NOTHINGTON
Brothers From Other Mothers
By Bryan Spearry
Photos by Rebecca Veldman
If you’re into honest, straight from the gullet punk rock with heart, it’s really hard to ignore the stylings of NOTHINGTON. Led by Jay Northington and Chris Mutalich, NOTHINGTON melds the catchiness of an ALKALINE TRIO tune with the true to the death mentality of a HOT WATER MUSIC ditty.
Since their release schedule pretty much revolves around THE FEST in Gainesville, AMP decided to send me to The Hemlock to see what was happening with these fellas.
With such a growth in your sound between All In and Roads, Bridges and Ruins, what can people expect from the upcoming release?
Chris: It kind of picks up where Roads left off, but it also kind of goes back to some of the stuff from All In as well. It’s kind of a mixture of both albums, plus a lot of new stuff we haven’t done before.
Jay: Yeah, between the two albums I always had something to write about that was in the forefront, but now it’s more of a digging deep into yourself kind of thing. It’s tough to hear some of the shit that I write.
Looking at your recordings over the years, what has changed the most in the process of making a record?
Jay: I could answer this one quick. Chris is way more involved. The first record was mostly me, the second record was, you know, a lot of Chris, a lot of Tony, a lot of everybody involved and this record is more of just – it’s more of a collaborative effort where – I mean, I hate the term that people describe like ALKALINE TRIO is like co-lead singers, but I think this album is going to exhibit that more of that, where it’s like kind of a co-lead singer thing.
Chris: We switch off vocals on songs a lot in this one.
Jay: It’s almost a call-and-response. It’s a trade-off; it works though.
One of the things that I noticed on the last record was that your voice has progressed so much, Chris. What can we expect this time?
Chris: So far my vocals are a little bit gruffer. A lot because I want to match up with Jay’s vocals, since we’re switching off within songs.
Jay: It’s strange when you perform and write with somebody as much as we have in the past five years, how much you start to almost sound like each other. You know what I mean? I think I have gotten a little more into his style and he’s gotten a little more into my style, and it seems to work.
On that note, you guys even seem like the stalwarts of NOTHINGTON. How has working together been the last five years.
Chris : It’s been fine.
Jay: I only want to stab him like half of the time.
Chris: I want to stab him pretty much all the time.
Jay: Most of the time…
Chris: Yeah.
What were you guys spending a lot of time listening to going into the recording?
Chris: It’s hard to say, because a lot of times I don’t really listen to music for pleasure anymore. I listen to music a lot now just to figure out why people like things and try to find out what it is that people really latch onto in a song or in an album. It’s been a lot of different things. I definitely listened to OFF WITH THEIR HEADS a lot. I listened to New Wave by AGAINST Me a lot and THE CLASH.
Would you say that this record’s more calculated than the last two?
Chris: Not at all, because—
Jay: No—
Chris: –we’ve kind of, we’ve just kind of been throwing things out there and if it catches, if we all like it, than we go with it.
Jay: There’s nothing calculated at all about this record.
Chris: No, it’s just pretty much what’s coming out and some of the songs are different, some of them I don’t even think will actually get on the record, but that will be decided later. It’s more melodic I think than our other records.
Jay: It’s just different. Even overall, the production of it is different.
Chris: I think anyone that likes NOTHINGTON will find the same qualities of the first two records will be there, but it’s just going to be a little bit different, the style.
That was actually what I was leading into. There were instances on the last record, like “Stop Screaming” where it’s more technical song writing, will we be seeing more of that?
Jay: You’ll be seeing some of that. There’s definitely going to be a song or three, who knows, that embodies that. Somebody listening to our demos at one point, they were like “Oh, that’s the next ‘Stop Screaming’” and I was like, “Oh, shit, I didn’t think about it.” But yeah, there’s more, there’s another “Stop Screaming” or two but it’s, yeah.
Are we going to hear anything like “Not Looking Down”?
Jay: Oh, yeah.
Chris: Yeah, I’ve got a couple of goodies saved up. I’ll probably have, like, three songs, so, yeah.
When I listen to that song the first that I think about is one of the BOUNCING SOULS songs. Do you guys have any plans to tour with this record?
Chris: Yeah, we have a lot of tour plans actually. We’re planning something for July, not exactly sure how that’s going to pan out, where it’s going to. And then we’re going to Europe in August and September, and we’re going to do a full US tour in October.
So you guys have a 7” acoustic record coming out as well? What is the vibe of that record?
Chris: It’s kind of different from the style of songs that we’ve been writing, that at first maybe we didn’t think fit into doing NOTHINGTON. I think a lot of it actually started with Jay trying to do solo stuff. We collaborated on it and we did an acoustic version of “Not Looking Down” which I actually liked way better than the real version.
Jay: Yeah, it’s way better.
Chris: I think there’s one song that’s going to be on there that will also appear on the new full-length.
Jay: Yeah, I mean it started with, I think I was trying to do something different solo-wise and I realize that I don’t want to be that guy who is, not take anything away from Tim Barry or Chuck Ragan, but I feel more comfortable in a band. Fuck, we’re talking about doing a hardcore 7”.
Chris: Yeah, we kind of want to just explore anything we can do. We did this acoustic thing and it’s really folky, it’s really different than anything we’ve ever done. I was kind of like, “We could probably pull off a hardcore 7”. Let’s just write three hardcore songs.”
What was the time difference between recording the two albums?
Jay: Maybe a month when we went from one to the other. We finished one pretty much and then the other one on its way.
How does one afford to release a record living in San Francisco?
Jay: Buy stock in Apple or work at Outback Steak House, with our new wood-fire grill.
Chris: Actually, that’s a funny question, because we actually can’t afford to record new albums, so pretty much borrowing money from all over the place.
So what is the thinking currently about labels for the new record? Are you guys going to stick with BYO?
Chris: We will probably not work with BYO again.
What happened?
Chris: Nothing really.
Jay: Nothing happened, that’s the point. Nothing happened.
Chris: I think I’m really concerned with the details of everything we do and I feel like they weren’t as concerned as I was, because this is my life and I want everything to be perfect because Jay and I both put everything we have into this, and we sacrifice so much, but I kind of feel like they’ve got their own stuff going on, and that’s cool. I don’t really have any bad feelings about it, but I’d really like somebody to be as invested in the record as I am.
So you’re approaching the release of this records from more independent stance than the previous ones.
Jay: Yeah. This is kind of like our coming out, if you will. This is our first time being, “We don’t have anybody behind us right now.”
Chris: We have no idea who is going to put it out.
That could be the label (No Idea)?
Jay: (Laughs) Var didn’t like our last record, so…
Chris: Yeah, there have been people that rejected our last record, and others were interested in our last record, so I guess we’re just going to have to see when the recording’s done. If anyone wants to hang out with us and release this thing, that’ll be cool.
How far out are we from seeing a release?
Chris: I’m thinking it’s going to come out in September.
Jay: We’re really hoping before FEST 10.
What songs are you most stoked about getting out to the world right now?
Chris: No one’s heard them, so, it’s kind of weird to say, but Jay’s got a song called “Hopeless” that I think is really, really good.
Jay: “Hopeless” is like the next “Stop Screaming”, I think, of the album.
Chris: He’s got a song called, “Captive Audience” that’s my favorite song on the record, I think. But it’s been really hard to put it together and make it sound all right.
Jay: Your poor habits song, what is that called?
Chris: I have a song called “The Escapist” that might be cool, I don’t know. [Laughs]
There’s a certain part of you guys that reminds me of the LAWRENCE ARMS. It’s not the ALKALINE TRIO; it’s the LAWRENCE ARMS. Just the dual vocals and both of you have… good ideas of what you’re trying to project.
Chris: I like that comparison, because honestly those two guys are extremely talented. They’re both talented songwriters and singers, but their songs are completely different from each other. You know, honestly, not to take anything away from ALKALINE TRIO, but you could have Matt sing all of those songs and it would still kind of seem like the same songwriter. That fluidity works well for them, but I like how THE LAWRENCE ARMS guys have completely different styles that are equally as good. They’re completely different, but they fit together so well. I hope we can take that and make it work for us.
Can we expect this album to flow as well as the last one?
Chris: Probably not.
What can people expect from this record, and do you have any last words?
Chris: It’s going to be a little bit different, but it’s going to hopefully have the same qualities that people, and myself, like about NOTHINGTON. I think that’s good. I don’t think we need to put out the same record each time, and if one thing is true it’s that each one will be different; whether people like it or not is a different story all together.
Jay: That’s the goal, but this guy, Chris here, was responsible for a lot of things, like, as much as the first and second records combined. So I’ve had a lot of help, it’s good in all the right ways.
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