Tiger Army Nick 13 Interview on the eve of Dark Romance Tour.
The first Tiger Army US headlining tour starts off this Thursday in Ventura! The two month long Dark Romance Tour covers the entire country and ends with a run of shows at the House Of Blues in West Hollywood at the end of May. The Unseen and Lost City Angels are playing support for the first half so be sure to check show dates to see when they hit your town! Below is an interview with singer/guitarist Nick 13 on the eve of the tour.
Let's play musical SAT's for a moment. Nick 13 is to Tiger Army, as Trent Reznor is to Nine Inch Nails, or Dave Grohl is to Foo Fighters. Basically, he is the heart and soul of this band. Tiger Army will bring their amazing live show to Southern California several times between late March through May in their first full US headlining "Dark Romance" tour. Get your tickets now, because they'll probably sell out before you finish this sentence. I only have two thing to say about Nick 13. One is that he is clearly awesome as you can tell by his answers here. And two, Tiger Army is sooo not rockabilly. Read on and you'll see what I mean!
Synergy: This spring finds Tiger Army on their first ever full headlining tour of the US . Is there a different kind of excitement that this brings as opposed to being booked as support for a tour?
Nick 13: Definitely, yes. We've had a lot of enjoyable gigs over the years supporting other bands, but it was all in preparation for this. There have definitely been times onstage where the amount of time you're given on someone else's tour doesn't feel like enough. So unless it's a curfew show or something like that, we can do the show we want to do. It's also exciting in the sense that it's a new first for us.
Synergy: I've seen several explanations of the meaning of Tiger Army...a metaphor for assorted things, but what about Nick 13? How did the nickname come about?
Nick 13: It has to do with my first band, Influence 13 which was myself, Jade Puget, Geoff Kresge and a couple of other guys... I didn't really start going by it regularly until I moved to the East Bay in 1994. There was a guy named Nick Dog that was friends with Rancid and it became a quick and easy way to distinguish, like on the phone: "I'm here with Jade and Nick 13."
Synergy: How did the refrain "Tiger Army Never Die" come to be important to the band?
Nick 13: It's something that just sort of came to me. The fact that it wasn't really a sentence was fine, the words work on a level that's far more elemental than the place where proper grammar resides. It has to do with the will. There are certainly a lot of setbacks we've been dealt and while it definitely has to do with perseverance, those who take it too literally are missing the point. If I leave this Earth tomorrow, I know that at least someone will remember Tiger Army for many years to come. There are a number of levels the words operate on, but certainly every challenge that's been overcome, every setback, has made them more important as a rallying cry.
Synergy: It's coming up next year on the 10-year anniversary of Tiger Army. Would you humor us with a prediction of what is going to happen in the next 10 years?
Nick 13: It's kind of weird to think that we played our first show nine years ago, this month in fact. There were so many times it seemed like we'd come to the end of the road, but somehow it's still going strong. The last nine years have been so crazy I can't even begin to guess what'll happen, the truth will probably end up being stranger anyway! I'm just looking forward to this next tour, and I'm starting to get the itch to make another record as well.
Synergy: If the Tiger Army were to invade and take over a small country, which country would it be and why?
Nick 13: We already have, it's called Southern California. We've got operatives all over the place. It has the nicest weather (not counting this winter of course), so we figured it would be a good place to start. From there, we continue our assault on the rest of the nation.
Synergy: Who do you think would win in a fight, Tiger Army or 50 Cent and the Game?
Nick 13: Is it a fight, or a game? Because if it's a game that had to do with spelling or something like that, definitely Tiger Army
Synergy: You come from a small town pretty much in the middle of nowhere. How did you develop your musical taste and personal style?
That's hard to say... I guess some of it had to do with the fact that there was no scene to fit into, you were either a "freak" (their word) or you were an idiot in spandex biking shorts with a mullet driving a minitruck. So I had nothing to conform to, either in the mainstream or among my peers. There was a group of us into punk, then I got into rockabilly as well. There was no one into anything like that where I lived. I guess my personal sense of style has been there for a long time and it was something that was influenced by old photos and movies. People just looked so much cooler in the forties or fifties than the late eighties, early nineties, or now. People confuse style and fashion. Anyone can wear the latest fashion, mainstream or underground, but you either have style or you don't. I don't give a fuck about what's popular, I care about what looks good. The two are often quite different.
Synergy: Where do you get your ink done? Do you have an artist you go to often or do you just get tats wherever you may be?
Nick 13: I've lived in LA for 5 years now, but I still get most of my tattoos in the Bay Area at shops like Temple in Oakland or more recently at Black Heart in SF. My favorite tattooist in SoCal is probably Juan Puente. In the Bay, Scott Sylvia, Chris Conn, Jason McAffee and Freddy Corbin are some of the best, some of the best anywhere in the world for that matter.
Synergy: What is the most meaningful tattoo you have?
Nick 13: Either my "Mom & Dad" tattoo or my "9 Lives" friendship tattoo.
Synergy: If you could perform some kind of satanic musical séance and evoke the spirit of any musician ever, living or dead, what would Tiger Army's dream tour line up be like?
Nick 13: For Tiger Army, I'm actually quite happy with the current lineup: myself, Jeff Roffredo on stand-up and James Meza on drums. I think from a pure playing standpoint the band sounds the best it ever has in a live context. Years ago, the energy was the only thing that mattered to me, now it's very important to me to sound good as a band, so I like where things are for the band at the present. However, I wouldn't mind jamming with Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Morrissey, Peter Hook, Johnny Thunders, Johnny Marr and I'm sure several others who are slipping my mind. Probably in different sessions though as I don't think it would all work together, and I'm not sure it would sound anything like Tiger Army!
Synergy: Are there any guilty pleasures or surprising songs in your CD collection? Is there a lighter side to Tiger Army?
Nick 13: There are no guilty pleasures -- if I like it, it has some redeeming value. Whether or not someone else can appreciate it or not doesn't matter to me. As for what would surprise people, I'm not sure about that either. I listen to a lot of pop. I've been into punk and psychobilly for ages now, but a good song will always be a good song, no matter what the style. I think it's funny how some people try to act like they're so hard, but they're scared to admit that they would listen to something along the lines of Morrissey or Depeche Mode or New Order. I love a lot of aggressive music, but I'm into a lot of stuff from a pure melody/songwriting standpoint. As for a lighter side to the band, there is, but that's not really what people see on the surface. People shouldn't assume that it doesn't exist, though. Occasionally I'll attempt a joke onstage, the fact that typically almost no one seems to think it's funny amuses me, at least. But there's a purpose to why I'm there onstage, it's not to fuck around. That doesn't mean I'm not having fun. But the kinds of fun we have offstage kidding around would generally just distract from what we're trying to put across live. Humor is a big part of my life as a person, but not when it comes to music.
Synergy: What is the funniest thing someone has tried to describe Tiger Army's sound as?
Nick 13: It always amuses me when someone refers to us as a "rockabilly" band, especially in a review. I love rockabilly and it's one element of many in our sound, but anyone who's heard our band and a fifties rockabilly record and thinks they're the same thing shouldn't be let within a mile of a word processor to participate in any activity that's even vaguely related to music journalism.
By Ilana Taub
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