowns. It was a layer, but yeah, but we grew a lot and you know, hopefully we got better as players too. Well, I’m gonna tell you, every record you’ve put out has gotten more and more. Definitely you could hear the maturity of the band with each successive record for sure, man, musically. I mean, I, again, Dead Roots starting early record, one of my favorites, but every album is definitely a mature, a maturing of the band and the writing, just everything that the, um, You know, there are certain bands that I’m not a big deadhead, but one thing I always admired about the dead, when you listen to them, man, it’s like you could just tell those guys have played so they could finish each other’s sentences musically, you know? And I’ve noticed that with each successive album, you guys get more and more together like that and more unified. So whatever you’re doing is working. Yeah. Funny mention the dead thing. Our new guitarist is like a super, I guess he’s not new anymore, but our second guitarist is like a crazy fucking dead head. We rescued him out of a world of fish and jambas. Yeah, that’s more like a lifestyle that I noticed. It’s like being into boats. It’s like if you’re into boats, you’re a boat person. You’re not just like, you know, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the… It’s the whole package. Yeah, it’s not totally. Yeah, it’s not just like, oh, I like this band or it’s it’s a whole thing, man. You know, the T-shirts, you know, the how often you wash or don’t wash, you know, whatever kind of baseball caps. I guess I guess you got to be part of that cult to fully understand it. I sure don’t. I guess, man. OK, 2016, you move. Surprise. You move back to Berlin on a whim to follow your girlfriend. So was this a gal you had met when you were over? If it’s any of my business, if it’s not, you could say that’s not. Is this a woman you had met while you were there? Yeah, well, I met my now wife in 2015. Yeah, thanks. When we were on tour, we played a show in Milan and she’s from Genoa, just like two hours kind of southwest of there. And… her band opened for us and that was how we met. That’s so cool, man. Yeah. And I just kind of immediately fell for her, but I didn’t, I didn’t, nothing happened. We just kept seeing each other at festivals and shit when we play in Europe. And eventually something did end up happening and she was Italian. I’m American, but we both, you know, had lived in Germany and decided to move here together at that point. That’s true. I don’t know the best thing that we could do. That’s really cool, man. I really admire your following your heart on things because I think that people that do that have a much more fulfilling and a much happier life overall. So congratulations to you for doing that, even though it’s not like an easy decision often. Like, oh, let me move to Germany or let me follow this woman. She’s not like in Milwaukee. She’s in like another continent. Good for you, man, and congratulations. Believe me, it didn’t make the whole trajectory of my life has never made sense in the moment. And that was just another thing that I was kind of like, should I be doing this? Does this make sense? But again, at that point, we’re touring. I was literally washing dishes in the basement of some shitty Mexican restaurant. It didn’t seem like I had, again- How do you pass that? How did you possibly leave that opportunity, Nick? I’m thinking like- I’m in love with this woman and like we can, I can get an apartment in this city with a great music scene and a lot going on for, you know, the price of like half a room in Boston. Surprise, surprise. It ended up being just a good solution. So good for you, man. I would encourage anybody. Like I always tell my kids now, man, if they say, I don’t know what to do. I always say the first thing is how do you. Where do you feel most comfortable? Where it makes you happy, man? And I really believe that is the secret to, not something I knew as a young man, but something I really feel strongly about now, that happiness is most important to you, man. Your life will be incrementally better in every way. Yeah, I’d agree with you. So you got a visa, you started working on the next album, another great record, Reflections of a Floating World, Sanctuary, what a great… great song that is, man. And you start, you get a real job. You start working in Germany for Stick Man Records. What is Stick Man Records? What do you do for them? Yeah. So Stick Man’s, it’s, I guess you’d call it an indie label in the sense that it’s still pretty small and run by just two people, husband and wife, who’ve been doing it for now over 25 years. Oh, that’s awesome. Talk about a happiness project. Yeah, absolutely. Really cool people. We met them when we were on tour one year in Europe, right before lore came, or I think we hadn’t yet recorded lore. And we knew the label because we had a bunch, we’d already bought records from a bunch of their artists and just, you know, they were kind of mysterious, didn’t know a lot about them, but really appreciated, you know, the artists and their label. Met them. They ended up asking us if we wanted to join the label. We did so with lore and partnership worked great. Ended up becoming good friends with them. Just that sort of familial basis that we also have with our U S label. That’s really important to us to maintain. And we moved over here. They were kind of serendipitously also looking for some sort of more permanent assistance because luckily somehow miraculously, you know, a smaller record label can still. do well in 2019 or I guess 2016 at that point. So they’re like, hey, we need someone who’s bilingual and, uh, you know, it’d be cool. You work already. That’s right. That’s a huge asset, man. Yeah. It was kind of cool. Just, there was another one of those fell into my lap sort of deals and, uh, keep it all in the family. And so I started working for them, just kind of the capacity of like learning how a record label works slowly, but surely because that’s a really. complex business and then kind of taking over some digital stuff because I’m working remotely for them and We’re kind of we’re just a three-person team at this point, you know, there are certain things I don’t do but there are certain things I do do it just kind of you know daily task list of what’s on the docket for today What needs to be done? You know what? Could be something has been all is like filling out some sort of bureaucratic forms for radio airplay royalties or it could be like putting an album into production or just even going to shows and scouting for new bands. So it’s a really… That’s cool, man. So you have a nice job. That’s a great job. Yeah. And they’re cool with me going on tour whenever I need to. That is a really good thing. And they’re in Germany? They’re mine too. They’re in Germany, Nick? Yeah, they’re based in Hamburg, which is just like three hours away from here. That’s great, man. Congratulations. That’s really cool. Glad that you connected with that. And there’s my plug for anyone listening, not familiar with Stickman Records. Yeah, man. Everybody check out. Got a lot of really cool bands there. And if you’re into elder, hopefully that’s the reason you’re listening to this, then you’ll probably find something you like. What’s their website? It’s stickman-records.com. Okay. Oh, so everything’s in English. Everything’s in English. Yeah. It’s also run by, you know, the owners are Pretty similar story to mine. Half German, half American woman, married to a German dude who both grew up in like, Oakland or lived in Oakland in some pretty crazy years. They’ve been all over the place too. So we all have some sort of, we vibe together pretty well. That’s great, man. Well, best of luck with it. And everybody check out Stickman Records, stickman-records.com. 2017, Reflections is released. reflections of a floating world and you guys added another guitarist to the band. What prompted that decision? Just the songwriting was getting way too complex and there were too many ideas that we wanted to this, you know, express not just on a studio record, but also live that really weren’t possible without another set of hands. And we finally started experimenting a little bit more with keyboard sounds. And that was something I really wanted to not just let fall by the wayside whenever we play the songs live. And we never got any complaints like, Oh, on the record, there’s like, you know, this guitar part’s missing when you play it live, because you could double up as many tracks as you want when you’re in the studio. But it kind of felt like on the new songs, they were getting too complex to possibly be just performed by us three. The guitar player also plays keyboards. Yeah. Okay. Where’d you find him? He was, uh, One of my only lasting, probably my only real lasting friendship from college, who a dude I met when he also grew up between New York and Jersey and ended up studying at the UMass that I got my degree from finally at Western Mass. And I think we had both transferred there kind of late, didn’t know a lot of people and I was working at like a local university, kind of like food co-op. and I was wearing an electric wizard t-shirt. He’s just like, hey man, cool t-shirt. So we started playing music together. We started this project called Golden Silver that we recorded an album that came out in also 2012 or 2013. And he’s just like an insanely talented guitar, insanely talented musician really, got a lot of crazy ideas, but like a hippie who needs someone to harness that energy framework. So we worked really well together. That’s cool. Yeah, our band has always been about being with friends. And so we wanted another guitar player. It was clear we just have to find someone we were already good friends with because otherwise you’re going to kill each other on tour. Yeah. And that was how that happened. And was that the origins of the last record, the Golden Silver Sessions? Yeah. Cause that was the first record that we had done with him actually doing a lot of studio work. He was just a guest musician on Reflections at that point. And the vibes of that record sounded really similar to what we had been doing with the gold and silver project at the time. Very cool. And congratulations again on getting married, man. That’s nice. Hope you guys have a lot of good years together. Thanks. I want to ask you some questions about the band. This is a general question. How do you, your songs are really long and they are pretty involved at times. But let me clarify this to people listening, when I say involved, there’s not like shit tons of overproduction and there’s not like 40 tracks of anything. But it’s not like a, you know, a one, four, five blues, you know? And the songs are long. You know, it’s like the difference between writing a 50 page book and a 400 page book. How do you like when you originally conceive these things, are they in your head like that? Or do they just get involved as the band plays together? How does that all happen? Where you come up with something 10 plus minutes long. I honestly don’t remember how we even got started doing these really long songs because the way we write music now is so fundamentally different than the way it used to be just us all jamming together in the practice space now You know, we don’t get to practice or for many years actually now our second guitarist is also living in Berlin so we do have something like a practice routine, but For all the years that I was writing music on my own over here. I started working with computer programs, you know just recording my ideas and kind of Almost writing by recording Like looping and playing it back. Yeah. And as technology got more involved, you know, involved and more accessible to people without the money from like studio level equipment, uh, I started getting together something like a home recording setup. So now, you know, I’m able to pretty much fully compose songs just at home on some relatively rudimentary equipment with some pretty good software. And oftentimes it’s, you know, you have an idea, record it real quick, just save it, put it away for another day. And then maybe it’s going to come back to you later on when you’re stuck on a night, it was stuck writing a song and think, Oh, there was that idea. This might fit. So now it’s kind of just like a very much like a pen to paper, sort of figuring out what elements of a song do you want to put together and what kind of structure do you want it to have? And a lot of cutting and pasting too. It’s kind of a unromantic way of doing things, but that’s kind of the way it’s just evolved at this point. The songs are amazing. So whatever you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s romantic or unromantic. Don’t don’t stop because it works, man. And and your other three guys are still in the states. Yeah, at this point. Well, we’ve got two in the states and one who’s in Berlin. One in Berlin. Sorry. Yeah. OK. Um, a couple of questions about some of my all time favorite elder songs. Start with again, I’ve mentioned this over time, dead roots stirring. that song, the entire record is great. And again, I said it’s very impressive for your first real record. And what I mean real, I mean not recorded in your mom’s basement. Thoughts about that record in general and that entire time period for Elder. It was a simpler time. That was a really fun time. That’s kind of what I associate that record with. We were just, we’d just gotten back together. We had some more ideas. We were getting better as musicians. We had a, you know, a dingy practice space in Boston and, you know, just getting together, get a 12 pack of beer, pick up some instruments and play music. It just felt like a very… free, no expectations time in our band history. And we had a lot of fun recording the record too. We went out to Western Mass at that point to record with a friend who we knew from another band, Black Pyramid, who had a studio back at that point. And just kind of partied and made a record and had a blast doing it, you know? Nowadays, I feel like when we go into the studio we’re writing music, it’s a hyper-focused, you know, expectations are there, even if you try to shake them off kind of thing. back then just because you have a history already now. Yeah. And people are actually listening at that point. There was no one listening. It didn’t really matter what you did. So you had no accountability. Exactly. Yeah, I get that. Interesting. I totally get that. That’s a great record. All your records are great. That’s a great record, man. Again, to come out with your first quote real record. That is amazing. Sanctuary, off Reflections of a Floating World from 2017. Killer song, 11 minutes long. Is there like a backstory to that? That was really the only song that was written completely together by the band for that record. I think it was written probably before I left for one of my excursions abroad. And I think that one really sounds a little bit more fluid and a little more organic than the rest of the record for that reason. Great song. It’s funny. You as the singer, it’s always interesting when I talk to people with like almost 100% of the time, I could never imagine your voice sounding the way it does on records. You know, speaking voice. Listening to my own voice on record sounds pretty fucking weird to me. Dude, I listen to this so back to, and people will tell me, Craig. I was at NAMM and this guy comes over to me and he saw my badge, he goes, oh man, I love your show. He goes, can you talk? I’m like, oh fuck, man, I can’t stand. I don’t feel the same way about my voice but apparently people say it’s very soothing and calming. I’m like, okay, thank you, I appreciate it. I appreciate that but I don’t wanna hear it. Yeah, I feel like there’s something about the acoustics here, your brain is not wired to hear your voice after having heard it reverberating in your skull for your entire life. Yeah. But your voice is great. I mean, it just doesn’t sound, it’s, you know, I don’t, it’s hard to listen to have this conversation and then equate it. Your voice is great, you know, it’s just always different when you’re talking and versus hearing. Like if I would see you perform, if I saw Elder perform, it would be weird. Not weird, it would be different when I heard you singing. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, because this is the context I first connected you with in, you know, in person. Release. You did this record called Spires Burn slash release. What is, what, that’s just a, like a little EP you guys put out then, basically. Yeah. That was like when we started working, uh, with Armageddon in the States, they had, like I said, it was some friends of ours who have this record shop. They’ve been doing that for also, you know, many, many years, and they wanted to do like a record store day released from, so they approached us. And we did it and that was kind of the beginning of our partnership. Yeah. That is, you know, something quick and we had never done an EP at that point. So we just kind of banged out these songs and yeah, that was how it happened. Dude, you banged out these songs as two songs, 23 minutes. Most people would bang out like, you know, two songs, you know, six minutes. Um, release is actually my all time favorite elder song. There’s so much cool stuff going on there, especially the end. Um, just a great, as you do in most of your songs, the climaxes are, you know, you’re, you’re really good about, really good about building up very long, exciting climaxes, man, which is like, you know, your storytelling with your music, you know, and it’s such a satisfying feeling as a listener, when you hear the end of that story and it’s like victory, you know, in my mind. And that’s what I’m thinking. Like, yeah, you know, this is awesome. Any memories or comments of making that song or that little EP? Yeah, I mean, that was, that song actually is one of my favorites too. I feel like that’s got a certain, you know, vibe to it that only a few of our other songs have that I really appreciate. And I remember writing that song in particular, some of these riffs that were, you know, teasing me for years that I couldn’t really figure out how to put together or how to express properly. And also I think we did some stuff in that song, you know, some tempo changes, some time signature changes we hadn’t really done before. And that would become kind of like a blueprint for future songs. Yeah. Yeah. But I was living in like some time, like attic space of an apartment with some friends out in, you know, like a farmlands and Western mass, I like put up a drum kit up there and just kind of. I think the guys came over and we messed around with the stuff for like, you know, a weekend before going into the studio. It was just a, it was a funny, it was felt like another fun project. Really. It was the first time we also ever had a someone approach us and say, Hey, we want you to record a record and you’ve gotten till this date to do it. Oh, that’s right. Yeah. Having a flame under your ass. Um, it was a different experience. It was fun. Your drummer really did a great job on it. I mean, he keeps it in his Beat his timing is impeccable, but on that song in particular, he kept it really smooth, man. There’s a lot of stuff going on there, like you said. And then off the last record, your most recent record, the Golden Silver Sessions, I’m gonna mess up, pronounce the second song. In Morgengrauen. Thank you, I knew I was gonna do that right. Tell me about that song, because in general, this record was a bit of a departure. You had almost like, I don’t… for lack of a better word, jazz-like melodies at times. The keyboards are a little more prominent, but what prompted those things? And tell me about that song in particular. What does the title mean? And it’s a great song. Yeah, well, the title means literally in the gray of the morning or at dawn, is really what we’d say. And that was a title that was I gave to the song after we had already finished recording it, because that was actually kind of a… That was one song in that record that I recorded everything by myself, because it was originally going to be for some solo project thing that I had been just building up ideas for over the years. And we got asked by this label, Blues Funeral Recordings to take part in this subscription vinyl series. It was going to be like seven or eight bands, you know, doing special release records on this label that were sent to subscribers of the label. And we were the first band who was going to do a record. And yeah, we wanted to do something that didn’t sound like anything we had done before and play around with some of the softer ideas that we had become increasingly interested in after playing heavy and loud music for so long. We’re just kind of, you know, playing less heavy and softer music becomes more and more interesting, at least in terms of diverse diversifying your sonic palette. Yeah, sure. And yeah, that was the song originally was going to be the first and the last song on that record. which are the longer of the two. And we had some extra time in the studio. We were recording these songs in between two legs of a European tour. And I was like, well, I’ve got this song. Let’s try and do this too. Let’s try and see if it fits. And I think it fit pretty well. It ended up being probably the most interesting song on the record for me. Lennon Hickman Yeah, great. It’s funny because when I first started the record, I double checked. I was like… I thought maybe at like the once in a real, real blue moon, you get a download that’s not like it’s got your band’s name on, but it’s somebody else. And I was like, but as the song evolved, then I heard the band, but it was really different and I like it. It was great. I mean, it was really good. What prompted you to give it a German title? And actually the last song, what is that called too? Yeah, that one’s called Vicency. which is the name of the burrow that we recorded this whole record in. Okay. So now you could do all this shit in German and you could be like making fun of people and nobody’s going to know or whatever you want. Except for the German speakers. Except for the German audience. Yeah. Which I’m sure is getting bigger and bigger since you live there. But yeah, the whole thing’s very, I mean, it was meant to be, you know, sort of an explored, exploitive record and it was very heavily improvised at least the first and the third song, you know, almost totally just live stuff with some overdubs and it had, you know, had a lot of like kind of crout rock vibes to it. And that was another reason that we decided to give it these German titles, just as kind of an homage to it. Does man. Yeah. It was recorded in Berlin, you know, on a break in between some legs of tour. It just kind of, it fit the whole, the whole vibe of the project. It’s sort of like a pit stop. Let’s jam out some songs real quick. Oh, we did it in Germany. We give us some German names and like. It’s got a, it’s a record that’s kind of rooted in a time and place or an experiment, kind of like an experience that was, it happened at this, at this point on the road or whatever. Well, I gotta tell you that at song at dawn is one of my favorite, um, elder songs, great track, really good. I really liked it then. Um, any low points or dark periods you’ve had to deal with throughout life and how did you get through them? Uh, yeah. sent me over these questions. I looked at that one and I had to think I’ve been, I’ve had a pretty, pretty good life. I, I gotta say I’m very fortunate. I haven’t had a lot of low points or dark periods in my life that weren’t self-induced or just wondering, wondering what the hell I’ve never had to grapple with like serious tragedy or hardship. Very fortunate person. So I mean, I touched on earlier, I had some, maybe some hard times. figuring out what I wanted to do, but that’s hardly a hardship. That’s just part of becoming a functioning adult. Yeah. Good for you, man. I hope I interview you in 10 years and you get the same answer. That’d be great. That would be nice, yeah. Guitars, let’s talk about gear for a few minutes. What’s your go-to guitar right now? And do you have any other guitars that you would consider in your top three? Yeah. That’s fine. I’m looking at your set and I think you probably have more guitars than I do. But you play them far better than I will ever play mine. So it’s okay. I would swap with that in a second. Yeah. I’m playing a Dunnable Yeti is my current kind of grab and play guitar. Dunnable it’s spelled D U N A B L E. The maker is a dude named Sasha Dunnable who plays in the band Intronaut. Okay. You might know kind of like a progressive metal or post-metal band from LA. Okay. Um, he built me this guitar with his, uh, I think his only employee, another friend of ours, dude named Aaron, really nice custom guitars that they make. And this company has been really blowing up and he did a really awesome job on a custom job for me. What does that look like? It’s kind of like, um, mine’s got an all natural finish and almost kind of looks like a dining room table. And it’s a, got a really big body. It’s almost kind of like a kind of like a Jaguar mixed with like a, I don’t know, some like eighties kind of sharper geometry in it. It’s a pretty interesting body shape. It doesn’t exactly look like any other guitars. Do you have, do you have it close by any chance? I can grab it from the other side of the room. If it’s cool. Yeah. I love to see it. Give me a sec. Yeah, man. Do you think, thanks Nick. Thanks man. Thank you. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it’s like a It’s like an offset SG kind of something like that. Yeah. It’s a pretty, pretty slim profile, though, a little bit thicker than an SG. It’s really smooth curves. They got their own headstock design too. Really comfortable, really fast playing guitar. You know, the pickups were I think hand wound, if not by Sasha, then by a close friend, just a really cool guitar by a really cool company who are just great people. So I had them build me my first custom guitar. That’s really thick neck. I finally took my SG61 reissue out of my hands for the first time since I bought it like 10 years ago. That’s what this is. It’s a six, it’s a S, it’s an S, it’s built, my SG, it’s built on 61. So let me ask you this. Let’s talk about that. Cause the neck on this, the 61SG is really slim. That looks like a fat neck. It’s, I don’t know what kind of. See, this is where my ignorance comes in. I don’t know if this is like a D or C profile or whatever, but it’s actually I would say maybe a little thicker than like a 61. Okay. Cause I think on the year those are like super thin, but this thing is, I, you know, I made it pretty clear. Like I’m not a dude with such dexterity that I want like a huge headstock. You know, I’ve always played with thinner neck guitars and he built me something that just feels really like, uh, they put an extra level of love and care into it. It’s a really cool guitar. Yeah, really nice. Look, I’ve never seen that. I’ve never seen that. I’m going to check him out online. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s pretty cool. If you love guitars, you’ll want to check out this company. They’re definitely one of the custom builders that’s making a name for themselves in such a competitive field. Do you have like a number two and a number three or is that it? You just play that all the time? No, I mean, I got a 61 reissue too that I really love and that’s a really, you know, one of the most comfortable guitars I’ve ever held. I’ve got an ES 335 that unfortunately has only seen studio work. I’ve never really played one show with it. I just bought another guitar, but it’s in the States right now. So I can’t, don’t know if that’s going to knock one of the others out of the top three. What is it? What did you get? It’s a, it’s a guild S 300. What does that look like? In other words, like they called it like the, it almost looks pretty similar to this. actually. They were calling it the new Guild shape back in the 70s when it was released because it was like a new shape and it almost looks like you know when Guild didn’t know what the hell they were trying to do. They were trying to compete with these brands like Dean or BC Rich. It’s a real like 80s kind of metal looking guitar but it’s aged well. To me a lot of people think they’re ugly as sin but I think it’s a really cool guitar. I just bought, I bought it online for like a steal and I just had it shipped to our basis and I haven’t been able to, I haven’t touched it yet because it’s just been over there. Oh, that’s tough. That’s tough when you have a guitar. You got a plane that’s not anywhere near you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m living in like a super tiny apartment and I’m such a fucking gear junkie. I’m buying guitars and pedals and keyboards and all this shit all the time and it’s getting harder and harder. Is there a lot of availability of stuff like that over in Germany? You find different stuff over here. You’ll find that certain brands are more available than they are in the States and vice versa. Marshall shit for whatever reason, even being a British company. Uh, you, you, you will find it way easier in the States, uh, for better prices. Wow. That’s weird. And like high Watts, you’ll find a lot more readily over here. That’s like another UK brand. Just a lot of interesting, like German stuff, uh, West German companies that were making like retake echoes and stuff that you would never find in the States. Do you find over here just depends on where the, where the stuff came from. Yeah. Like the equivalent of Craigslist here, you find a lot of interesting stuff that you wouldn’t on the. Craig’s list back home. That’s cool. Have you been able to find some stuff there where it’s like selling for a song and then like, you know, okay, I could bring this back home and put it on reverb and four times my money or something. I think, I’m not like, I don’t really look for stuff like that. I’ve definitely bought, I bought some like synthesizers that I think are way easier to come by over here for good prices. By and far, most of the guitar stuff is way cheaper in the States. And I definitely brought some stuff over from there and sold it over here for, you know, twice the price or whatever. So it’s, if you’re back and forth, you can definitely make the most of it. Sure, sure. What are some of your go-to effects? Because it doesn’t sound like you use tons of effects. And you just said you’re a gear junkie, so maybe I’m wrong. I mean, I do rely mostly on the tone of a guitar. guitar and the amp. And that’s kind of, you know, the crank cranked amp is just the sound of the guitar. But I use some fuzz pedals. I use increasingly, you know, delay all the time, which becomes like kind of a crutch. I’ve got a really cool Empress ecosystem. I don’t know if you know this company, Canadian company making really, really interesting pedals. No, I don’t Empress. Okay, I’ll check them out. Yeah. used their Pharaoh fuzz for years and years and just got a new pedal called the coven, which is like a fuzz and a boost kind of smashed together. Where you stack them or you can play them alone. And they make like, that’s, that’s like the most killer fuzz tone I’ve ever found. I’ve been using, you know, that guy’s stuff forever. Yeah, that sounds cool. Yeah. Uh, Stomp Underfoot is another really cool company. They sent me a, they do like exclusively I don’t want to call them clones, I mean, rebuilds of old big muff models through the years, super specific, you know, to the, to the letter. Um, and I’ve got like a 71 Ram’s head. Oh, that sounds really, really great. And just honestly, a volume pedal. That’s like my good volume pedal is really the one pedal I probably couldn’t live without because I’m always, you know, dymey and amp, and then just using that to attenuate the game stage of it. So What are you playing through amp wise usually? Over here I’ve got a couple of high watt custom 50 watts that I’m using. You don’t need more than 50 watts. I would imagine. No, I’ve got a, I’ve got a hundred water of those and I can never use it for anything really, unless you just want to play clean. Yeah. Got a JMP from like 76 that’s really cool. But again, a hundred watts way too fucking loud. Yeah. And you know, the high watt 50s, are perfect. Even those are really, you know, really pushing it volume wise. 50 Watts. Yeah. Yeah. Those, those, man, I have a Dr. Z here. I got to sell it. It’s a 38 watt. I can’t use it. I’m not, it’s like, Yeah, even that would be fine for me. You know, I thought about getting like a 20 watt hand, but like people, people don’t understand, you know, I think it needs to be fucking loud and you’ll look like a chump if you don’t have a full stack on stage. Yeah. What’s your favorite song that you wrote? Probably either the Falling Veil or Thousand Hands from the last record. And those are both like, again, songs that for me have this kind of specific vibe. That’s a little, it’s not, you know, it’s not melancholy. It’s somehow uplifting to me, or it’s got this kind of upbeat feeling. And they’re a little faster. I think they’re just songs that are a lot of fun to play live. They’ve got a lot of challenging licks that are just when you’re playing something like dead root stirring for the millions time. It feels fucking boring. Yeah. What’s, is that the, is that the fan favorite as far as album and song? I mean, it’s, you know, I noticed that it like shifts after a while, like for a while that was a didgeridoo during your Gemini for the people, a lot of people don’t get past the first song on an album, apparently, cause it’s always, you know, they want to hear Gemini is the first track from Didgeridoo during the album, as your compendium is the first track from Laura. Now it’s Sanctuary is the first one. Right. It’s kind of shifting, you know, a new album comes out and then like the fan favorite moves back and out. So thankfully we’re getting to cut out more and more of the old stuff, which is kind of insufferably boring for us. But I get that. Do you have a favorite song to play or is it the same as like you just said, Falling Veil, A Thousand Hands? No, I think it’s pretty much the same. I’m going to go back and listen to those now that I know they’re your favorites. I mean, I have them. They’re all, they’re five star songs. I just gotta, I don’t remember what’s on my head. Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot more going on in the newer records and it takes, I think a lot more spins to kind of get into it and you know, remember. Oh, like, Oh, I understand this part because the first time you listen to it, it’s just kind of information overload, you know, and that’s the reason we don’t play new stuff live before it’s recorded because interesting or you just see that people just don’t, not that they don’t get it, but there’s nothing to grasp onto. How does this part fit to this? Wait, was that a leitmotif? Is that coming back? You know, just. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, man, cause you’re not, these aren’t songs that you remember the vocals for, for the most part. No, they’re not. There’s nothing you know. This isn’t a pop song. Very, very interesting. Top three desert island discs, no particular order and just for now. Motorcycle, Little Lucid Moments. Okay, I gotta check those guys out. Motorcycle and what album? It’s called Little Lucid Moments. This is one of the most formative records for me in my own playing style. So you were aware of them before you even hooked up with the label. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve always been, I’ve got to set these guys out. Yeah. I’m music junkie and you know, especially since, since we got the internet and our house back in the day, always been, you know, looking for the next thing. And they kind of came to my attention around 2007, I think with that record. Little lucid moments. That’s still the one for me. What else? I’m going to say, yes, close to the edge. Okay. That’s another record for me that’s just got so much going on and so many great moments and crosses a lot of different musical territory that it’s always fun to listen to again. I saw them in concert here around. probably seven or eight years ago and Steve Howe was just so, it’s, you know, he’s so well organized. He’s kind of like, um, I don’t mean this in a negative way, like a nerd, you know, and he’s like very well organized. Um, he’s just a master man. Oh, he just puts everything together and it’s, it doesn’t ever play a wrong note and just really, really bad. I don’t understand it. He’s got to be a cyborg or some sort of. He’s just brilliant, brilliant guy. Motorcycle, yes, it would be number three. You’re making me rethink. I’m on a desert island. Maybe I want some Jimmy Buffett. It’s so funny. There’s two kinds of people. Some people really answer that question, well, if I’m on a desert island, I’m gonna need this. Or other guys just like top three records. It’s always funny to hear the response. Yeah, I’m going to get sick of it. I don’t know. Honestly, I might want some hip hop, just if I’m going to listen to two rock records all the time. I might want some Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Marauders or something like that, or Gang Star. That’s a good band. Even Wu Tang, I don’t know. Something different, something along those lines. That’d be a first time I’ve heard that Wu Tang mentioning. Dude, have you ever seen that video, it’s the Wu Tang financial planning? No. Just go look, everybody listening, go Google Wu Tang Financial Planning. It’s literally, it’s like from an old, I don’t know, it sounds like a Saturday night live skit. It’s hilarious. Was that a skit from an album or something? No, it’s just, it’s a commercial for Wu Tang Financial Planning. I don’t know. It had to be Saturday night live, something like that. It’s like, it’s just hilarious. I think you guys are genius. Yeah. I mean, it would surprise me. Fucking hilarious. Uh, definition of happiness, Nick. I would, you know, let me be, let me be annoying here and say it’s the absence of need or something like that. That’s very academic. Uh, most exciting experience you’ve had or best thing that’s ever happened to you. Yeah, I mean, that’s hard to say. I feel like I’ve been way too lucky in all the exciting shit that I’ve done in my life. But, you know, probably still for me, maybe our first European tour was one of the most exciting things I’d ever done. That’s great. Or maybe the first time I set foot in Germany after having, you know, my first intercontinental flight or, you know, first like long travel being alone. Yeah, that is cool. Yeah. But a lot of the band should have just kind of too much to count at this point. Too many highs and too many interesting things and too many fun experiences. Do you have any non-musical superpowers? No. That’s that feels bad to say, but yeah, I always think, you know, if I couldn’t play music, I don’t know what the hell I would be doing with myself. You don’t have to worry about that. Any hobbies or interests outside of music? You know, I try to, I try to read. Yeah. You seem super well-read. I try to write a book, but you know, the truth of it is I work, you know, I work in music, I write music in every spare moment and I listen to music in the moments that I’m not writing or working. So. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s kind of an all consuming thing for me. It’s hard. You do, you, when you, you could always tell someone who’s well-read by the, by the way, they, I thought you were very well-read. You could tell by the way people speak usually that they’re well-read. I wish I was more well read at this point, you know, kind of drops off after someone’s forcing books into your face. It goes in cycles though, I think, you know, you’ll have periods where you might tear through, you know, 15 books over an eight, 10 month period and then you’ll back off a little bit. Totally. I’ve only been playing guitar a few years and when I started I felt bad because the thing that got lopped off was my reading and I was talking to my son one day and I said, Nick, I feel really, his name, my older one, his name is Nick as well. I said, Nick, I feel really bad. I really don’t read any books anymore. He goes, dad, you’ve read enough books. I’m like, okay. It was like, I felt good that he said that. He was like, dad, you’ve read enough books for a lifetime. I’m like, okay. Hey man, if you’re given a reading to play guitar, stimulate that part of your brain. As long as you’re not like, oh, I’ve been watching so much television. Oh, I fucking hate TV, man. That’s maybe a problem, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s all gravy. Yeah. No, I’m good with it. Actually, I’ve read a couple of books recently. I don’t Favorite place you’ve traveled man, you’ve been all over the world. Phew, that’s a hard one. I honestly, I don’t think I got prepped with this one either. So number 13. Oh, well, I just, sorry. I just didn’t get that far. No, you’re good. You know what? I don’t know. One of my favorite places to travel. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been is still Genoa, which is where actually my wife is from. It’s kind of a birthplace of Christopher Columbus. It’s this really beautiful sort of tropical looking, you know, big mountains with green vegetation, meet rocky cliff sides right on a fantastic ocean. It’s just kind of one of the most beautiful places you can imagine. Very cool. I’m sure the fact that your wife is from there gives you a little more of a buzz as well as you should. Oh yeah, I mean, I really didn’t understand Italy at all or even liked the place before I started dating an Italian. That’s cool, man. Hey, tell me about the toughest decision you’ve ever had to make. or the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do? And that’ll be the last question. You know, even though it seemed like a clear choice, I still think the most difficult thing for me to ever do was just to make the break about what do you want to do? Do you want to follow your heart? Do you want to follow your dreams or do you want to, you know, let other people’s expectations dictate what you should do? Just the kind of. You know, making a decision to be true to yourself, making the decision to, to listen to yourself above all, and just trust that whatever you’re going to do is going to be the right decision for you, be it for a lifetime or just for the moment. I give you so much credit for that, man. I’m happy you made that decision. Cause it sounds like you got a lot of peace and it just sounds like you’re like a lot of happier dude. So I’m a very, yeah. I’m, like I said, I’m a very, kind of pretty lucky life. I feel very happy with everything that’s happened to me in these 30 years. So. I can get hit by a bus tomorrow and hopefully I won’t, but you know, hopefully it wouldn’t be a bad day to die. Well, listen, uh, first of all, thank you very much for your time. I want to turn everybody on to elder. They’re great band, man. If you like blues rock, psychedelic, long songs, well-written, um, really good music that’ll make you feel great. And, and, uh, it’s funny, make you feel great, but it’ll, it, your music is very, intense. And I mean that in a good way. It strikes deep chords, man. And that’s what you do really well, especially as I said, when you bring people up and down into the crescendos. So everybody please check out Elder. They’re all over. You can find them on Apple, Spotify. Again, listen to any Elder record you want. Dead Roots starring is great. My favorite song is release, which is on the Spires burn release, repeat, uh, M Morgan ground. That’s a horrible English way of saying it. That was pretty good. That was pretty good. Okay, cool. E Morgan ground, uh, on the golden silver sessions is a great record. Reflections of they’re all great records, man, but just check out elder and support them. Um, they’re not touring now next year. New record will be coming out again. Doors open. Please come back on the show. I’d love to promote it. And will you guys think you’ll be touring next year? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we’re going to be recording this winter. Everything goes well and come up with a record we’re happy with. And by next summer, we’re going to be doing tours Europe, US, wherever else. Awesome. You guys ever play Florida? Not for years, not since 2012. That’s a long time. It’s tough to get down here. I know, especially for the independent bands, it’s not it’s spread out. It’s far. But if you do come down here. Yeah, I don’t, you know, honestly, we’ve been looking at Rootings and that’s been another question because it is kind of, it’s a commitment to go all the way down there. But it’s, you know, we had some great shows actually, even as, you know, long ago as then. Well, I’m in Tampa, Ebor, there’s tons of good clubs here. You can play in Ebor City, man. So I will be watching for you. I’d love to see you play if you come down here. Awesome. And everybody check out the band Elder, E-L-D-E-R. You can find them on social media and just go listen to their music. It’s really good. Nick, thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate everything. You’re a very smart young guy. I hope to have you back. I know you’ll be back on the show again. And I want to hear that same answer that when I say low points, is that Craig, you know, I really haven’t had any. So I really hope that’s what happens. Thank you for thanks for the interview. Thanks for all your kind words and your interest in the band and getting us spread the gospel, you know. You’re very welcome. It’s my pleasure, man. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this interview, please share it on your social media channels. We appreciate your support. Please check out Nick DeSalvo and the band Elder, E-L-D-E-R. Great band and you’re going to love them, especially if you’re into guitars. Nick’s a great guitar player. We didn’t really talk about that much. He’s a great guitar player and a great writer. Make sure you go to everyonelovesguitar.com. Sign up to get on our newsletter list, put your email in there so you and I can connect and most important, remember that happiness is a choice, so choose wisely. Be nice, go play your guitar and have fun. Until next time, peace and love everybody. I’m out. Nick, thank you for everything.