A Conversation with Nick Hexum – HuffPost 9.23.13
Mike Ragogna: So Nick, you have a new album, My Shadow Pages. This is your first solo album, right?
Nick Hexum: This is my first solo album. I’ve guest spotted on a couple of bands, I sang songs with the bands The Urge and Sugar Ray a really long time ago, so this is the first solo outing of my own.
MR: You’re the lead vocalist for 311, and had these other projects over the years, but why didn’t you attempt to do a solo project earlier?
NH: Yeah, that’s a good question. I guess it happened really organically, where at some point, I decided I really wanted to get better at guitar playing and 311 has a lead guitarist, so me and my brother Zack started plotting a just-for-fun jam band and at the same time, we’d also been attempting to write pop songs for other artists, so, “Let’s just try to combine the two to make a jazzy jam band with some cool, comfy, jazzy pop songs,” and thus The Nick Hexum Quintet.
MR: Why a “quintet”?
NH: I’ve kind of been researching creativity, and one of the things that really inspires creativity, if you learn from companies like 3M or Apple or whatever, they encourage you collaborating with different people a lot. So I kind of made my own quintet with a maybe somewhat revolving lineup of guys just as a way to freshen up the creativity.
MR: What was the writing and recording process like?
NH: Well when I was attempting to co-write I made some fun new contacts, like working with Tim Pagnotta who was in Sugarcult, Kevin Griffin from Better Than Ezra, other writers and producers. So I’d known those guys and I was like, “Well I’m writing for myself now, let’s do a co-write.” It was just a real fun, easy process because we didn’t have to worry about how some of those pop artists at the moment might want this style and try to telegraph what they’re going to do. Instead, it was just whatever was fun and we liked. It’s much easier to write for fun and for yourself than for anybody else. So that kind of started from people I met from that kind of songwriter-for-hire circuit, which I don’t really care for anymore. I met some of the guys on the first day of pre-production. We did three days of pre-production, like Gary Novak walked in and we just played together and that was on a Wednesday. Then on Monday, we were in a studio together for Monday through Friday and then that record was done. What you’re hearing here is a band that’s been together for three days, so it’s very different from my normal way of doing things.
MR: On the other hand, that probably added to the inspiration and the spontaneity of the sessions.
NH: It was, getting to know somebody as we’re playing. I was pretty nervous the first day, but it came out great. I’ve always known that nervous energy is adrenaline and will just lead your brain to be its best. So I never shy away from that, I always say walk towards the fear.
MR: Nice. Now, you have no fear when it comes to 311. You’re the front man, basically. Do you feel like your experience has helped you get to this point in your musical career?
NH: Yeah, I mean, I’ve built up confidence through all of those experiences, those years on the road with 311, and everything kind of works together. I thought it was a time to open up a new thing for putting out stuff that the guys in 311 might not be interested in. Take a slow blues song like “You’ll Do It Again,” that’s not really territory that 311 would be into. Music, in general, tends to evolve for the platform that it’s played for. David Byrne was talking about this in his book How Music Works and he was like “Hip-hop is made for cars. Jazz, with its intricate chord changes, is made for a tight little club. If you were trying to play that in an arena, it probably wouldn’t sound that great, it would be too mushy. You need a tight, non-reverberating space.” It’s kind of a tangential way of saying that 311 generally makes music for rocking amphitheatres and it’s a fun summertime experience like that, so to take something really small and intimate like me performing the Bob Marley cover by myself or doing a weird slow blues song like “You’ll Do It Again” that clocks in at nearly six minutes, that really is kind of a different animal from 311.
MR: Since you’ve had so many number one records and huge success with 311, do you have an expectation for this record that’s along thos same lines?
NH: No, I don’t think it’s going to be in that same ballpark. I think I want to be able to make back the money that I invested in the project, but I definitely think it’ll be smaller. It was more just purely for creative reasons. It’s been a fun thing for me to be very involved in the label side of things and plotting the roll out and working with a publicist and management has basically become the label because it’s my label and setting up the distribution. It’s been getting into areas that I’ve always had an interest in that I never… We were always on a major label. So it’s definitely different doing it so independently and being part of the rollout.
MR: “Blame The Sky” seems to be the lead track from the album. It can be interpreted in a couple of different ways, but what was your intention with that?
NH: Man, it’s a totally wide-open interpretation because that came totally stream of consciousness. Zack, my brother, had that title in his list of ideas of titles and I was like, “I love that, let’s work with that,” and he threw out something and I threw out something and it was just back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. To me, it’s about seizing the day, going for it, if you need an excuse, blame the sky. It’s a carpe diem kind of method.
MR: And is that also how the creative process works with you? Does it go through a steam of consciousness thing and you look at it later and either refine it or go, “Okay, that’s what I wrote”?
NH: Yeah, I think that does happen some way. Sometimes, it’s very unplanned and then others, I’ll just have a title that suggests a story like “The Getaway,” that’s about a place, this somewhat fictitious place that has elements of dive bars of my past, and that’s a story that came together. The song “Sideways,” that word just has so much story built in, we can’t go forward, we can’t go back, we keep going sideways. I kind of suggested a theme and me and Tim Pagnotta just kind of worked it out. But there is no song on this album that was by myself, it’s all collaborations. Even the song “The Dreamer.” My wife and I sat down and cranked out those lyrics. She said, “I don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a publishing company, so you don’t need to credit me,” but I’m telling the world right now that she co-wrote that song with me. They’re all co-writes on the record.
MR: This album satisfied a side of you that needed to get expressed, right?
NH: I think so, yeah. I was somewhat inspired by what “SA” Martinez in 311 did with Ghostwolf. He put out his own side-release, maybe it’s been about a year or a year and a half ago since he put that out. I was like, “That’s cool.” It’s good to open up a new avenue rather than letting those songs languish on some hard drive, forever unseen. Also, I guess I’d kind of gotten to a place where I realized I had more time to do more styles of music. A few years back, I was reading about a certain actor who was directing movies, starring in movies. He’s opening a club, he’s going back and getting his degree, it’s just ridiculous how much stuff this guy was doing, and I was like, “You know what, I could be doing more stuff. I’m going to open up a solo side project path.” I definitely think it’s been a fun journey.
MR: Well, after working with so many acts as well as your own music, it seems you’re the guy who needs to be working on creative stuff all the time.
NH: Yeah. I just like being productive. I’m somewhat hyper-responsible to a fault, where I’m waking up and planning my day, “Okay, eight to eight-thirty, I can jog with the dogs, eight-thirty to nine, I can be warming up my guitar skills, then I can hang out with the kids for a while.” And then I can be at the studio… I’m a super ambitious and organized guy and sometimes, I need to learn just to like not plan my time. But that’s what kids are great for. They’re like, “Daddy, let’s go jump on the trampoline,” and I’m like, “You know what, that is the perfect thing right now. Let’s do go jump on the trampoline.”
MR: Sweet. What is your advice for new artists? I know it’s a little tricky these days.
NH: Yeah, the mechanics of distributing your music are so different now. You can launch just from a viral video. In a way, we didn’t really need a major label just to get started in the beginning. That’s really only just to get the records out. We ended up doing it just through touring. I suppose the one constant between now and then is just work on your live show and work on building up a local following wherever you are. We were in Omaha and building up a big following there was what lead to us getting a deal. We did move out to LA, but then we went back to Omaha to showcase for the label because we wanted them to see us in front of our home audience. So it doesn’t matter where you’re from, just build up a big following and then you can just expand from there. The industry’s changed so much to where if you can’t cut it live, you’re not going to have a chance because it all comes back to playing live. That’s something that cannot be pirated, that live experience of watching somebody create. That’s also what inspired me to do the quintet, because there’s going to be a lot of improvisation, a lot of unscripted moments, so people can actually see us make it up as we go. I’m getting really into watching a lot of jam bands and seeing how they interact with each other and the audience and just going higher and higher. So I always say it’s all about the live setting.
MR: Nice, and that’s the strength of jazz, its live and improvisational elements. Jazz artists don’t traditionally sell millions of albums.
NH: Yeah, you have to tour, and they love it. I saw John Scofield last year, I’m going to see him again at UCLA. He’s my guy. That’s my inspiration, his tone, his soloing style, the way he combines funk and jazz, he’s my inspiration. He’s an older dude, but he tours a lot because he loves it and he really shows his gratitude when he’s playing and the things he says to the audience. It’s definitely nice work if you can get it. I love to play.
MR: And Avi is amazing. I know some purists don’t like the loop approach, but it really works with what John’s doing, he always has been experimental anyway.
NH: Avi Bortnick is one funky rhythm guitar player. I’m really looking forward to seeing that. When I saw Scofield last year, it was more of a traditional jazz thing, but I’ve seen him do the A Go-Go album, not with Medeski Martin & Wood, but with other guys playing that album back in LA in the mid-nineties, so I’m really excited to see him get funky next month.
MR: Maybe there’s a Scofield/Hexum project down the line.
NH: You never know!
MR: You’ll be jumping back into 311 when that arcs back, right?
NH: Yeah, we’re recording this new batch of songs and it truly is amazing. I’m very excited about it. As soon as Chad [Sexton] is done with the drums, we’re going to go ahead and add our parts. We’re putting it out in Spring around 3/11 day. My plate is full and that’s how I like it.
MR: Nick, this has been wonderful and I really appreciate your time.
NH: I really enjoyed it. Thanks for the support.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne