70 - Bobby Nerves of Bad Nerves

That was our third time . We first went out there with Royal Blood in when ? Was it August last year ? They invited us to come out , which was very kind of them to do so . They were the first band of their size , you know , to sort of say come and play with us . You know , in America we were like like what the fuck ?

You know coming to the States and I just wanted to get your kind of take on that because at least for me , I think going back to England was . You know , it's a smaller place , there's more tradition and it's more of a specific type of place and vibe and I was so stoked to witness it and to be a part of it and the shows there were so crazy .

You know just the music history in England is incredible and obviously you know the punk rock scene , you know , in London and Manchester and all those different pockets . We had the best time .

But for you , for the band coming over to America for the first time , I feel like when you come over to America it's just like it has to just be insane because it's so huge , it's so wide open , there's so many different things happening . What was it like for you guys the first time you came over ?

In America it feels like the way people act in America at the shows I've played is how you'd expect people from England to act , because you know they've got the Beatles coming from there the Clash You'd think there'd be , but it's almost like there's a bit more of a snobbery , like I said , in England , whereas in America it was not like that .

It felt like everybody was just really excited , Mainly that we're from England , but also you , you know , and they like the music . I think I hope , um , no , it's been great . I think it's , probably it's . It might , might be our favorite place to play . I mean , europe is great as well . Um , they were the first , that was the first place .

Um , that people understood the band , you know . But , uh , but yeah , no , it's , it's mad . We never thought we'd get to go to america . It feels like it's big as well . Holy shit , it's big . You know , these drives , man , like you drive . You drive for like 10 hours and you've just you're not even moved on the on the map .

But yeah , it's , it's a trip when it's when it's the other way around your streets here are fucking huge , like we've got the same .

a second album and people , some people , are keen , keen to hear it , and we're playing these amazing shows with so many amazing bands , it's this . Yeah , I mean we're all , we're tired from a lot of gigs , but we're very excited . Um , it's yeah , it's like a I don't know , I don't want to say dream come true , but I mean it kind of is .

You know , we're just doing the thing that we love against literally all the odds . All the people tell you not to do it , all the financial strains which are , you know , very real . Yeah , it's brilliant . We just love it , you know . So we're excited for people to hear this new album and then to do another one .

You know the band will implode or things will happen and life will go different ways , but at least you'll be able to have this time where you got together , you made some music , If you got lucky enough , you got a record deal , you got to put it out , you got to play some shows , but there is this kind of ideology that most bands are never even going to

get to a second album and so what you do , it's a big feeling . It's like , oh shit . It's kind of like , oh man , we're an actual like , we're an actual band . Now we got two albums yeah , it's weird .

So then when you , when you make it to that second one , it's sort of like going into the studio again , right , you're like everything's different because there's this weird expectation now and you're like it can really get in your head if you let it . You know , um , it's so .

It's kind of like it's bittersweet because you have to , like you have to figure out how to sort of I don't know focus and and do what you did before with the same passion and energy , without letting the distractions of the expectation and things get in the way . That was , that was kind of strange , but I think we kind of did that in the end .

Like I , just what I realized was that when you're doing a second album , you just have to do what you did the first time around , but not as in try to copy the songs , but you're trying to just write from the same like kind of sense of freedom . You know , just like , what do I want to write ?

a total head fuck for me , like like everything you're talking about , like , okay , the first album was just kind of an explosion of of nerves and energy up to that point and , uh , it came out and it was amazing .

And then it was like for us we had , okay , this is like our major label record , we had this big producer and man , I just mentally I was like for us .

It was a nightmare in the studio and dude it , oh god , it was a fucking nightmare dude , it was a nightmare . I I listened back to that record and I and I I love it but still it's like , oh , it was so crazy .

And then , on the opposite side of that , with the l bronx band , we wrote that first record and it felt so good that it was just a complete natural flow into the second record . Like we just kept writing and it was like all of a sudden it was like boom , our second .

Just kept writing and it was like all of a sudden it was like boom , our second record's done .

And it's like I found that when I was in the studio doing this , this second one , like most of the songs on this record , came from obviously we didn't it's not like a complete change , but they came from me going I just want to do something that makes me feel creatively satisfied , rather than worrying about it being this or that , and it's a sort of similar ,

similar energy in terms of just being free to just explore something creatively , you know , because there's nothing worse than getting stuck , you know , when you're like , oh , I've got to write something that will fit the band . What the fuck does that even mean ?

There's nothing worse like you're saying that , being in the studio and feeling like you have to write a certain type of song , make a certain type of record , be a certain type of band it's just like fuck all that man I put a little bit of like uh in the beginning of one of the songs on this album .

You know , and I've been to brazil and like , the music in brazil is so amazing and I did all this whole thing and the band were like no , you're not doing that , but I was like it did . It made me think of , uh , of what you guys did with the Mariachi band .

What's your background in music ? When did music kind of first become a thing for you ?

So from a young age I was kind of like singing along to various musicals and things like that . Various musicals and things like that . Um , so that's sort of where it came . But then when I went into um , when I , when I went to high school , I sort of discovered like nirvana and stuff , and uh , nirvana was like the thing that got me to play drums .

Um , and being able to play drums I found to be such a valuable thing for me . When I'm like writing a song , you know I can , just because I played drums , I can just play and I don't have to think about it so much . So I can think about the song you know in my head while I'm sort of playing .

So that's ended up being a really valuable thing for me . But so I listened to like Bowie and stuff growing up in the car on the way to school , because it was like my dad's music . I was almost like rebelling against it , like I liked it at the and I was like , oh , I don't like this .

I found Nirvana and Slipknot and I was like , there , this is my stuff .

Although then , as it turns out later on in life , I was like , oh wow , I love all my dad's music , but no , so it sort of came from that really , and then just played drums in a few bands in high school and joined a metal band , played in a metal band for years on drums and then I sort of tried to do like more poppy stuff .

This is the funny thing bad nerves came along right when I was like I got to this point where I I felt like I hadn't found the music I wanted to make . I felt like I could . I had some of the tools to be able to do it , like you play a bit guitar , do whatever , but I hadn't found like the genre , if you like , that I really liked .

I was trying to do like some like , uh , electro stuff , electronic , like chilled out stuff , because I was smoking a lot of weed , just trying to do some really slow like beats , you know which was cool , like you put melodies over it , but it didn't give you that adrenaline of , like you know , metal that I'd had before .

And then I found all the power pop , the power pop and the punk stuff which I hadn't really listened to loads before , and it just , uh , it just clicked . I was like , wow , you can do melody and you can do anger and you can mash it into one , and it's like you know . And then I basically haven't stopped since then and that was it . Light bulb went on .

I was I don't even have to be good at the instruments , I can just play a beat and just play some chords , you know like , and it's yeah , that's basically what we've built on

. The same thing that , uh , it's like ramones , you know , you can't . Uh , we're not necessarily great our instruments , but we , we try hard and we uh , yeah , I don't know , we just try to write as many songs as we can hope that a couple of good ones come out hell yeah , when .

I forgot to mention that I was playing clarinet for like five years nothing cooler than clarinet so when I started high school , I was like I didn't do any of that . I was just gonna play drums , you know , in nirvana and all that stuff , like it's like guitar , yeah . And then I played drums for basically 10 years , you know , and that was my main thing .

And it wasn't until I was like in my mid-20s , I guess , or early , like 23 , 4, . I was like you know , I want to try writing my own songs . And then did that for a couple of years and yeah , and then me and will basically just started this band . He texted me on . He actually texted me christmas 2014 and said let's do a band .

And I thought I was thinking like refused , you know , that swedish band refused , kind of thing . Let's do something like that and then , uh , and he was like nah , nah let's not do that . No , disrespect to that , he loves them , but he's like , no , I don't want to do that , uh , and he sent me jay . Jay re Blood Visions album .

Everything has to be so tight and like , well played , whatever that means . Yeah , and I came from that world and like , and once I got into this punk thing , you know , and I started to realize how much I actually loved the scrappiness of it , it was like everything changed .

I went from thinking you had to play everything perfectly and everything had to be complicated to realizing that I'd been like tricked . You know that , actually , that that is not the way it is at all , like you know , obviously , that music is what it is and it's great , but like there's something in that , the essence of people playing .

It's almost better when they can't play , you know it's always better when it's just baby fast yeah exactly , and that's just that just blew my mind discovering that . You know , I was like holy shit , this is so much more fun . You know , the pressure's kind of off , it's like just go , follow your gut .

You know , you don't have to worry about being so great or anything like that , as long as you're you put your all into it . It's , that's it , you know , and that means something .

You know what I mean . Like , I know melody is an important thing for you , um , but when you're writing a song , you know , like you're saying multi-instrumentalist here , uh , we got drums , we got clarinet , we got vocals , we got you know , we got it all . Uh , like what , what's your kind of writing process ? And where do you put like melody and lyrics ?

You know just three chords where two chords , even if you're feeling like it , if you're feeling really lazy , and if you find a , if you find a melody that , um , that works , that hits , well , then the music can be so basic , you know , you can , the beat can just be the same beat , the whole , like antidote . That is literally . I .

I recorded , I think , maybe two bars of the of the beat and there's one bit where it opens the hats up and it's like get and get and get and get a symbol and then it repeats , and then I pasted it and I didn't change it .

I thought I wanted it to be completely robotic , not not no , like variety at all and um , and that's like a good example , like , and that's just a , that's a couple . But then I found a melody that worked and it ended up being probably one of my favorite songs in terms of melody on that album .

I don't know , but no , so I find like when I'm writing stuff sometimes I'll just try and get like a verse and a chorus idea , super rough you know , on , like guitars and drums or whatever , and then I'll sit there before I go any further and see if I can catch some sort of melody over it .

And then , if I do , then I'm then I'm like , oh okay , this is .

Then it gives me that sort of like the encouragement to to go forward with it , because there's been times where I've like worked on the music , got this whole song all laid out and and I've left the vocals till the end , and then I get there and I can't , I can't find something that is that I like enough .

So I uh , yeah , I think melody is the most important thing . That's why I just find that's what makes

you want to go back and listen to a song . You know , like it's not to say that everything has to be super cheesy . You know , abba beetles kind of like pop melodies all the time . There's loads of music I like which isn't hasn't got that constant , like you know hook on the top .

But for me personally , with this sort of music , I I just want it to be instant . If I'm in the mood for listening to this kind of music , I want there to be hooks , you know , so yeah , so I spend a lot of time just trying to find those hooks .

Really , you know , I don't want the verse to be less catchy than the chorus , I want it to be catchy from the minute the vocals start to the end of the song .

You know , because I just I don't know , it's like the , I like , I think from listening to the beatles so much , I , I just love that almost all of their songs , certainly the sort of latest albums , like it's just all catchy . You know there's like there's not one , there's not one bit that doesn't hook you in .

You know the verse of this song , the middle eight of that song is all has a hook and I just I just find that so great yeah , that's .

And from the first album in 2020 , and you know you guys released live in london 2023 and and now with this album , I really feel like uh , the song so far off of uh , still nervous , like you guys have kind of found , you know , your spot as a band and and the songs , man , they're so , they're so good thanks , dude .

I'm going to go , I'll go with , I'll go with Harry , even , um , I'm gonna go .

I feel like , yeah , as a younger brother , I can attest that older brother power is very real and I it's , it's , it takes . It takes a miracle for a younger brother to beat the older brother . It's there's , just it does not happen miracle for a younger brother to beat the older brother .

He was a lot smaller for like the first 20 years and then I feel like all of our fighting and play , fighting , fight made him a lot tougher than I am and now he's like way physically stronger than me , he looks better than me and I just if we got in a fight , I think I don't think I stand a chance .

what can I do ? Like I was thinking , let's try and write a song where I only say you , usa and united states of america . That was the initial idea , to only say those words and not say anything else . And and I did put a few other lyrics in at the end .

And I was sitting here making this song , like really imagining like us going to America and playing this song , like just because it was helping me just visually . It was a bit of a laugh , you know . And then it was so weird because it was like two weeks later , royal Blood called us and asked us if we wanted to go to America .

So we had no plans to go to america . Then we did this song and I just remember being in here having like sort of just visualizing this happening . And then it happened and it was like the first time where , you know , I've read stuff about manifestation and all these kind of things , you know , but , being from england , I'm very cynical and very skeptical .

I try not to be , I'm quite . I'm like I'm very open-minded

for an english person , but I come from pure cynicism , you know and like . But that was like a thing where I actually made me think like I wonder if in some way that that I helped that become reality just through . I don't know , it's so weird .

So I have this weird attachment to that song because I'm convinced that that somehow some somewhere in the universe , someone , someone made it happen . Yeah , in a weird way and it's so . I don't want to sound like a crazy person , but it felt so like . That felt so real . It's bizarre .

You know , I feel like it bonds you as a group because you , you have to see the best and worst of each other and it kind of you do become like , as you know , you become like a family , like your friendships become much deeper .

You know , because , uh , yeah , with with with a lot of friends , I've found like you're only really friends when you're having a good time . You know , like you're not . You don't see the sort of the other side of people's personalities when you're in a band . You have no choice , you know .

But I like , and that's not a bad thing , I think it's actually a really good thing because , I don't know , it teaches you patience . You developed your , you know your skills of how to deal with other people Hell yeah , that you might not otherwise have and I find , like that's all really valuable .

You know stuff that you can take into back out into the world . You know , it's just a great adventure . You know , I feel like if I were to die tomorrow I'd feel like , oh , you know I really I at least tried to do something I enjoyed as much as I could , you know , and , yeah , just have a good time .

But bad things about being in a band , I'd say , the only bad thing it's not necessarily a bad thing , but a hard thing is it's just , I guess , trying to sustain yourself . You know , like that , that's the hard thing in the early days . You're trying to . You know you have to if you're going to do it seriously .

The band has got to kind of come first , and not only does that mean your jobs , whatever that might be . You know it's hard to have a job and do a , do a proper full-time band . It's hard to have , you know , a girlfriend or boyfriend and do have a full-time band as well , because you're always away .

You know , like you , sort of there are struggles , like real world struggles , if you like , um , that are challenging , but also I feel like they can't .

You know , they will blow up their world time and time again , um , you know , in the name of of creativity and and pushing themselves to their limits , uh , artistically , and that's a crazy life yeah , man , it is because everything in the normal world gets kind of destabilized by it , you know .

, like I can , I can say things I perhaps wouldn't bother saying in the real world and it and it makes me feel better . You know , it's like I can put things , instead of having to put it into a person or something like that , I can put it into songs and it does . It's quite kind of healing in a weird way .

And uh , like I've found I've had like the classic breakup song . I remember years ago we first started the band going through like well , my girlfriend dumped me basically , and rightly so , because I was a terrible boyfriend , but um and uh and it really like knocked me for six .

I was kind of like , you know , quite upset about it and uh and I and I put it in a song .

It's on the first album it's called wasted days and literally the next day I felt infinitely better and I remember that being like such a like oh fuck , you know just saying what , literally exactly what I felt , but into a song , it almost took it out of me and put it somewhere else , you know , like it was quite , um , that's quite , quite powerful , I think ,

yeah , so I mean , I , I would

, I would never , I would never tell somebody that being in a band is easy , but it is definitely , as far as I've experienced , one of the most rewarding things I've ever done . I guess pursuing anything that you really love would be the same .

You know , um , it's just that we happen to have done it in bands , you know , but it is , I just can't imagine doing anything else . I try to do normal things as well and be a normal person a bit , but I do struggle mentally because mentally I'm always thinking about music . You know , I struggle to switch that off .

I'm trying to learn to switch it off , to be honest , because , as we said , it's catastrophic for , like everything else outside of the band environment . You know , like , um , yeah , it's good to find that , find a balance , but that that's that .

Okay , he's like yo , bobby , you know , jump in this time machine anywhere you want to go in the world anytime . Where are you going to go first and why ?

I need to fucking know what the hell is going on , because if there's powers that they had , I want to , I want them , I want to be able to levitate shit with my fucking hands I like that I would love . I want to know about the technology that these ancient civilizations had . You know , like , well , you see all this shit .

I mean maybe I'll just watch too many TV shows , I don't know , but like you know , you hear about all that stuff and it's just so fascinating , Like how , how did they build the fucking pyramids ? I was taught my whole life that they were tombs , but they're not tombs . Anyway , that is another subject .

Okay , yeah , there's no , no beverage , no beverage inside , just a genie , genie comes out he says hey , bobby , nerves , big fan , I'm gonna grant you one wish , oh , what's your wish ?

It's got to be everybody to have the minimum requirements to have a good life , you know , and no fucking war , none of that bullshit , you know .

Yeah , I know , that was right , but first but at least first , you're thinking about , you know , you're thinking about the planet , you're thinking about the big picture .

You know been living on this planet of abundance . You know which we're you know destroying , depending on what news station you watch um , you know , like we could , uh , I feel like we could do better . You know , like all the shit that's going on , I feel like I feel like it's you know ever .

I feel like , if everyone had their basic requirements met which shouldn't be impossible when you got fucking a geezer runs Amazon's got more money than you know , it's crazy .

I'm not saying he hasn't worked for it , but like you know surely , like I don't know if I could sleep at night having like hundreds of billions when , like people , people ain't got a pot to piss in . You know , like it's .

It's crazy how people are living in some parts of the world like we're , we're , we're rich compared to most people and we must be honest , like the way living over here in the west there's not . There are obviously , obviously in the west as well . But , like you know , I feel like we could do better . I don't know , I don't know how .

Don't ask me to figure it out , but someone very clever could come in and figure that out , hopefully , hopefully .

Okay , I just got a call from Coldplay and Chris Martin is out of the band , he's quitting , he's joining the Peace Corps . He's gone , him , and Harry , the band , yeah , the band is carrying on and they're looking for a new singer . You got to be . It's all or nothing . There's no more bad nerves , there's no side project . What do you say ? Do you do ?

satisfy your soul , I think , as on an individual level , I think , is , uh , yeah , very meaningful , you know .

I think , because I feel like if everybody was encouraged to pursue the thing they love , then they'll be living in love , you know , they'll be living in joy , and , and when you live in those things , that spreads , you know , and then we will have world peace eventually one day , you know , but whilst you know , I think , if everyone's given equal opportunity and

stuff which , again , you know , and then we will have world peace eventually one day , you know .

But , whilst you know , I think , if everyone's given equal opportunity and stuff , which , again , you know , is something that I think we could do with , and who knows how many joe's drummers are sitting over in some country where they haven't even got clean water , you know , who knows was that ?

Imagine if we had that equal opportunity for everybody , like , and they were encouraged to follow the thing that makes them feel good , like . Imagine , like , the vibration of the world , how good that would feel , you know , like there wouldn't be any fucking war .

As soon as I'm trying to start a fucking war , we'd be like get , get rid of him , get him out , you know , um , but I think I think that's that's the thing . It's just you've got to follow your . Follow what makes you feel good and life will be good . It'll be tough , but it'll be good . It'll be tough in a good way .

May 31st . Congrats on the new album .