N8NOFACE INTERVIEW
Photographer // Valerie J. Bower
What’s the best moment you can remember making music?I
I can’t really recall something crazy, Shit… though I’m sure there were some moments I should be remembering, but what comes to mind in those moments when you don’t know what you are doing or where it’s going. Then something cool happens..
To me, some of my favorite shit happens on accident.
Or just happens with no initial intent.
What were your first creative outlets as a kid? What were you into other than music?
Comics, I would read ‘them, and then I started to make my own. I drew a comic once about two rat families that fought each other [Laughs} I wasn’t some great artist or could draw really well, but I’d have these plot lines and would try to make comics out of them. I didn’t really show anybody except family at the time. I was maybe 12 to 14 doing that. Got into making music when I was like 18.
What was life like growing up in Tuscan? Did you enjoy it? What were the negatives and positives of your town?I loved it, wouldn’t have had it any other way. I mean early on when you are just a kid playing, we would fish, hunt, skate, just normal shit kids in a desert would do. Then when junior high / high school hit and drugs came into play, you found out…
Oh shit, I’m next to the border where it’s good and it’s cheap. And that right there is both positive and negative in one.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the past year?
I got off the hard drugs, meth and coke. I always thought if I lost that, then I’d lose the pain that made good art. But that’s actually not the case, I was wrong.
Congratulations my guy. What’s the best part of giving it up and how has it affected your life? Quitting is never easy, what were some of the things that helped you get off them?
Thank you, means tons. Anything I ever did foul to others, was when was under the influence of drugs. It doesn’t justify it, but that’s the case. I’m tired of hurting those I love.
Me, I could of kept on going and taken the damage. But I’m tired of seeing loved ones cry.
Now that I’m sober and I’m s happy I did it, I love the feeling, and I love early morning wake-ups. I don”t really care too much about my health and it wasn’t that that made me quit. more so for others than myself.
Do you remember the time you got your first keyboard?
My first keyboard was some Casio. Maybe early 20’s but I also had an SP 1200 sampler and ASR sampler. I first started making hip hop sampled base beats in my 20’s.
What was your musical journey like before you became N8NOFACE? What did your progression look like?
Well since I come from hip hop. Early on, I mean I loved Suicidal Tendencies and other punk shit that came across my path. Just like I liked country or oldies, but hip hop was the fastest thing I could make not coming from a music background. At that time in my circle, gangster “get money” rap was all that they listened to.
Then I owned a record store and graffiti shop. In there I’d meet people who would turn me on to different shit and I started making indie music sample-based beats, and I would sing on ’em.
With a buddy of mine, we started Crimekillz, a Gameboy synthpunk sound. We would tell stories of border life and desert town shit. When we stopped doing that
I just kept going and never looked back, just kept doing it on my own. I love making it all and always will.
What was your main source of finding new music to listen to?
Shit man, in high school and junior high in Tucson it was what family members showed you or MTV or magazines. I would go in local book stores, sit and read all kinds of music mags, any and all of them. Then go buy cd tape records or whatever. This was before the net. As you got older and hung with people they would turn you on to shit. You had to buy it to hear it.
How did N8NOFACE start? What made you make the decision that this is the direction you wanted to go down.
Well again man I don’t come from a music circle, my friends were not into making music.I wouldn’t share it with anybody and only my close friends knew about it. When myspace came along, it let me put music out with nobody knowing and that’s how I got N8NOFACE. Then started the band when my buddy who was making beats heard what I was doing. He said let’s make a punk band with Gameboys and synths. We did but we ran ourselves into the ground through drugs [Laughs] We wanted a break. But I still had to make shit and was addicted to the energy of it so I continued on my own with the sound making it mine
It seems to be very cathartic for you, you are so expressive when performing its hard to imagine you’re giving anything but 100% What does performing your music do for you on a personal level?
Well, you wouldn’t know if you followed me online but I’m crazy shy.IG posts and all that are easy because nobody is with me and I don’t see a crowd. But in a real conversational situation, I’m a mess. [Laughs} That stage frees me, I can just scream, I fucking love it, it’s like I’m flying or some shit.
Totally, when you’re on stage performing, are you always present, or do you ever blackout?
Well, I have blacked out due to drinking and don’t remember a few shows. I’ve been told that I’ve just crawled around and climbed speakers before. Then I went and stayed with my friend and pissed in his dirty clothes pile thinking it was the toilet.
But now I don’t black out and I’m aware in some sense.
Anger and energy are definitely in control. It’s like a fight to me. Adrenaline takes over. People will tell me I gotta merch or promote this or that. I never do once I’m up there, I might intend to but I never do.
I’m up there to fight.
Your music rides the line of a few different subcultures, like not only is it extremely punk but you’re also painting the pictures of like violence in the streets and gang shit. Which from the outside in, that mixture seems like what Tuscan is all about. As universal as any music can be, do you feel like you represent a whole group of people or culture?
That just comes from me living around certain types but having an open mind about it and loving it all. The city’s gonna resonate through me. We were a small town but def got our share of cliques. Running the store got me out of my comfort and introduced me to so much more. So I embrace it all I always say,I knew narcos, my uncle rode bulls and was a cowboy, I skated, my friends gangbanged and sold drugs, I have had broken heart drug addiction…
What we live and how we live can be woven through every frequency, from country to rap to punk, so why not use it all.
What do you want people to take away from your music?
Hard to say man because I really do make it for me first, it’s just what I want to hear, or it’s an idea I have to get out my head, even if it sucks [Laughs}
I have to tell a story or vent, it’s my rabbi or priest or my shrink. But then I do love when people resonate with it, dance, wild out, whatever.
Just know it was done with love, honesty, and a creative not giving a fuck mentality, no rules.
What do you enjoy more, the process of writing a song, or performing a show?
Shit man hard to say, they are both dopamine drops in their own right. Love them both but honestly, I love writing a song, was never much of a producer. I don’t make beats on the side for fun. I was always a writer and vocalist first. I just made beats because nobody I knew did and I had to. Hard to say man I love them both.
You and a few other bands did a show recently in LA where the cops ended up shutting it down by shooting rubber bullets into the crowd. What was your reaction to that?
I mean it’s fucking whack. The prior shows they stood on outside waited for it to end.
But that show, they just started busting shots. It is what it is. We still fucked it up!
How do you find peace in life?
Still learning but the music helps. I forget everything at the moment of performing and creating nothing else is in my head. Jogging, too I fucking love it [Laughs}
