I started Nocturnal Company when I got to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for my freshman year of college. I often stayed up all night in my dorm recording on my laptop with the only live instruments being guitar and keyboard. Luckily, my roommate stayed at his girlfriend’s dorm most of the time. That kid was a character, he smoked hella pot and took watermelons full of vodka to parties, where he feigned a french accent.
Listen to the album while reading the text.
During that first year, I played in a band that practiced in the basement laundry room of my dorms. Some people loved us. Others hated our stinking guts. It was a pretty funny situation. Admittedly it was fucking loud.
This Sweet Basement
Once I rented a house in what’s known as Albuquerque’s student ghetto, I started recording with a full setup: drums, bass, guitar, keyboard and so on. We had this sweet basement where I could make as much noise as I wanted. My girlfriend at the time could literally fall asleep while I was playing drums next to her, so that worked pretty well. This is where “Potentiator” and “Dive Lights” were recorded.
Everyone practiced down there, so that basement saw a lot of action. I drummed for various bands in addition to writing my own stuff. Nocturnal Company played in the form of a band around this time and we had many live gigs around town. I remember a lot of fun, wild evenings in downtown Albuquerque and the surrounding neighborhoods. If we weren’t playing a show, we were at a club or a bar having a good time, or just out skateboarding. We got a lot of great music video material from those nights that captured exactly how much fun we were having.
Around this time, “Variable Wishes” was finished being recorded. It was the first Nocturnal stuff to be professionally recorded in a legitimate studio, which was a big milestone for me. It’s actually the same studio where Post War Germany, a band I drum for, recorded our first professional record, “Ogalala”.
What Still Remains
About two years after I graduated from college, my dog died, my car was stolen, and my girlfriend and I broke up all in the same month. I lived alone in that same rented house for a few more weeks before moving to Colorado. It was one of the darkest times of my life. I felt like I was watching a lot of the things in my life die, a lot of things where the end had a long time coming.
That move helped because I was able to work in Colorado and save solid money for over a year before moving to Texas. I’ve been back in Texas for almost a year now and just finished recording a new album at a high school friend’s studio in Elmendorf. A lot of things have come full circle now in my life. Some things I dearly loved died and I had to let go. Now I‘m seeing what still remains after all of that. I’ve returned to places and people I used to know where I grew up in Texas, which is something I didn’t expect to do.
My True Self
I’m really stoked on the new album. I was able to incorporate a lot of the different elements I’ve always wanted in my music – like a saxophone, for example. One of my buddies totally killed it with a sax solo at the end of two separate tracks. I’ve always wanted that and it finally came to fruition. I haven’t settled yet on the release date for this new record: it’s in the process of being mixed and mastered.
At this point, I feel more in touch with who I am. In my music, I’ve always tried to convey optimism for life while not being afraid to write about the dark shit. I feel that the newest material supports that. Leaving a lot of the past behind opened me up and made me a better writer. That’s my goal: to stay open, always be progressing, and to stay in touch with that true self.
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