The new Wilson album is coming August 24, 2018 and singer Chad Nicefield couldn’t be more excited. Chad and the band have been through a lot over the last few years and what came out of that turmoil, retreat and soul searching is Tasty Nasty. (Full review of the album will be out in a couple of weeks)
Click on the picture above to listen to Dumptruck on Spotify.
I had the chance to catch up with Chad while on tour and we talked about the new album, surf boards and traveling to Shanghai, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Tommy, Sound Vapors: I heard that you went to Asia on what sounded like a trip to find yourself and sort of put things in perspective. What’s the story with that?
Chad Nicefield: Well, it’s interesting you bring that up. The band was in a very dark place towards the end of our last record cycle. Me personally, I’d become extremely unhappy, uneasy and I just felt like I needed something in my life. I grew up in a small town, Port Huron, Michigan where the rules set for us were like “don’t cross the road or you’re gonna get it by a car and die” :laughs: So it was like a fear version of parenting. But I don’t blame my Dad for any of that shit, he was just doing what he needed to do to keep us safe. But like most kids do I held all that shit to my chest and when I got older and when I got to that dark spot in my life, I was like “I have to do something different”. I didn’t know what it was. I’ve been in a band since I was 14 years old. Started touring when I was 18. There were so many situations where I thought, is this what it is? Is this what’s bringing me down? Am I glutton for punishment? :laughs: But I needed to search myself a little bit and find those answers and at least find out what was holding me back.
SV: So you took yourself out of your element?
CN: Yeah, I went over there and purposely did a bunch of things that scared the shit out of me. Like “back home Chad” previously, would say: “I’m not getting on a surf board, or I’m not riding a moped across the country of Vietnam.” :laughs: All of these crazy things that were totally out of my element. And the only reason I was doing it was to see what I was made of and what it is that brought me the most happiness or the most anger. I just wanted some perspective for myself so I could be the best person I could, for everyone around me. That’s the journey I took. When I got back, that journey and many other things that happened in my life helped steer this ship to where it is. But that was definitely the jump off point of bringing us to where we are. You know, making the drastic changes that most people would fear.
“And if you don’t like it: Fuck You. And if you do like it: Fuck yeah.”
CN: Doing things that scared me, like being in the middle of the ocean on a surfboard and never really knowing how to surf. Being like “ok.. well this is what I’ve gotta do or I’m going to fucking drown and die.” And then you get up on a wave and think to yourself “Holy shit! Here’s this thing I never thought I’d be able to do and you know, it wasn’t easy but it wasn’t as hard as I thought. That’s pretty much when I came back and said, “this has to change”. “This is what I want to do” and the guys were like “pretty awesome dude, we should try this out.” And we started writing music in that vein of, “this is going to make our souls more happy.” “This will expose our DNA as people more to the world, if this is going to be our last hurrah” or whatever it was. Because this was going to be our last record and we thought we’re going to do this and do it our way. And if you don’t like it: Fuck You. And if you do like it: Fuck yeah. So we needed to close one chapter and open another.
SV: So it doesn’t seem so hard after those experiences, right? To anyone else it would be like “Oh God, I can’t do this, I can’t fire my team, I can’t change the way we write music. Then you experience those things and you say.. “yeah we can do that.”
CN: It’s cliche man, but that old saying “you can do anything you want to do.” It’s only yourself that holds you back. People might try to hold you back and if your paying attention to them and listening to what somebody else is saying, you’re simply doing it to yourself.
SV: Was there a period of “buy in” from the band or was everybody on board right away?
CN: I don’t know if there were any reservations. Just in that period of time, we were just writing. We were just writing to write. I mean there was no deal on the table. We had left our label. We left our managers. So we were just doing us. Shit man, we probably wrote like 55 songs and 11 of them wound up making the record. Some of those songs are kind of old Wilson, and some of those songs are even further from old Wilson. But I think it was, “man, let’s just do it.” There was a couple of “whoa, whoa do you want to get that different?” And we’d go through the song and record it and make a demo of it and let the proof be in the pudding and see what felt the best. That’s sort of how the process went.
SV: Sonically, this album sound HUGE. I love the warmth of it. Where did you wind up recording the album?
CN: We did the record in L.A. In between our producers house and a studio called Pulse.
SV: Can you talk the recording process?
CN: It was very much a collaborative effort between the band, Scott Stevens and Chris Baseford, who did the majority of the live music engineering and a good handful of the mixing there. He was sort of the secret sauce, that weapon to make it that thick, big and the way that you’re sounding. Dude’s been around for ages and done some incredible records ranging all the way back to Zombie.
SV: How was it like working with Scott Stevens and how much influence did he have over the record?
CN: This record is just as much Scott’s as it is ours. I mentioned this another time but he is our knight in shining armor. Truly shining armor because we were in a really dark place. So when we met Scott it was like a Step Brothers moment. “Did we just become best friends?” :laughs: you know? Because we had no idea what we were walking into. We went there to essentially sit down and vibe in a different atmosphere that wasn’t so negative. We were in a negative space. So went to California becasue it’s bright and shiny. There’s lots of good weather and this is like January so you know what it’s like back home.
SV: Nice time to be out in California.
CN: Yeah it is. So we went up there and the atmosphere, his attitude and his ability to just.. get us.. made us trust him. And him to trust us and do what ever the fuck we wanted. Whether it was good or bad, just to see what would come out of it. It was amazing.
“Keep spreading the good word. Long live the Fuckery crew.”
CN: I don’t know how any other bands does it. I know how we’ve done it in the past and I can truly say that for the first time, the dude pulled it out of this band, as a producer. He went in with us at this side and he made the best with our DNA. And dealt with us the whole entire time! :laughs: Which is a lot :laughs: if you’ve ever worked with the band you know that we are punishers of your mind-hole. :laughs: So we can be weird but he dealt with it with a grain of salt and wouldn’t even bat an eye when we would come in and do the weirdest shit. :laughs:
SV: The first song on the new record is Dumptruck and it’s so strong. But then the song Summertime Treat has such a different feel and if it was the first track it would set a completely different tone for the record. Was it intentional to put something that in your face as the lead track? Tell us about that thought process in putting together the track list.
CN: I hold every piece of artist creation of delivering this record into the world very close to my heart. Anybody in the band, Scott or anybody on our team could tell you, I’ve probably spent too much time on creating this piece in general. From the track listing to how long the space is in between each track. The album artwork, every single layer on our website, our music videos. I work with my friends on our photos to style them the way that I want. That’s the one thing, I might not be serious about a lot of stuff but I’m very serious about that. Because I want it to feel like, what we worked so hard to bring to the world.. I don’t want to be taken lightly. We don’t want to be “we recorded the record now make the artwork for us, make the track listing for us, we just make the songs.” No, it doesn’t stop there for us, and that will go on the entire time this record is out. I’ll annoy the shit out of everyone around me. I don’t mean to, it’s just something that I feel very passionate about. This delivery of this piece of art.
CN: So the track listing in general was well thought out.. well not sure if was a well thought out, as it being a successful track listing :laughs: but I spent a lot of time on it and taking those songs and uploading them into ProTools and mapping out every second on how it gets played on the physical copy. It was very much important for us to open the record with Dumptruck.
SV: A ton of people know Wilson. But I get that feeling after this song drops, everyone is going to know who Wilson is. It just has that feel to it.
CN: Well, thank you! We can only cross our penises and hope for the best :laughs:
SV: What kind of promo do you have planned for these singles?
CN: Like A Baller is our first single. It was a thought out process. “So like, ok this record is a lot different. They wanted to do something different. Let’s make sure their humor is out there and that people still realize that they are still a rock band. That they are playing guitars and live drums and stuff like that.” So that was the single that we chose so we could solidify or put a pin in the ground and pivot off of there.
“We’re really pumped to get this record out there.”
CN: So we shot the video for it with my friend, Ray and I directing. It was a long task and a lot of work but I also got to cross some things off of my bucket list. I got to choreograph a dance sequence for a music video and wear all gold! :laughs: Got my scooter out. :laughs:
SV: Yeah :laughs: it was fun, man! The magazine cover, the cars and the end! I told my friends to make sure they watch until the end. Loved that. :laughs:
CN: :laughs: Thanks, Man.
SV: Give us a couple of essential tracks off of this new album.
CN: A couple of the ones I’m really excited to get out into the world, other than the ones that are out there now are the song Fuck Up My High, Money and there’s a song at the end of the record called Everyone Gets A Round On Me. That’s a song that’s really close to my heart. At surface level, it’s a song about drinking. It’s like our Closing Time. But where that writing comes from is a very close family thing for me. It’s my Dad’s favorite song I’ve ever written in my life. So I hold that one really close.
SV: Any touring plans for when the album comes out?
CN: Our fall plans are getting sorted right now. Hopefully we’ll have something situated very soon and announced. But right now we’re on tour with Theory Of A Deadman and we’re getting ready for the album to come out on August 24th. The pre-orders are live, we’ve got Like A Baller Out There, it’s gonna hit your radio stations across the U.S. and it’s currently on Octane (Sirius/XM). We will also have the video for Dumptruck coming out and we’ll have a couple more surprises in the lead up of the record release with some other tracks. We’re really pumped to get this record out there. I think it’s gonna be fun. Just the ride in general.
SV: I think it’ll be fun too. It’s been a while and your fans have been waiting for a new record. What would you like to say to them?
CN: As simple as it is.. This shit, fucks! We love you. You get it. Keep spreading the good word. Long live the Fuckery crew.
Pre Order ‘Tasty Nasty’ on Amazon here: Wilson – Tasty Nasty
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– Tommy Marz
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