Remove had the great honor of chatting with midwest punk legend Erik Nervous about musical inspirations, favorite gigs, and his connections to Detroit. He's a musician so beloved in this community he needs little to no introduction. We'll let these killer answers speak for themselves!
Dig it!
How did you get started playing music?
It’s about as uncool and unpunk as an answer can be, but the main catalyst for actually playing music was Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the video games. I got really obsessed with them all through middle school and junior high. It exposed me, and presumably many other people my age, to a great deal of artists that’d otherwise be virtually impossible to find in day to day midwestern life. I also completely credit Rock Band with teaching me how to drum. As far as getting into weird punk, GH2 had Search & Destroy by Iggy And The Stooges in it, and that was by far my favorite song in the game. My first real exposure to punk i can remember was on the old school cartoon channel Boomerang, which had these little animated music video bumpers between shows. One of them was a full-throttle punk anthem about Yogi Bear. I grew up just as TiVo came into vogue so I’d spend whole afternoons just rewinding this little 90-second music video over and over. I took a very academic approach to finding new music, research and books and whatnot. I worked backwards through Kurt Cobain’s favorite albums, which led to Half Japanese, Beat Happening, The Raincoats, and the whole UK Rough Trade DIY underground, all of which for some reason just resonated super deeply with me. I rapidly became obsessed. Everything i make is me desperately trying to recreate the sound and feel of that kind of music. Something that i’d love if i had found it on its own.
Who are some of your music heroes/inspirations?
I have different people i look up to on each instrument. For guitar its James Williamson, East Bay Ray, and the recently passed Andy Gill. I also have a great deal of admiration for Rachel Aggs of Shopping, Trash Kit, and half a million other bands. My absolute hero on drums is Palmolive of The Slits and The Raincoats. One of the biggest crimes in music is the fact that she only ever played on two records. Other drummers i love are Moe Tucker, Alan Meyers, and Anton Fier’s stint in The Feelies. Really rhythmic tom heavy drummers, with riffs and whatnot. Bass for me is Manchester’s one-two punch of Peter Hook and Steve Hanley.
You’re incredibly prolific. How do you do it?
I don’t know, probably a byproduct of the whole clinical anxiety thing. I get worried that it’s been too long since i put out something. I’m also always just idly playing music, so there’s always a half-decent riff or two that I’ve got in my back pocket.
What was the local music scene around you like, and how did it shape you as an artist?
There wasn’t a scene. At all. Well, there might have been, but if there was i didn’t take part in it. I was, and admittedly still am, a complete shut in. Who knows, maybe i had dozens of like-minded peers around me, but i was too busy digging through Blogspots and a battered copy of England’s Dreaming to connect with them. I was operating at a collegiate level of pretentiousness by the time i was a sophomore in high school. I do remember there was like this micro-scene of Christian Screamo around the area at that time, but i wouldn’t really say that it had any kind of influence on me. If anything it would have influenced me to do anything besides make music. I once asked a guy who was into those bands if he liked The Ramones and i think his exact response was “no dude, they’re not heavy enough.” I have a very distinct memory of a church’s youth group area that doubled as a venue, and it had a massive mural of a super jacked Jesus dragging the cross behind him with it still nailed to his hands, with blood running down his hands and from the crown of thorns. Trying to make Jesus look as metal as possible. But yeah, before i went to Kalamazoo there was quite literally no one i knew who listened to, much less played, the kind of music I enjoy. There were kids in my school who had no idea who The Beatles were, no exaggeration. If they did play an instrument they either played screamo, in a church worship band, or both. There was (and still is) a tiny record store in a town 20 minutes south, but everyone there only cared about Pitchfork indie and Bob Seger. Going there with high hopes of finding kindred spirits only to be met with confusion and patronizing record dealer-isms made me feel even more alone than sitting at home. I was happy to keep digging further and further into the rabbit hole. It also made me learn to play and record everything by myself out of sheer necessity. Then i went up to Kalamazoo and found a whole world of people like me who welcomed me with open arms.
Have you played Detroit? If so, any memories? Any favorite Detroit bands?
We have, a few times! It’s been great each time. Some of the best crowds we’ve ever had. We played UFO Factory on our way up to Canada right before the whole foundation crack debacle happened. We’re real good pals with The Stools and The Beauticians, and they’ve made sure each show we’ve played was killer. Beauticians just put out a few new songs, and they’ve really matured into a great synth-punk band. The first time we saw them, their bass player was dressed up like JR from Dallas, and in the middle of a song Kelly whipped out a bag of popcorn and just started mashing his face into it in the middle of the floor while an optical theremin was going haywire. That was a really good show. Dee’s a real cool cat too. A couple years ago I did a solo set in this tiny little cardboard box of a bar, just me playing guitar and yelling over a drum and bass track i had on my phone, to open for Borzoi from Austin TX, another great buncha lads i might add, and in between sets i just had my iPod hooked up to the PA. A small group of ladies wandered into the bar in the middle of the night with no knowledge or interest in the show, plugged a few dollars into one of those digital jukebox things, and picked three or four really mood-killing songs that started playing over the top of the music we had going. I think they were either like modern country-pop or a Katy Perry kinda thing. Either way, it was really just the worst possible soundtrack to have suddenly start playing in the middle of a gig. Everybody looked at the bartender in a “hey turn it off” way, but he just kinda shrugged and said something like “they paid, you gotta pause yours,” so everybody just had to sit there and wait out these terrible songs before the next band could play. It had a real Parks and Rec kind of vibe to it. We’ve got a show set up with The Stools in mid-April, hopefully the Corona dangers will have subsided by then so we can still play the thing.
What was your favorite gig you’ve played and why?
Most definitely last August with The Spits & Liquids in a Kalamazoo basement. I feel like that speaks for itself. There’s a full playlist of super high-quality video the entire night on Youtube, but it really doesn’t probably convey the frothing mass the crowd was that night. There were little kids going up and down the street acting like carnival barkers directing people to show, no kidding. “If yer lookin’ for tha party, it’s at house numbah [REDACTED]!” So many people drove in from all over the midwest to see it. It basically counted as a Detroit show because the vast majority of that crew was there. It would have been a life definer had I just been in the audience, but being able to be on stage manning the keyboard for The Spits that night really put it over the top, to say the least.
Saw you just were turnin’ the knobs for Liquids. Who would be a dream band to record?
My dream bands would unfortunately require the use of time travel. Some particularly outlandish fantasies include early pre-Hong Kong Garden Siouxsie And The Banshees, a proper full multi-tracking of the oft-bootlegged ’77 Mabuhay Devo show, corralling japan’s SS into a studio, Stef Petticoat/Amy And The Angels, and of course, golden era The Fall. Doing an LP with CCTV would have been great. More realistically, the opportunity to do anything with the Gee Tee/RMFC crew would be awesome. Shopping would be real fun too. Really, I’m desperate to do anything with any reasonably cool bands who want me to. I’m just sitting around on a pile of reasonably priced workhorse microphones and XLR cables. I dread the day i have to make a day to day living off of tracking terrible Catatonicyouths metal and Soundcloud rappers.
Do you have plans for more Nervous Sessions?
Yes! What’s up right now is actually only half of the first session we did! Mat is a goddam machine. We just gotta redo some vocals he wasn’t happy with. I don’t know how much he wants public knowledge, so i won’t go into detail, but suffice to say, barring the rapidly approaching and long overdue mass human extinction beating us to it, expect much much more coming down the pipe!
Besides music, do you have any hobbies you’re passionate about?
Nothing really out of the ordinary. I collect records and tapes and CD’s. I don’t get the hate for CD’s. There’s some great music that’s only on CD’s. It’s like saying you’re not gonna eat food that comes in a bowl. Somebody could probably put together a really good comp of stuff that’s only on CD’s. I love keeping my Discogs page super accurate and organized, which sounds really lame when I say it out loud. I have folders set up for into what part of the world it was from, from what era, and in what subgenre. Real poindexter stuff, but i like it. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I love my cat.
What have you been up to recently and what can we expect next?
I’ve been rewriting and re-recording parts for my next proper Nervous EP for awhile now. It’s coming along very well, and I’ve certainly had a great deal of time to perfect it. Hopefully the boys and I will be able to get out on the road sometime soon, fingers crossed but it’s all up in the air. We had some grand plans for this year that i won’t get anybody hopes up with now, but who really knows at this point. Beyond that, I’m slowly getting material together for a 2nd, massively pretentious solo LP. I’m trying to make it completely indistinguishable from a ’79 UK DIY album, both in production & songwriting. It’s all incredibly self-indulgent, I admit, but what other legitimate reason to make music is there?
Questions by Joey Molloy