Table of Contents
1. Can you give us a quick description of who Nectarous is?
Brodie: “We are a four-piece band based out of the Twin Cities. I play guitar, Ryan is on drums, Mitch does vocals, and Elijah plays the bass. As John Notto of Dirty Honey says of his band, I would label our band’s genre as “new-fashioned rock n roll.” I feel like that appropriately sums up our sound. Some old-school swinging, blues-tinged rock n roll for the modern audience.”
2. How would you describe your song writing process?
Brodie: “The process for writing our songs has been a little different from song to song. Some have been ideas, both instrumental and lyrical, that I started at home before bringing to the band. Other songs have come together from improvised jams. For example one of our songs, Black Hair Beauty, began with this cool shuffle drum beat. It was something that Ryan said was his go-to warm up drum beat and he wanted to jam on it until we could spin it into a song. I think we ended up writing most of the riffs for that song after about 10 minutes of jamming on it. That was actually the first song we wrote together. Do Ya Drink Up What You’re Serving also came together in a similar fashion. I believe we wrote and structured out like 95% percent of that song in an hour.”
Elijah: “Because I joined the band later on, our initial tunes have been collaborations that Brodie and Ryan started earlier on. A couple songs we’ve written together and we’ll be doing more of that going forward. I think it’s always cool to be in the position of coming up with parts for existing material rather than writing everything from the ground up. Finding what serves the existing song best instead of reworking everything.”
3. How did the members of Nectarous link up?
Brodie: “It was kind of a funny story how Ryan and I met. It was like July 2020. I was laying in bed and I get a random email at like 1 am from some random musician finder website about new musicians in my area. I’m fairly certain it was some site I signed up for in 2014 and never used or saw a notification from before. There was only one “new music musician in my area” and it happened to be Ryan. I saw we had the same influences and were close in age, so I decided to reach out. We were jamming together within the week.”
Brodie: “Mitchel is someone I have known since elementary school. He had reached out to me various times over the last few years to talk about Led Zeppelin and Greta Van Fleet, so I knew we had a lot of similar tastes in bands. He was also very active with our school plays and choir when we were in high school, so I figured he’d be the perfect frontman. We met Elijah after I posted on some Facebook music group that I was looking for a bass player. He responded to my post. Within a days notice he came down to jam on some Zeppelin and Aerosmith songs with us along with our tune Black Hair Beauty, which he learned and wrote his own bass lines to by ear after hearing a demo the day before.”
Elijah: “Facebook is how I found everyone haha! Brodie posted a demo in a local musicians group that he and Ryan did and I thought it sounded really solid. I knew it would be a fun group to be a part of. I got in touch with Brodie and we started jamming at Ryan’s place. I remember relearning Dazed and Confused and working out everything note for note obsessively! Then when we went to jam we improvised a lot more than I expected and I immediately felt more comfortable to try whatever.”
4. What bands had the biggest impact on your style of music?
Brodie: “I know it’s a crime for rock n roll bands to say this these days, but Led Zeppelin is probably our biggest shared influence. Some of my personal influences would probably be The Black Crowes, Guns n Roses, Dirty Honey, the original lineup of Slash’s Snakepit, etc. The list would probably go on forever.”
Elijah: “Definitely Led Zeppelin but I’m a fan of lots of different bands from the 70s like King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and even newer bands like Stone Temple Pilots.”
5. Who are you most excited to gig with this year?
Brodie: “We have a house show in New Richmond, WI on March 26th with Airship Caravan. They’re a local band that’s been making an impact in our scene lately, so I’m excited to share a show with them.”
Elijah: “I’m hoping to get to play with bands like Full Catholic or Serious Machine, otherwise my Dad has a band called Smell My Pillow that I used to be in. That would also be a fun lineup!”
6. What’s the best and worst venue you’ve played at?
Brodie: “My favorite venue I’ve played at would probably be The Cabooze. I played there twice in 2016 with a previous band of mine. I’m pretty sure we played to nobody at both of the shows, but the venue had such a cool vibe so it was fun. My least favorite would probably be Big V’s Saloon. I don’t think it exists anymore though.”
Elijah: “The best venue I’ve ever played was probably a fill-in gig at Mortimer’s, definitely a favorite venue of mine in the cities. The worst was when I was in a short-lived band in college and we played at a church 2 hours north of the cities.”
7. Do you have any funny stories from gigs or from traveling with the band?
Brodie: “I recorded the sound of me squeezing a little rubber chicken toy during the session for Down the Rabbit Hole last June. It came out sounding all squishy and you could hear me breathing all weird and heavy in the background. Needless to say, it didn’t make the final mix.”
Elijah: “When Ryan broke his kick pedal at a house show after being made fun of by the other band’s drummer for how bad his pedal was.”
8. Outside of music, what other talents/passions do members of Nectarous have?
Brodie: “I’ve been playing a lot of Pokémon and Crash Bandicoot the past year, so that’s something.”
Elijah: “I do recording and music production for bands and solo artists and it’s what I love doing the most outside of playing music.”
9. What advice do you have for bands that are just starting out?
Brodie: “Music isn’t a contest, it’s about having fun. Don’t be that guy who shows up with that screw-you-I’m-better-than-you sort of attitude. You’ll end up sucking the fun right out of it for everyone.”
Elijah: “I would say get a group of a few bands that you’re friends with and play as many house shows as possible early on. Then from there just keep playing shows in your local area at bigger and bigger venues.”
10. What’s your vision for the band in the next couple years?
Brodie: “I’d love to do a little week-long Midwest tour in the future. Maybe this summer if Covid isn’t a huge issue. If we made it big enough, I’d love to be one of those local bands that gets selected to play Rock Fest. I think bands like Greta Van Fleet and Dirty Honey are doing a great job on bringing our genre of music back to the forefront of music in recent years. A new wave of classic rock some say. I’d love to be a part of that wave and inspire people with our swinging, blues-tinged rock n roll madness.”
Elijah: “I want us to explore more genres and moods on our next songs, and to keep playing more shows and getting our name out there.”
11. Who should we interview next?
Brodie: “Scalise for sure. They’re a pretty talented folk rock group that comes from Apple Valley I think. We recently had George Knier from Scalise lay down some keys on three tracks we’ve been recording.”
Elijah: “You should interview Airship Caravan next, they’ve got a cool sound going!”