Nic Lawless, a Pittsburgh band with members Tim Crammond (guitar), Matt Holden (bass and vocals), Mark Rodgers (drums), and Nicolas Lawless (vocals and guitar) have hit the scene! I’ve got the exclusive interview with Nicolas about the band. Be sure to click the link to hear their music!
HC: How did you and the band find each other?
Nicolas Lawless: Tim and I have worked together on a few different projects for pretty much as long as I have lived in Pittsburgh. We played last year in my project “Too Young” and were able to open at the Bigelow Bash. Matt plays guitar and sings for the really prominent Pittsburgh band “Legs Like Tree Trunks” and also happens to live right down the block from me. We were just spending a lot of time jamming this year and somehow he ended up playing bass for me, which has been just great! Mark used to play the drums in one of my favorite Pittsburgh bands and we’ve been having good times together for a while now. I am really happy and excited to be playing music with everyone. I should also mention that we all are involved in some way or another with the Pittsburgh creative collective Monalloh Foundry, and that everyone should check that out!
HC: What type of music do you play?
N: I like to call the music punk rock but no one who listens to punk rock agrees with that. I was really influenced by “Heroes” era David Bowie and the Velvet Underground when I was making this record. The next one is going to be my “goth rock” record but I am sure people are going to say the same thing about that whole concept. I am not too serious about sounding like anything but myself, anyway.
HC: What message does your band try to portray to it’s listeners?
N: Lyrically, I don’t think that I am portraying any one specific message. The last record was mostly just about being alone, and so it is fitting that I wrote and recorded it entirely by myself. Maybe there is a message in that, though. To have these songs that I made and actually committed to recording feels ’empowering’.
HC: What was it like recording your first song?
N: I have been writing and recording music for so long at this point that I really don’t remember much… when I was way younger I used to always get stressed out in the vocal booth and that was hard to deal with for me. When I was recording Nic Lawless I tried to get into a character, which maybe just happens naturally when you spend all of your time listening to Elvis records. I think that recording it alone also gave me the isolation I needed to just do everything in a couple takes and feel really confident about it as a whole. It’s very raw and real.
HC: Where can we listen to your music?
N: My first record is available for free at www.niclawless.bandcamp.com.
(Check it out!)
HC: What are your bands plans for the future?
N: We just played our first out of town show recently, and we plan to play many, many more. We have also been messing around with some new music and ideas. Our next record will be our debut record as a full band, so that’s exciting for me!
HC: Is there anything else you want the public to know?
N: There are so many great musicians and artists in Pittsburgh and I just want to urge everyone interested in the arts to check out what’s going on right within the city! The Monalloh Foundry website has updates on events all of the time, as does the Nic Lawless tumblr page.